Two Minute Torah Podcast

Shmot 5771 by Richard S. Moline

Shalom, this is Rich Moline, director of youth and young adult services for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.  Thanks for joining me on KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of our college department.

How do you feel when somebody mispronounces or misspells your name?  My last name is Moline - I'll often get calls for Mr. Malone, Mr. Maline, even Mr. Muldoon.  While it's amusing, it's also quite upsetting.  Even when parents may unwittingly call us by the name of a sibling we often become annoyed.  Our names are simply a part of who we are.

This week, we begin reading the Book of Exodus, or, as it's known in Hebrew, S'hmot, meaning "names."    It is aptly named - not only because it's the first major word to appear, but also because the parashah starts out with all sorts of names:

These are the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with JacobÉReuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamim; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and AsherÉ (with) Joseph already in Egypt.  

Thirteen names in just four sentences with each name carrying its own history.  Different life experiences, different stories.  Thirteen distinct people whose ancestors, as the text describes, were fertile and prolific, creating more stories, more history - worlds upon worlds upon worlds.

As soon as we finish reading these names, we learn that a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.  This new king, this pharaoh, was threatened by the Israelites - and the rest of the story we know.  Slavery, bitter lives, mortar and bricks, plagues and death.  All of this, and we're still in chapter one!

By the time we get to the second chapter, people are referred to as follows - a certain man of the house of Levi, a Pharaoh, a Levite woman, a son, the daughter of Pharaoh, a slave girl, a Hebrew child.  They are apt descriptions, but they're anonymous.  We know what the characters are, but not who they are.  By stripping people of their names, they are stripped of their identities.  By losing those identities, we now know nothing of their histories, their families, their accomplishments or their worlds.

Physical labor is punishing, but dehumanizing people by denying them their own names may cause even greater harm.   How ironic that an entire book and this week's Torah portion carries the title Shmot. 

It's easy for us to place people in neat little categories - men, women, liberals, conservatives.  But behind each face you'll see on the street today there's a story, a history, an identity. 

We have busy lives.  We're focused on success, but sometimes we lose focus of what's really important. Take a moment, just a moment, once or twice a week, and learn something about somebody else's history.  It will enrich that person's life, and I guarantee that it will do the same for yours.