Weekly Torah Portion

One of the most remarkable, G-d-is-communicating-with-us-right-now moments I experienced was while leading a teen Israel trip two summers ago.

A person’s Hebrew name speaks to the essence of who they are, but not all Jewish children are given one at birth. Many people choose theirs only later in life. So while on the trip, we give the students without a Hebrew name the opportunity to choose one.

One girl knew she wanted one but was having trouble deciding which to choose. In the first week of the trip she was telling a group of friends how conflicted she was, so as a joke they decided to ask a random Israeli woman what her Hebrew name was and she should just go with that.

Of course she didn’t actually want to choose her name like that, so by week three of the trip she was still confused with what to select. All she knew was that she wanted it to start with an “M” since her English name is Mia. I pulled up a list of Hebrew names starting with “M” and asked her to choose the ones that sounded beautiful to her. She chose Miriam and Maya.

“That’s so interesting!” I told her. “Both names are associated with water.” I knew her birthday was a day before mine, so then I blurted “and your Zodiac sign is Aquarius!” (There is truth in Jewish mystical thought to certain symbolisms for each month).

Another counselor suggested we look at the weekly Torah portion from when she was born. It turned out it included the passage where the Jews walked through the Red Sea and Miriam famously sang with her tambourine in hand. This settled it. Her name would be Miriam.

While we were celebrating, a friend came up to us and reminded her about that time two weeks prior that they asked a random woman what her name was. It turned out she had answered that her name was Miriam, and my student forgot because she had written it off as too haphazard. Hashem made it clear that this girl’s name was without doubt meant to be Miriam.

Interestingly, names of the animal species in the Torah also speak to their essential characteristics. In this week’s portion, one of the non-kosher birds listed is the “chasida”, whose root word is chesed (kindness). Why would this type of bird not be kosher? What could be wrong with kindness?

The Chidushei HaRim commentary answers that this bird’s kindness is limited to its own circle of friends. This exclusion of the Other is not how the Torah wants us to practice altruism. It is far easier to perform acts of kindness to our friends, but the truest form is helping the person who really needs it and might not be capable of reciprocating. This is a more selfless act and therefore purer.

So what’s in a name? Hashem’s gift of our unique essence. For those with a Hebrew name, consider delving into understanding it and perhaps learning something new about yourself. For those without, please reach out to me or any of my JOIN colleagues and we would feel honored to help you with the process.