Bamidbar
Numbers 1:1-4:20
Hosea 2:1-2:22
The name of a person tells us a great deal about that person, including their nationality and sometimes even their social class. Of course, many names have been shortened, translated or simply substituted for others. Some people have Americanized their names intentionally. For example, Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, Yishay Danielowitch Demsky became Kirk Douglas and Allen Steward Konigsberg became Woody Allen.
Modern Jewish folklore has many wonderful anecdotes about name changes, and this is one that combines talmudic reasoning with the need to adopt a European name:
A Talmud scholar from Odessa was granted permission to visit Moscow. He boarded the train and at the next stop, a young man got on the train. The scholar looked at the young man and thought: He is surely not a peasant who lives in the countryside; he probably lives in this town. If he lives in this place, he is probably Jewish, because the majority of this town is Jewish.
Having answered the question of his religious identity, where could he be going? Jews of this district are allowed to travel only to Moscow — unless, of course, this young man is traveling to Samvet. Jews don’t need a special permit to go there.
If my guess is correct, he is going to visit a Jewish family that lives there. But there are only two Jewish families living in Samvet: the Bernsteins and the Steinbergs. The Bernsteins? No, that cannot be; the family has a bad reputation. A nice-looking fellow like him, must be visiting the Steinbergs. But why would he visit the Steinbergs? They have two daughters and they are married. So he must be one of their sons-in-law.
Assuming he is their son-in-law, let me ask, then: Which daughter did he marry? I heard that Sarah married a successful lawyer from Budapest, and Esther married a businessman from Zhitomir. He must be Sarah’s husband, and his name, I was told, is Alexander Cohen.
But, if he comes from Budapest, a city where anti-Semitism is rampant, he must have changed his name. It must be the equivalent of Cohen — Kovacs. But not everyone is allowed to change his name in Hungary these days, only those who have achieved some status in the community are allowed to do so — he must have earned a doctorate from the university.
At this point, the Talmud scholar said to the young man: “How do you do, Dr. Kovacs?”
“Very well, thank you, sir,” the startled passenger replied. “But please tell me, how did you know my name?”
“Oh,” said the scholar, “it’s obvious!”
This anecdote makes clear that names often contain clues of some sort. And if that is true of modern names, that was certainly true of biblical names — which we are reminded of when we are taught in this week’s parshah that the Israelites should conduct a census and take down the names of everyone in each tribe.
To be true to one’s name is one of the great challenges of life. If we are called Israelites, we must exemplify the moral and spiritual values that have been the pride of our people since the days of our patriarchs and matriarchs.
Sacher Masoch wrote a story a century ago about a Jewish man who went to City Hall and was told that for 50 guilders, he could receive the name of Eisenstein (a stone of iron), but for a fee of 200 guilders, he could be Rubenstein (a ruby). He went home and could not sleep. Was he going to accept the name he could afford, or should he go into debt in order to give a more prestigious name to his children?
Our sages understood that very well, and it is for that reason that they recorded this statement in the Talmud:
“Every one of us has three names: the name that our parents gave us at birth, the nickname that our friends give us based on our nature of the relationship and the name we decided to give ourselves — which contains the expression of our highest aspirations.”
And that third name may, indeed, be the most important. It is the one that should be guiding us through life.
Rabbi Larry Raphael is the senior rabbi of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco.