Lech Lecha: What's in a Name?

This past week was the 12th anniversary (or 13th-I cannot remember) of my becoming a Bat Mitzvah. Although there are no monumental words I have for this occasion, I am going to suggest something. Having now spent a year exploring the parshiot, week by week, engaging the text and connecting it to my own life, not necessarily delving into commentary, this year is a little more busy. We have already read the whole of Genesis and Exodus in the past two months alone. Therefore, writing a full-blown D'var Torah may not be the most feasible thing for me each week. However, to the best of my ability, I will post my "Torah challenge," which I send weekly to my student pulpit in Billings, MT. My hope is that you find the questions I pose intriguing and meaningful.

A (belated) Shabbat Shalom!

Genesis 12:1-17:27

In this Torah portion, God makes a covenant with Abram promising to make his ancestors a great nation. God changes his name to Abraham. Abraham has a child with Hagar, and names him Ishmael. God then promises Abraham's barren wife, Sarah, that she will have a child. (1)

What’s in a Name (Part I) (Gen 16:1-16)

Children are important in the Torah. Although those crying out for children usually comes from barren women, Abram is the one who gasps to God: "What can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless?" (15:2). Abram is the first one to cry out for a child. Yet not until a chapter later is Abram’s call answered (although through Sarai’s decision).

Sarai, desperate for a son, gives her handmaid, Hagar, to Abram in order to procreate. However, Sarai gets jealous of Hagar’s pregnancy and sends her away into the wilderness. While away, she is visited by an angel who tells her in Chapter 16:11

 וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה, הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן, וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ יִשְׁמָעֵאל, כִּי-שָׁמַע יְהוָה אֶל-עָנְיֵךְ

And the angel of the God said to her: 'Behold, you are pregnant, and shall have a son; you shall call his name Ishmael, because God has heard your affliction.

Hagar, a woman with little significant who is despised by Sarai, is spoken to by an angel of God while she is despairing in the wilderness. The angel tells Hagar to name her son Yishmael, literally meaning God will hear.

What does it mean that God will hear? Is it referring to the past, to Hagar, or to the future, to Yishmael? If either of them are the case, how can we understand this name in context of Sarai’s hate of Hagar (does it mean God does not hear Sarai?)?

Or, can we understand this as meaning that Abram’s call was answered?

What’s in a Name (Part II)? (Gen. 17:1-16)

Sarai and Abram begin our parsha being called by these names. God sends them on a journey, intending to establish God’s covenant with them. In the end, when the covenant is established and Abram and Sarai have listened to God’s instructions, God rewards them.

Gen 17:5 וְלֹא-יִקָּרֵא עוֹד אֶת-שִׁמְךָ, אַבְרָם; וְהָיָה שִׁמְךָ אַבְרָהָם, כִּי אַב-הֲמוֹן גּוֹיִם נְתַתִּיךָ

Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.

Gen 17:15 וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם, שָׂרַי אִשְׁתְּךָ, לֹא-תִקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמָהּ שָׂרָי:  כִּי שָׂרָה, שְׁמָהּ

And God said unto Abraham: 'As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.

Both Sarah and Abraham receive a ה (hey) in their name. The letter hey is the letter that shows up twice in God’s name, the tetragrammaton, yud-hey-vav-hey.

What does it mean that Sarah and Abraham are given this ה, which is part of God’s name? Who have they become, through this?

The Lubavicher Rebbe has an interesting thought on the hey added to Abraham’s name. “Up until this point, the thrust of Abraham's life was his spiritual relationship with God; from this point on it was to be his role as a leader of the masses, a teacher of the Divine truth to the “multitudes.”” Abraham’s hey is representative of the Godliness he now possesses. Now, he can pass on God’s teachings through his own life. (2)

As Reform Jews, we too can learn something from this. Do we need God to come to us and bestow us with God’s good will, or should we attempt to act, as we already know, b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God and demonstrate Godliness from the beginning? If that is so, how do we add the Godliness into our lives and pass it on to those around us?

Another interesting thing to consider is that this section describes how we must circumcise our children and make them a part of the covenant. Only once Abraham is given his ה is he told these laws and made to do so.

How does circumcision make one part of the covenant of the Jewish people? Why is Abraham only told to do this, to circumcise himself and essentially “become” a Jew, at the end of the Parsha? What does he have to do in order to deserve the covenant?

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