The name of the weekly Torah portion is assigned according to the first significant word in the first sentence of that reading. When starting an entire new book of the Torah, we can glean additional insight, and perhaps a pun or two, from that name, or in this case, names (Shemot). When Shemot begins, our ancestors had recently gained their identity as b’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel, or as Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, z”l, put it, “God-wrestlers.” Their identity as the children of Israel was tested during all their years of slavery. Ironically, our ancestors had to figure out how to remain b’nai Israel, while contending with no longer being remembered as related to Joseph, who had saved Egypt from famine but assimilated and taken an Egyptian name.
This led me to think about the importance of names and traditions for naming. As a light-hearted example, when naming our two cats, our daughters chose from names they had picked out in anticipation, should the time come to adopt our next furry family member after the cat they considered their brother, and the cat we inherited from my own brother, had gone to kitty heaven. When that time came, the girls watched the antics and nature of the kittens and picked from their list the names that best suited each individual. The name Ringo was chosen for one, because they liked the name, and because he had an extra toe on each forepaw. The name Nudnik was chosen because… let’s just say he continues to live up to his name!
Find more resources on Shemot.
Naming, we could then surmise, is a positive act; one which confers desirable traits (or at least the hope for desirable traits) upon the recipient. But what if taking on a name confers guilt by association, or boxes a person into a preconceived identity? Unless it is a name one chooses, or has won at personal cost, such as when Jacob wrestled with the angel, naming can also lead to blaming and shaming. When people are the recipients of names, especially by bullies, name-calling can lead to violence because it seems to put them in an entirely different realm from the one in which the namer-caller inhabits.
Returning to a more desirable form of naming, in Hebrew, alphabetical acrostics are sometimes employed as a mystical way of calling down the qualities of God. That is one reason why the Ashrei is recited so often! Another kabbalistic naming method is to pair the first letter of the alef bet with the last letter, the second letter with the next to last letter, and so on. I have personally never tried to do this, but I imagine that it is a type of spiritual crochet, in which patterns emerge from one’s subconscious mind, giving voice (name?) to different aspects of godliness with each loop.
Another naming mantra, if you will, exists in our daily prayers. In Birkhot ha Shakhar, the Morning Blessings, we name different aspects of the Divine by acknowledging their presence in our lives. Merely by acknowledging these qualities, through mentioning their names, it is as if we are funneling them into our day. From the creation energy that we reference throughout the prayer, to the more actionable ways of imitating God (clothing the naked, freeing the bound, raising the downtrodden), we are giving ourselves permission to be what God intended us to be: little versions of the Shechinah, imbued with God-like qualities, and hopefully, always winning our battle to emulate God in a positive, giving, and supportive way.
Yet, all humans (and perhaps all felines) are a mix of good and bad traits; the same potentialities that exist within our Divine Parent. Our names are not necessarily our destiny.
Yael Fischman is the recently installed cantor at Mishkan Torah in Greenbelt, MD, where she also continues to serve in her position as Educator for the Karp Family Sunday school, and where she is a longtime member. She also finds joy in her wire work.