Parshat Shemot: Exodus 1:1 – 6:1 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

The book of Exodus begins this week. The unfolding story of our people in slavery and their journey toward freedom is detailed in the second book of the Torah. But in Hebrew this book is called Shemot which means names. The opening verses remind us by a listing of names who came down to Egypt during Joseph’s time. Jospeh’s brothers and his father Jacob and their wives and children, totaling seventy souls came to live in the land of Egypt. The Torah not only preserves their names but this is an important opening for the book of our liberation and national formation. For these “names” of the 12 sons of Jacob will become the “names” of the twelve tribes that will make up the People Israel. These names are a link between the past and the future—the past in this case are the stories of Genesis and the future the story of our time in Egypt and the promise of freedom. Although 400 years will pass from the time Jacob and his sons came to Egypt to the events of the exodus from Egypt, our tradition preserves meticulously the tribes and clans of our people.

Names are an important part of our Jewish traditions. Whether we were born Jewish or we are Jews by choice our Hebrew or Yiddish names are an important part of our Jewish identity. Those of us who came from Ashkenazic backgrounds - European descent -usually name our children after recently deceased family members to honor their memories and to keep names within a family system. Those from Sephardic backgrounds sometimes name their babies even after those who are alive. Jews by choice often pick a biblical name of a personage in the Torah or Bible who inspire them. Or sometimes a Hebrew word has meaning, like Or which means light. Do you know your Hebrew name? Do you know if you were named for someone in your family? Do you know their story?

If you were named for someone you carry a special task to also know and learn about them. By sharing a Hebrew or Yiddish name you keep their memory alive even as you live your own life. You become a living link to your past and help those you are named for live in the future! A complex and wonderful idea—this is the Jewish way to time travel!

But most importantly this is a Jewish key to communal memory. And it is a special mantle that each Jew wears with his or her Jewish name.

Our names are used at the most important times of our lives—at our birth, Bat or Bar Mitzvah, each time we are called to the Torah, on our Ketubah –our wedding covenant, during a prayer for healing or other Mishabeyrach prayer and even at our death in the chanting of the El Maleh Rachamim prayer. Our names are the keys to our Jewish soul.

So as we read this week’s parasha, Shemot-let us use it as a time to remember our Hebrew/Yiddish names. If we have forgotten it –research it and find it out. Write it down. Learn about the person you were named for and feel yourself as a proud link in the chain of the Jewish people past and present and future.

Posted by Jimmy at January 13, 2009 09:31 AM