Frequently, you share family stories with me. You show me pictures and recount tales of your ancestors; often giving life to the names of your loved ones whom I have heard over the course of our shared years. You share your family’s life with me and I discover the significance of current family member’s names. Names occupy a significant part of our conversations.
Names keep our identities concrete. You yourselves have told me how important it is to name a descendant after an ancestor.
In your own memories and your family lineages, you bear names such as Shlomo and Mottel which have become Sol and Morris and now, two generations later, Chad and Mac. These are the names of immigrants journeying across nations’ borders and transcending time.
This week’s Torah reading begins the second volume of the Torah. It is known as Eleh Shmote which literally means “And these are the names.” Many American Jews are more familiar with the term Exodus than “And these are the names.”
It is a bit sad that our Jewish people have become so assimilated that they have forgotten the Hebrew names of the books of the Torah and feel more comfortable with the English names. Each of the Hebrew names of a volume of Torah tells a specific story. The English names originate as a result of medieval non-Jewish European translators’ inability to contend with the Hebraic concepts reflected within the terms.
This week's Torah reading (Shmote -Names) describes a journey of the original clan of Hebrews which left Canaan and came to Egypt in search of food and restored family unity. The opening sentence reads as follows; “And these are the names of the Children of Israel, Jacob and his household, who are walking/coming to Egypt.”
The verb, which literally means ‘walking’ or ‘coming’, brings to mind a family which is leaving its home behind and journeying into an unknown future. We can envision these people sorting through belongings and hefting bundles up to their shoulders or placing them upon pack animals. This future is one of uncertainty, hope and fear. It is the immigrant experience par excellence. Powerfully, the emphasis is on the family’s collective experience.
We are children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants. Some of us continue to feel, more than others, a bond to Europe through our ancestral names and Israel as our original point of emigration. Others among us feel more bound to America than Europe. This Shabbat, ask yourself how you and your family still recognize your status as being descendants of immigrants. Then ask yourself how you continue to retain an essence of the identity of your namesake.
Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Steve Silberman
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