What's in a Name?

 What's in a Name?

At Jewish Newport

January 9, 2021

By Aaron Ginsburg

Thank you to Rabbi Marc Mandel, edited by Vicki Kaplan

Also at https://www.facebook.com/groups/jewishnewport

Rabbi Marc Mandel of Newport, Rhode Island’s Touro Synagogue, had some words for Jewish Newport,

“We recently started reading the second book of the Pentateuch. Many people refer to this as the Book of Exodus.

“But, a more traditional name for it is Shmot, or names. Indeed, the book begins with a listing of the names of the people that were living in Egypt at that time. While we all understand that the Exodus from Egypt is a central theme of this Book, names are also very important, because it gives us a sense of who the people were and their families. Without these people, and their names, there would be no Exodus. 

“Today, this of course has become very popular. Genealogy is bursting at the seams, especially with the help of the internet. It's refreshing to learn how the internet is being used in positive ways, rather than some of the negative ways we have been reading about lately. Happy searching!”

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The Hebrew Bible is obsessed with genealogy. There might be several reasons. 

As understood by the ancients, a people is a family that must have started with a man and a woman. Humanity consists of many related families, which themselves must have common ancestors. This takes us back to Eden.

A lot of our Torah is about Priests and Kings. They might be interested in family history to back up their claim to their positions, which were inherited. 

The rabbis who created Judaism, of the Mishnah and Talmud, were more concerned with ideas. They used the same information as the ancients,  priests and kings  to bear witness to receiving Torah at Sinai. “Our ancestors were at Sinai,” they assert. “They were there when Moshe came down from the cloud with two tablets that contained  עשרת הדיברות‎ (transliterated aseret ha-dibrot) also known as The Ten Commandments or the Decalogue. Translating from the Hebrew, it means ten words or ten statements. If you look for ten commandments, you will be disappointed. 

Chazal (all Jewish sages of the Mishna, Tosefta and Talmud eras) seemed to make “we were there,” the important thing. Then they proceeded to interpret Torah as they saw fit, giving their interpretations detailed genealogies by citing verses from the Tanakh as well as the opinions, real or imagined, of their predecessors.

One wonders if the rabbis, priests, kings and ancients took those biblical genealogies seriously. Perhaps it was just part of the game.

In 2018, Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D. wrote an article for Psychology Today, “The Meaning and Meaninglessness of Genealogy.” It’s a good read. Professor Lents enjoys learning about his genealogy, but does it really matter? And how accurate is it? He points out that as we go back in history there are not a lot of records, and a lot of assumptions are made about which records to use. Another complication is that births are often misattributed. We know this from the genetic record. And many adoptions were secret even if they were done within a family. 

Besides, he writes, does it really matter who your ancestors are? Isn’t it your cultural heritage that matters? 

He points out that although Jews have a Levantine genetic history, in each place where they live, part of their genetics is similar to the non-jewish population. Despite the genetic diversity, Jews share a distinct cultural heritage.

For African-Americans, there is another wrinkle. Many can trace their descent to a white slave master and an often unwilling slave. So they are descended from both slaves and masters. As an example, Professor Lents points out that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama both descend from a French Huguenot immigrant slave owner, Mareen Duvall, who arrived in Maryland in 1650. However, their cultural heritage is very different. 

Well it was fun writing this article. But I think it is time for me to get back to researching my genealogy.

Shabbat Shalom from Jewish Newport!