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Torah portion: Naming names

We begin the story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery to freedom not with a tale of heroism and miracles, but with a list of names.
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January 7, 2015

We begin the story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery to freedom not with a tale of heroism and miracles, but with a list of names.

V’eleh shemot b’nai Yisrael. These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob …” (Exodus 1:1)

After Jacob names his 11 sons not already in Egypt, the portion continues: “The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, Joseph being already in Egypt. Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased greatly, so the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:5-7).

And then … words that are among the most chilling in all of Torah: “And a new king arose over Egypt who knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8).

Joseph, the Israelite who once ruled second only to Pharaoh and saved all Egypt from famine and starvation, has been forgotten. The honor of his name no longer protects the thriving Israelite community. Fearing their large numbers, the Pharaoh attempts to exhaust them with slavery and hard labor, “but the more they were oppressed, the more they increased”(Exodus 1:12). In one cataclysmic moment, the Israelite people cease to be seen as individuals or honored for their contributions to Egyptian society, and are regarded by the Pharaoh as a nameless, threatening mass. They are now treated as subhuman animals that multiply like vermin and must be exterminated lest they swarm over the land. “Yishratzu,” the Hebrew word for “prolific” used here, is the same word used in Genesis to describe the creeping, crawling swarms of the first days of creation. The reptilian, subhuman “other” must be eradicated for the good of civilization.

Sound familiar? This past summer I visited Prague and made my way through the Old Jewish Cemetery, which contains not only the gravesite of Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague, but also almost 12,000 tombstones, each bearing a name or inscription testifying to the humanity of the individual buried below. Not even the Nazi conquerors could eradicate the record of this thriving community. 

Then, I stumbled into the Pinkas Synagogue next door. Built in 1535, the building has an exterior that is fairly unassuming, but stepping inside, I literally lost my breath.  Every inch of the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue is covered with NAMES — the names of the 77,297 victims from Prague and the surrounding communities who were sent to their deaths as nameless vermin by the Nazis. The Nazis knew their names — the names on the walls are based on German transport records — but in an attempt to extinguish the humanity of its victims, these creative, vibrant human beings became “other,” faceless vermin to be tagged and numbered before being sent to their deaths as part of the Final Solution. 

The surviving remnants of the Prague Jewish community painstakingly painted the names of each person, letter by letter, on the ancient synagogue walls. In the words of our guidebook, “The wall which once bore the receptacle for the Torah contains the names of the concentration camps set up by the Nazis.” In this remembrance of great darkness, the light of Torah shines through, name by name, on the surrounding walls. Zikronam l’Bracha, may their memory be for a blessing. 

The names that line the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue are an affirmation of the power of life even in times of intense suffering. In our Exodus story, Pharaoh, intent on increasing the suffering of the Israelites, decrees, “Every boy that is born shall be thrown into the Nile” (Exodus 1:22). Torah rarely names women, but it makes an exception in Parashat Shemot. The midwives to the Hebrews (Jewish? Righteous gentiles?) identified as Shifra and Puah, do not do as Pharaoh commands, and fearing God, let the boys live. Shifra and Puah affirm the sacredness of God’s power to bestow life, and we remember the names of the midwives, who, in their affirmation of life, changed the course of Jewish history.

On the other hand, the beleaguered Israelites are nameless. Even Moses’ parents are introduced only as: “A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman(Exodus 2:1). When Moses is born, Yocheved, his mother, is not named in the text, and Miriam is only called “his sister.” Moses is not named until the daughter of Pharaoh has her slave extricate the basket with the baby from the Nile. She names him Moses, explaining “I drew him out of the water(Exodus 2:10). 

God knows Moses’ name, and calls to him, not once, but twice from out of the burning bush: “Moses … Moses!” In the tradition of his ancestors, Moses answers, “Hineni,” here I am (Exodus 3:4). But, Moses needs to know God’s name in return: “When I come to the Israelites and say the God of your fathers has sent me, and they ask, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13).

Eheyeh-Asher-Eheyeh,” God answers. “All that is, was, will ever be” (Exodus 3:14). 

God’s name is fluid, dynamic and ever-changing in response to a humanity that seeks its own name. Our name and God’s name are always locked in an infinite dance of suffering and redemption. To be human is to understand the full complexity of our name, God’s name.

And these are the names. …The journey to Sinai begins. 


Rabbi Judith HaLevy is the rabbi of the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue and immediate past president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

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