Parshas Shemos: What’s in Your Name?
Compared to how explosive Pasuk Alef of Chumash Bereishis opens, Chumash Shemos opens rather quietly.
No Pharaoh.
No suffering.
No miracles.
We’ll get there in a minute.
For now, it’s just a simple list.
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
These are the names of the children of Israel.
Before the Torah tells us what happens to the people, it reminds us who they are.
Because exile doesn’t begin with chains.
It begins when people stop being known.
When names disappear, people become numbers.
And history has shown us how quickly millions of numbers can be erased.
In Torah, a name isn’t just what you’re called.
It carries dignity.
It insists that before a person becomes labor, function, or survival, they are seen.
Even more than that, the Hebrew letters of a name are understood as carriers of life force. The world itself is created with the letters of the Alef Beis. They are not random. Their combinations matter. Their numbers matter. Meaning is built into them.
That is why the book of Exodus opens this way, anchoring identity before anything narrows or expands.
——
There is a quiet custom many of us have at the end of Shemona Esrei, to say verses from Tanach that correspond to the acronym letters of our name. Familiar words, often said without much thought. But those verses come from somewhere. They live inside a story.
Sometimes, if we slow down enough to notice, we realize our name is rooted in a very specific moment in Torah.
I found myself thinking recently about one of the verses of my own name (דובער), which comes from right here, from the opening of Shemos. Not a verse of action or redemption. Just names being spoken out loud before anything breaks.
דָּן וְנַפְתָּלִי גָּד וְאָשֵׁר
(Shemos 1:4)
Nothing happens in this verse.
That is the point.
The Torah is doing the quiet work of keeping people human, so that nothing that happens next can erase who they are.
And then it shows us how that humanity survives.
A child is born into danger, and immediately, people step in.
Midwives stand together and refuse to participate in destruction.
A mother hides.
A sister watches.
When the moment comes and the baby is at risk of starving, it is the sister who speaks up. Not with force or certainty, just with presence and the right words at the right time. And with that, the child’s own mother is brought back to care for him.
From the beginning, Shemos teaches that identity is not preserved alone.
It is carried by people willing to notice, protect, and step in for one another.
Later, the pattern expands.
When Moshe is called by Hashem to lead, he does not present himself as complete or ready.
He names a limitation.
He has a stammer.
“I am not a man of words.”
And G-d does not erase it.
He doesn’t tell him to get over himself.
Instead, the circle widens.
Aharon is brought in, a brother, a partner, another voice. Someone who can help carry what Moshe cannot carry alone.
And this is where the other verse of my name (חיים) belongs, even though it was written centuries later by King David. Right here, at the moment when vulnerability is named and relationship forms around it.
חֹנֶה מַלְאַךְ ה׳ סָבִיב לִירֵאָיו וַיְחַלְּצֵם
“An angel of Hashem encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.”
(Tehillim 34:8)
The language is precise.
The angel does not rush in.
It does not fix or erase fear.
It encamps.
It stays close.
It surrounds.
That kind of protection does not remove vulnerability.
It makes vulnerability survivable.
Suddenly, everything we have seen makes sense.
The midwives do not overthrow Pharaoh.
Miriam does not eliminate danger.
Aharon does not remove Moshe’s limitation.
They stay close enough that the story can continue.
——
Leadership in Shemos is never solitary.
It is relational.
Shemos teaches us sisterhood.
Shemos teaches us brotherhood.
Sometimes that relationship looks like siblings.
Sometimes like close friends.
Sometimes like a circle, a group of people who come together not to be fixed, but to be present.
In those spaces, leadership does not mean having all the answers.
It means holding the room.
Protecting the space where people can remember who they are, so they can find their own answers.
The leader does not need the loudest or clearest voice.
We learn that from Moshe.
They just need to be the one who makes it safe enough for other voices to emerge.
——
Shemos is dramatic.
There is fire.
A burning bush.
But the parsha still begins somewhere smaller.
Before we try to do anything big, we start by noticing who we are, where we are standing, and who Hashem has placed around us.
Because even Moshe does not make it back to Egypt alone. On the way, it is Tzipporah who steps in and saves his life. A moment that reminds us again that the story moves forward when someone is willing to act, protect, and stay close.
Without Moshe, there is no Aharon Kohen Gadol.
Without Tzipporah, there is no Moshe Rabbeinu.
——
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת
These are the names.
And remembering them is how the story begins to move.
Shemos invites us to pause for a minute and look at our own names more carefully.
At the letters that form it.
At the verses that carry it.
At the strength and meaning already placed inside the words.
They are not accidental.
They are part of your story.
A name can carry the energy and story of someone who came before us.
And it can also make room for something that has never existed before.
What we do with it doesn’t begin with living up to it.
