What's Your Name? – Parshat Vayishlach

There is a radio show which asked me to come as a guest to talk about Dr. Viktor Frankl and logotherapy. In preparation, I listened to some of the programs and heard the host asking the guests the question "who are you?" I thought it was a great question but was concerned as to how I would answer it. Thankfully, he didn’t ask me that question but it is now a question I ask myself occasionally. Who am I? What does my name mean to others? To myself?

In a fascinating conversation in this week's parsha, Parshat Vayishlach, a similar question is asked – "what's your name?" Yaakov is engaged in a struggle with a mysterious entity. (The large majority of Chazal seem to say that this entity was not a person but rather an angel.) At the end of the struggle, each asks the other his name. Yaakov shares his name with the angel but the angel does not reciprocate1 Yaakov, whose years are limited and finite, has a name which, says the Malbim, reflects who he is and his purpose. An angel, whose years are almost unlimited and is sent on different missions, receives a different name for each mission. (Perhaps this hints at the different names and identities a reincarnated soul has.)

The difference is that we do not always know our mission. We receive a name and are told as children that is who we are. As we grow, we become more aware of what the name means to us. When we mature, we are challenged to "make a name for ourselves". In fact, every year on Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel, in order to help memorialize the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, they read a poem based on the following Midrash:       

There are three names by which a person is called: one which their parents call them, one which people call them, and one which they earn for themselves. The last is the best one of all.2

We are all given names. We all have parents we came from. We all have a community where we grew up. Yet we determine our destiny within our individual situation. We can all learn from the situation in which we grew up. Our parents, siblings, community, friends, and acquaintances all contributed to who we are. Now it is our turn.

The name we make for ourselves is the one by which we will be remembered. We try to identify our mission. Then we make a plan to fulfill it. After all, as Ben Franklin is quoted: "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."3 So we start working on earning that name for ourselves.

So, what is YOUR name?

Notes

  1. Bereishit 32:25-30
  2. Midrash Tanchuma Shemot 35:1. An Israeli poet, Zelda, wrote a famous poem called 'Everyone has a Name' based on this Midrash.
  3. Though widely attributed to Franklin, there is no source that anyone could point to

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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