I’m good with names. It’s a particularly useful talent to have when you’re a rabbi and/or when you do community organizing. Fortunately, I’ve just always had this ability - I see a face and a related name jumps back in my head - and I’m very, very grateful for it. Because names are tremendously important. Our identity is bound up with our name, and it’s a major element of each person’s self-perception. Even after years in the rabbinate, I’m still amazed at how critical it is for people, and how a person’s face softens and brightens when s/he feels seen and remembered. Even God identifies this as a value and a symbol of relationship, as expressed in this week’s Torah reading.
As it is Chol Ha-Moed (the intermediated days of) Sukkot, we take a break from our weekly cycle, and instead read a section specifically associated with the holiday. Interestingly, the rabbis assigned to us a reading for this Shabbat that takes place right after the sin of the Golden calf. God is still angry, and so is Moses, but having weathered this heretical storm together, the two of them have actually formed an even closer bond! Moses asks to see God, but God informs him that’s impossible. However, God can place Moses in the cleft of a rock and let him see the Back of the Divine Presence as it passes by the mountain. It’s still more than any other human has seen, or ever will see…
When God agrees to do this for Moses, God says: “I will do this thing that you have asked; for you have truly gained My favor and I have singled you out by name.” (Ex. 33:17) I don’t love the translation “singled out,” because the Hebrew is, “Eida’acha b’Sheim,” meaning “I know you by name.” To me, it’s almost like God is saying, “you and me, we’re on a first-name basis.” The text is, essentially, using this expression as a term of closeness and intimacy: “Ours is not a formal relationship; we call each other by our personal names.” Maybe they even have nicknames for one another! It is the same between any two friends, or for a clergy member and her/his congregation; names facilitate closeness and bonding, and make us feel seen and acknowledged.
I know not everyone does or can have as easy a time with names as I do, and for some people it’s genuinely hard to remember them. But it’s also a skill we can work on. I have tricks and methods for recalling names, and I’ve encouraged clergy colleagues and students to really prioritize this skill when working in a congregational setting. Our names come with stories, memories, loving relationships with family, perhaps trauma, nicknames and possibly teasing, and so much more. It is a foundational part of who we are, and when someone knows us well, it is a way that we can bring them closer: “please, just call me ____.” When we share this bond with another, and feel present to them just as they are present to us, it can truly become a genuine and lasting friendship. And it started with that moment of being introduced and learning one another’s names. And even a simple, close friendship like that still holds sparks of the relationship between God and Moses. Even for the Ruler of the Entire Universe, that kinship begins with knowing one another by name.
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