No Pharaoh.
No suffering.
No miracles.
We’ll get there in a minute.
For now, it’s just a simple list.
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
These are the names of the children of Israel.
Before the Torah tells us what happens to the people, it reminds us who they are.
Because exile doesn’t begin with chains.
It begins when people stop being known.
When names disappear, people become numbers.
And history has shown us how quickly millions of numbers can be erased.
In Torah, a name isn’t just what you’re called.
It carries dignity.
It insists that before a person becomes labor, function, or survival, they are seen.
Even more than that, the Hebrew letters of a name are understood as carriers of life force. The world itself is created with the letters of the Alef Beis. They are not random. Their combinations matter. Their numbers matter. Meaning is built into them.
That is why the book of Exodus opens this way, anchoring identity before anything narrows or expands.
——
There is a quiet custom many of us have at the end of Shemona Esrei, to say verses from Tanach that correspond to the acronym letters of our name. Familiar words, often said without much thought. But those verses come from somewhere. They live inside a story.
Sometimes, if we slow down enough to notice, we realize our name is rooted in a very specific moment in Torah.
I found myself thinking recently about one of the verses of my own name (דובער), which comes from right here, from the opening of Shemos. Not a verse of action or redemption. Just names being spoken out loud before anything breaks.
דָּן וְנַפְתָּלִי גָּד וְאָשֵׁר
(Shemos 1:4)
Nothing happens in this verse.
That is the point.
The Torah is doing the quiet work of keeping people human, so that nothing that happens next can erase who they are.
And then it shows us how that humanity survives.
A child is born into danger, and immediately, people step in.
Midwives stand together and refuse to participate in destruction.
A mother hides.
A sister watches.
When the moment comes and the baby is at risk of starving, it is the sister who speaks up. Not with force or certainty, just with presence and the right words at the right time. And with that, the child’s own mother is brought back to care for him.
From the beginning, Shemos teaches that identity is not preserved alone.
It is carried by people willing to notice, protect, and step in for one another.
Later, the pattern expands.
When Moshe is called by Hashem to lead, he does not present himself as complete or ready.
He names a limitation.
He has a stammer.
“I am not a man of words.”
And G-d does not erase it.
He doesn’t tell him to get over himself.
Instead, the circle widens.
Aharon is brought in, a brother, a partner, another voice. Someone who can help carry what Moshe cannot carry alone.
And this is where the other verse of my name (חיים) belongs, even though it was written centuries later by King David. Right here, at the moment when vulnerability is named and relationship forms around it.
חֹנֶה מַלְאַךְ ה׳ סָבִיב לִירֵאָיו וַיְחַלְּצֵם
“An angel of Hashem encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.”
(Tehillim 34:8)
The language is precise.
The angel does not rush in.
It does not fix or erase fear.
It encamps.
It stays close.
It surrounds.
That kind of protection does not remove vulnerability.
It makes vulnerability survivable.
Suddenly, everything we have seen makes sense.
The midwives do not overthrow Pharaoh.
Miriam does not eliminate danger.
Aharon does not remove Moshe’s limitation.
They stay close enough that the story can continue.
——
Leadership in Shemos is never solitary.
It is relational.
Shemos teaches us sisterhood.
Shemos teaches us brotherhood.
Sometimes that relationship looks like siblings.
Sometimes like close friends.
Sometimes like a circle, a group of people who come together not to be fixed, but to be present.
In those spaces, leadership does not mean having all the answers.
It means holding the room.
Protecting the space where people can remember who they are, so they can find their own answers.
The leader does not need the loudest or clearest voice.
We learn that from Moshe.
They just need to be the one who makes it safe enough for other voices to emerge.
——
Shemos is dramatic.
There is fire.
A burning bush.
A man sent back to the place he ran away from.
A man almost eaten alive by a snake.
The beginning of an exodus that will change history.
The beginning of an exodus that will change history.
But the parsha still begins somewhere smaller.
Before we try to do anything big, we start by noticing who we are, where we are standing, and who Hashem has placed around us.
Because even Moshe does not make it back to Egypt alone. On the way, it is Tzipporah who steps in and saves his life. A moment that reminds us again that the story moves forward when someone is willing to act, protect, and stay close.
Without Moshe, there is no Aharon Kohen Gadol.
Without Tzipporah, there is no Moshe Rabbeinu.
——
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת
These are the names.
And remembering them is how the story begins to move.
Shemos invites us to pause for a minute and look at our own names more carefully.
At the letters that form it.
At the verses that carry it.
At the strength and meaning already placed inside the words.
They are not accidental.
They are part of your story.
A name can carry the energy and story of someone who came before us.
And it can also make room for something that has never existed before.
What we do with it doesn’t begin with living up to it.