The significance of name

The significance of a name has always been central to how Judaism understands both identity and destiny. When parents name a child, a community renames itself, or one adopts a new moniker, one often looks to the future for inspiration. And why not? We hope a new name will influence what comes next.

This impulse isn’t wrong; new names rightly express hope. But Jewish tradition teaches that naming is never only about what lies ahead of us. Taking on a new name must also remind us from whence we’ve come.

We see this most powerfully in this week’s portion Vayishlach, wherein our patriarch Jacob receives a new name. Alone beside the Jabbok River, Jacob wrestles through the night with a mysterious being and emerges forever changed. Mid-bout, his hip is wrenched; thus, he will literally move through the world differently than before. Yet it is as the sun rises that the greater change occurs. At dawn, the being declares, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with God and with humans and prevailed.”

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Jacob’s new name derives from the Hebrew verb lisrot (“to wrestle”) combined with El, a name of God. To be Yisrael, then, is to live in holy tension with both history and faith, the past as well as the future.

A 13th-century collection of midrashim known as Yalkut Shimoni, adds a deeper insight: The five letters of Yisrael, contain the initials of all seven of our patriarchs and matriarchs:

Yud = Yitzchak/ Yaakov 
Sin = Sarah 
Resh = Rivkah/Rachel 
Aleph = Avraham 
Lamed = Leah

Jacob’s new name, then, is not only about his future; it, quite literally, contains a record of his past, as well. Like a child named for a beloved relative, Yisrael carries within it the spirit of those who came before.

This 800-year-old midrash teaches that names, even when pointed toward the future, need be rooted in memory. In our tradition, names are never arbitrary: Avram becomes Avraham, father of nations; Sarai becomes Sarah, princess of a covenantal people. And Mount Horeb will be renamed Mount Sinai — or Horeb is a place, while Sinai, derived from either s’neh (the burning bush) or siman tov (good sign), evoking revelation, points us toward the future.

Each new name, rather than rejecting the past, builds upon it. When Jacob becomes Israel, his old name is not erased. In fact, throughout the rest of Genesis, both names appear (sometimes even in the same verse). The message is clear: Within Jacob and Israel, the old and the new coexist, the past and the future are intertwined.

In an age when identities are fluid, names are often chosen to reject the past; renaming Jacob as Israel offers a counterpoint. Taking a new name does not mean one becomes someone else, but becomes more truly themself. Or, in the words of an ancient blessing, “The old shall be made new, and the new shall be made holy.”

So it was that as dawn broke over the Jabbok River, Jacob — now Israel — rose limping from nocturnal wrestling with a name that at once recalled his past and signaled his future. And to this day, Jacob’s new name renews us, as well. For in every generation, we too become own version of Yisrael — wrestling with an ancient faith, answering the urgent call of conscience and grappling with an ever-changing world exactly as we find it. PJC

Rabbi Aaron Bisno is the Frances F. & David R. Levin Rabbinic Scholar at Rodef Shalom Congregation and serves as the rabbi at Temple Ohav Shalom in the North Hills. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.