Remembrance of Names

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name

A poem by the Israeli poet, Zelda

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name

שנתן לוֹ אלהים ונתנוּ לוֹ אביו ואמוֹ

Given by God, and given by our parents

This poem is translated to English by the poet and artist Marsha Falk,
who uses it as the mourners’ kaddish in her siddur, Book of Blessings.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear

This is one of those poems that has lived close to my heart from the moment I heard it recited by Rabbi Dorothy Richman in the old Beth Sholom sanctuary one Shabbat morning. And this year it touches closer than before, as I rise each day to say the traditional kaddish for my dad, I also keep this one in mind.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls.

In this week’s Torah parashah, Pinchas, there are a lot of names---verses and verses and verses of names, as part of a census that is taken of the children of Israel. These names take up a huge part of the parashah. And with all the juiciness of this parashah – the finish of the Pinchas story, the daughters of Tzelophchad, the ritual anointing Joshua receives from Moshe as he is chosen to succeed him as leader -  we rarely talk about this counting, this accounting of the Israelites

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors

There are three times in the Torah we hear about taking a census of the Israelites. The first is  in Exodus (30:11-16), in the midst of the details of building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Everyone twenty years and older —well, all the males—must pay half a shekel. Not only is this a method of keeping track of the count, but it’s also a way for everyone to give an offering of atonement, with the proceeds going to help build the mishkan. Whether rich or poor, each one pays the same. Hezekiah bar Manoah, known as the Khizkune, a 13^th century French rabbi says, “a wealthy person must not contribute in excess of this, for if the Torah were to allow the wealthy to contribute more, and the poor to contribute less than a half a  shekel each, how could each of them attain the same level of atonement” When it comes to the spiritual life of our people, we are all equal, no need to list one person or tribe before another – we are coming together for a common goal.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing

The next census is taken at the start of the book of Bamidbar, Numbers, in the very first verses. It’s the second month of the second year after the children of Israel came out of Egypt. Moses and Aaron counted each male, twenty years old and upward, who is able to go to war. Here, the instructions are that the counting is to be organized by clan, listed by names. We are given the names of the head of each tribe who will help with the counting. And we then get the count, tribe by tribe, with the assurance that all the clans were registered; all the names were listed, even if those names were not voiced. And then, with the tabernacle in the center, surrounded by the Levites who will carry all the furnishings and accoutrements of the mishkan, each tribe is strategically placed around them, standing by their flag, led by their chief, ready to move through the wilderness, protecting their precious center from any harm, as they march to the promised land of their final destination, traveling as one.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

Which brings us to this week’s census. A journey that was expected to be two, three years or so has turned into 40. The generation that came out of Egypt was deemed not able to be brought into the land—they could not shake the effects of their life under slavery. They were too fearful and too closed to move into freedom. They were not ready to take on what was needed to form this new nation. So a whole new generation is now poised at the edge of the Jordan, about to go into the Land. Like the former counts, this one is also all males over twenty, able to bear arms. This count will also be by clans, but this time, those clan names are voiced. What makes this count different from the two that preceded it? Unlike the first count, which was centered around building the mishkan; or the second count, which was centered around protecting the mishkan, this count is about the land. “Among these shall the land be apportioned as shares, according to the listed names “ (Num 26:53)

The Israelites are about to enter the land, stake their claim, revitalize the roots that were left behind when Jacob and his family left Canaan for Egypt so many years before. But they never forgot those roots; they never forgot their given names. According to the Midrash, the Israelites did not change their language or their names in Egypt. “They did not call Reuben “Rufus” nor Judah “Leon” nor Joseph “Lestes” nor Benjamin “Alexander” (Vayikra Rabbah 32).  They kept, and remembered,  their names, with all the names of the line going back to the sons of Jacob. I think these names are voiced is as a way to honor the past souls who bore the burdens of slavery, who may not have made it to the land in body, but who had enough faith and fortitude to leave Egypt and start on the road to freedom, even as they may have been too broken to complete the journey.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

It is said that ritual makes the invisible, visible. I think names bring connection to distance. Giving a name, acknowledging a name, creating a name for the nameless brings things and people close, making it personal. It is an important part of remembrance. Our Hebrew names include the names of those who came before us, and when we say their names, we hear the names of those who came before them. We are reminded that we are entering the stream of our tradition, where we teach in the name of our teachers, allowing the support from the past to carry us into the future.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

Names became part of my omer ritual this year, as I counted each day with a name of one of the victims of those gunned down in the Christchurch mosques this past March. Rabbi Benjamin Blech, at Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, points out that the central letters of the Hebrew word Neshama, soul, are shin and mem, - שם – the Hebrew word for name. Your name, he says, is the key to your soul. Sharing those moments of blessing the day with the names of those innocents lost in the act of prayer, connected my soul to theirs, strengthening my resolve to speak for those souls who can no longer speak, to act in their names and the names of the others who were killed in Pittsburg and Charleston and Orlando and Sandy Hook and too many other places, so that no more souls are lost in such a way.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name
give given by the sea
and given by our death

This poem and this naming take on new meaning now that my dad is gone. Now, he and his name live in me, in my name, in my soul. And his name is honored in my communities. Here, it will be read each week for eleven months, and then each year, along with the loved ones of others. We are the people of the book, a book we keep writing with names, keeping the thread of our tradition alive – both as individual families and as a people. We write these names in our books, on our walls, and in our hearts.

לְכֹל  אִש  יֵש שֵם

Each of us has a name – a name that gives us our present identity, which holds the foundation of our past, and forms a path to the future. Each of our names, shaim shelanu, lives as remembrance \in our neshama, in our individual, and, as a people, our collective souls.

Zichronam l’vracha – may the memories of those names, of those souls, serve as blessings for us

Shabbat Shalom