What's in a name anyway?

Jacob and Esau. Better known as Yaakov and Eisav in their mother’s tongue. Their names tell the whole story. As we’ve learned before, a Jewish name is not just a name, but rather the essence of the thing. שם Shem means name and sham שם means there – right there’s where you’ll find it. And a thing is not just a thing, but rather only an emanation from God. דבר Davar means thing. Davar means spoken word. And we know how God creates - with His word. So His word is the thing and the thing gets a name and that name is the essence of God’s word in this world. These are the portals through which we crawl in from our end down here and reach into the recesses of the spiritual source. Knowing the name, or rather naming the name is at the heart of the named. For example:

Everything in the world was created with its counterpart. Male and Female mimic the Heavens and the Earth, and everything down below has its very own significant other (everything has a male and female component in creation, everything), signifying the process of e pluribus unum, division becoming One. Adam didn’t have it yet and he searched the expanse of creation. Every animal passed before him and he knew it (even in the biblical sense of knowing, you know?), he knew its essence and by so doing gave it its name. So someone who really understands an elephant, Hebrew, and a specific smattering of Kabala will understand why a פיל (piel) is an elephant. Got it? Can you see it?

Also, when we’re born or have children, parents get Ruach HaKodesh (holy spirit, but that has really terrible connotations for Jews in a Christian world – doesn’t mean anywhere near the same thing). Meaning, the Almighty puts the thought and affinity for the name in your head because He knows the essence of the soul, and its name needs to be its name. No joke. This is normative Judaism. Now, of course, this probably only works for parents who are anyways looking for the kid’s essence in the name and using the soul’s language (not modern Hebrew, sorry) where Rodderick and Winifred are not really options. But nonetheless, the name is achieved through Divine intervention. If you don’t know your Hebrew name, it’s high time to get one.

So too with Yaakov and Eisav. Our Sages tell us that Eisav’s name עשו comes from נעשה na’ase which means done/completed. He was born with so much hair, red hair no less, that he appeared several years older. Why? Because hair grows where we are expressed out in the world. Eisav’s whole existence was as a warrior, conqueror, trapper and man of earthly conquest. His entire being was in the world of action. Once he chose his heretical ways, Yaakov was left with the task of absorbing Eisav’s earthly prowess, poetically played out in his disguising himself with woolen hands as Eisav before his blind father Yitzhok.

Yaakov, on the other hand, is a construct of two ideas. יעקב Yaakov means taking the yud י , the letter representing the most refined spiritual presence in the physical dimension (the least amount of ink and suspended well above ground level), down to the עקב the heel, the bottom and final point of the creation of man, the central figure in and purpose of creation. He was created to bring out the spiritual source and purpose in all of creation, even to the thickened and trodden “heels” of this world, and accomplish total self-perfection.

The battle between Yaakov and Eisav is the essential battle between Jew and pure physicality. While Art Garfinke and Woody Allen sing pagan praises to Manhattan, we might just shudder at the hairy hands of Eisav and the seeming nonexistence of the underlying mystical truths of creation. And that’s from a former fan of Art and Woody’s, NYU film school, all things Yankee, and the Staten Island Ferry.

Wishing you all a very holy Shabbos.

Rabbi Lynn