Bamidbar 5773: What's in a name?

This parsha is the census of the Jews in the desert, a count which is not only by number, but also by names, and also reports each of these tribes having a flag. The midrash says that the jews saw that the angels had flags, and they were jealous, so God gave them flags too. So this census is not just about one large number—it’s about appreciating every single individual, about calling their name lovingly, just as God lovingly says the name of each star as he puts them in the heaven, as psalms mythically depicts the process.
What’s in a name? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would still smell so sweet. Claude Levi Strauss said much the same thing but much less poetically when he said that signifiers and signifieds—i.e. names and what they refer to—have an arbitrary relationship. In other words, the name is not the essence, the name is just a placeholder by which I refer to a particular thing. Flowers could have been called anything else.
But there is a sense, in Judaism, that the name goes to the essence of a thing. Isaiah 43:1 says “thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In other words, the name is unique, core to who I am, and it is how God relates to me—it gives me an unbreakable relationship with God. There’s no relationship without a name.
Martin Buber, in I and Thou, says we can relate to people as an it or a thou. In an I-thou relationship we open our whole being to the other. He describes an experience sitting on a park bench, and opening up to someone I don’t know, without even speaking. It has always been a troubling example: can I really have a deep relationship with someone I don’t know? Can I truly love you if I don’t know your name, what is important to you, what hurts you and what gives you joy? What kind of a relationship do I have with you if we both sit in shul for hours, go to Kiddush, eat, but never get to know each other? I need to learn your name.
Someone this week asked me, “rabbi, what can I do to help,” a question I always LOVE being asked. My answer was: sit at a different table at Kiddush. Get to know someone else, find out about them, how their week was, what’s on their mind. The truth is, I don’t like it if talking in shul gets disruptive, but I am in favor of jews talking, getting to know each other. That’s real community.
To know someone’s name is to have a relationship, to see them as a person.
The name also goes deeper, to something essential about what I am. In that quote from Isaiah, God knows our name because he formed us—it is at the core of who we are. What is essential about what I am? What about me can’t be boiled down to just a number, a telephone number, or an IP address? Is it just what I like, my hobbies and tastes? What could have been known about me the moment my soul was placed in my body?
The slonimer says that my name refers to my unique mission. Each of us has a unique mission in the world, and this is what makes us unique and also creates this inseparable relationship with god. The mission is some particular mitzvah that we are put on earth to do. He says we can discover this mission by seeing whatever mitzvah meets the most resistance from our own negative inclinations—when do I get lazy, say I’m not going to bother, or it’s too much trouble, or “I’ll leave that one for the more ‘observant’ Jews to worry about.” Another approach I have seen is the opposite—what mitzvah do I do really well, what is my signature mitzvah? This is my true name, by which God knows me, and forms an unbreakable relationship with God.
The flags, too, don’t just identify me, they also identify my relationship with God. The midrash says, that god said to Moses, make the flags for my name, because they are my children and my hosts, so I want flags in my name. The flags had God’s name on them. So the name is how God sees us, what is unique about us, and the flags refer back to God, make the circle complete. And ultimately, this is our name, the fact that we can live as God’s children is our truest name, what can make us most unique and most human.