What's in a Name?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Friday, November 27, 2009

What a rambunctious household it must have been! 12 boys growing up with some tensions between them. I’m not surprised that Dinah wanted to go out and visit with the other families of the land- but that’s another story.

I remember when Michael and I were thinking of going on from two to three children. The idea that they would outnumber us as parents concerned me- also that I only have two hands.

That concern makes its appearance in the commentaries on the naming of the children that we read this morning. Leah names her third son Levi, from the root attachment, saying, “now my husband will become attached to me for I have borne him three sons.” We usually understand that from an emotional point of view but the medieval commentators also understand it practically. Chizkuni and Toldot Yizchak write: “when a woman has two children she can take one on each hand, but when she has a third child, her husband must hold one. This is what Leah meant when she said her husband would have to join her. He would have to help her carry, Levi, the third child.”

These 12 sons as everyone knows become the 12 tribes of Israel. Sometimes the tribes are counted by these sons, though later for the distribution of the land, Levi is not counted in the 12, and Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Menasheh become two of the tribes. Though born of an Egyptian mother, their father’s Jewish identity, secures for them a place among the tribes of Israel.

According to the custom of ancient times, Reuben, the first born, should have been the dominant one. He does show some leadership and makes an attempt to rescue Joseph from the anger of his brothers, but it is unsuccessful. Later as an adult son, he will offend his father so severely as to be cursed on his death bed.

Shimon and Levi, the next in line chronologically, will also get in trouble, by the violence of their vengeance for their sister’s being taken by Chamor the Shechemite. Shimon bears the bulk of that guilt and his tribe never becomes prominent. Levi’s passion is channeled into the service of God through the priesthood. Through Levi, Leah becomes the mother of Aaron and Moses, the greatest leaders of Israel.

We usually think of the first born or the last born as having special gifts or personal traits that distinguish them later in life and make them especially suited for certain roles or positions. Judah, the son who will ultimately turn out to be the most important, is the 4th of the 6 sons of his mother, not a position of particular note. But in his naming we do have a hint that there is something special going on around his birth.

Leah names her first three sons in relationship to a lack she experiences in her relationship with her husband Jacob. In each name we feel the pain of her anger and disappointment in her husband’s rejection. But Judah’s name does not reflect anything but joy. He is called “I will praise God.” Leah has come to a place of acceptance. She is no longer focused on seeking what cannot be found. She has gained the inner strength to stand on her own, and thus this fourth son is a source of uncontaminated joy.

The 15th century Italian Biblical commentator Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno notes that Judah is the first child in the Bible given a name that contains the four letters of the tetragrammaton, the special unpronounced name of God.

Judah will go on to give his name to his people. Like his father Jacob, whose God given name Israel, is attached to the Jewish people forever, Judah’s name will eventually create the name Yehud and Yehudim, the word Jew and Jews that we use still today. Judah is also the ancestor of King David and the entire Davidic line, and therefore by tradition of the Messiah yet to come as well.

What Leah learned to do was something that we too may have to learn in our own lives. She learned to stop expecting from someone else, something that they were not able to give her. She learned to stop making her happiness conditional on a change in another person.

As teenagers we often feel that our happiness depends on a particular person liking us, something that is out of our control. As adults too we sometimes continue to cling to expectations of others, perhaps of our parents, for which we have no evidence of their being able to fulfill. When we stop being dependent on what other people do to us and turn to making our own lives, we can move forward, even without whatever it was we originally felt we needed from them.

In the end Leah is the happier of the two matriarchs. Rachel’s romantic relationship with Jacob is full of drama, and she dies young giving birth to her second son. She calls him son of my sorrow- though Jacob will change his name to son of my strength. She is pictures in our tradition, as Jeremiah describes her, forever crying for her children.

It is Leah and Jacob who eventually become true life partners, and it is Leah alone who is buried at his side. Loyalty creates continuity and builds a future not only for Leah but for the Jewish people as well.