Do You Know Your Name? | Parshas Shmos

so there were a woman in the hospital giving birth she lost consciousness and she actually went into a coma buzzer don't get this is just a joke so I don't anyone so oh my god who did this happen to like I don't want to give anyone any stress for even a second for even for the sake of a joke it's not a real person didn't happen okay so this now it can really lay into it this woman she went into a coma for six months anyways when she woke up she found out that she had given birth to twins a boy and a girl and the doctors told her that because you were unconscious your sister named the children for you she was thinking oh no my sister should kind of goofy you know what did she name my children so they said well she named your daughter Denise and no woman thinks Oh Denise that's that's a normal enough name okay fine I can live with that what'd you name my son your sister named your son de nephew Denise um - nephew Denise and in nephew okay so we're talking about names we are starting now the second of the 5 books which is called mice mice means names the Ailish mace bnei yisrael a boy in mitzraim oh these are the names of the Jewish people who came into Egypt now as you probably know that the five books of Moses also have names that the titles that they're known by in English so like gracious we call braces in the beginning but in English comes from the Greek it's called Genesis so what is mice in English Wow Exodus Exodus now let me ask you a question which name makes more sense if it's a book that tells the story about how the Jewish people went into Egypt and came back up out of Egypt so what name makes more sense my switch means names or Exodus which means exit leaving I mean it's a rhetorical question obviously the name Exodus for the book makes a lot more sense based on what the book is about and the name names SHhhh mice is a little bit funny so that's what I want to talk about today why is the book that's about the Jewish people's descent and subsequent Redemption from Egypt called names so I'm going to tell you a story and I hope I can get through this story because it's a very very touching story at least in my opinion it's a true story it's a real story actually no and you may know the family that it happened to [Music] the story was recorded it was written by mrs. Yaffe schlemiel fee is a friend of mine his mother wrote this story about her younger sisters story as a hidden child during the Holocaust and her sister is Talbert Genki Talbert here from 5,000 that's his mother so anyways here's the story you may know that the Nazis came to Hungary rather late in the war and the Jews were relatively safe relatively for a longer period of time in Hungary than in other places in Europe a Jewish woman a young Jewish mother gave birth to a daughter in Hungary on the eve of the Nazi invasion occupation she's in the hospital and the nurse comes to bring her the baby and she sort of just roughly tosses the the baby at the foot of her bed and she says I don't know why we have to deal with these Jewish brats within a year's time Hitler will be here and there will be no more Jewish children why we wasting time and resources and money for children who are not going to be alive and the young mother obviously should gasped she was horrified to hear such a thing here's her beautiful little daughter and this this this cruel nurse is speaking this way and that moment she heard a voice another woman's voice saying they're there it's okay it's okay she looked over in the bed next to her was the old farmer's wife she says it's okay don't listen to that mean nurse listen I'll take care of your baby for you your baby will live give her to me I never had children give your baby to me and this young mother is horrified first the nurse comes in she's speaking so cruel now the the farmer's wife in the bed next nurses give the baby to me she says no I'm not giving the baby to this is my baby she's a Jewish baby she's gonna be raised as a Jew she says that the farmer's wife says she won't she won't live she won't survive the mother says yes she will survive the Jewish people have been persecuted in every single generation and we always survived and at that moment we she remembered that that very day the birth of her precious daughter was poram and of course what did they name their daughter Esther Malka perfect what name what other name could you give a poor baby a precious little girl born in form Esther Malka Esther care for short that's what they call they called her Esther Ken so when a sticker was about to they would left their home they were herded into a ghetto everyday the the men were forced at gunpoint to go work back-breaking slave labor then there were the occasions when groups would be rounded up onto cattle cars they would leave the ghetto and they wouldn't come back and life was getting worse and worse for the Jews in Hungary finally when Esther Kerr was three years old on her third birthday porn that was the last happy day that the family had in the ghetto they her mother made her a special dress a perm costume of course who did she dress as for form Esther Malka if you made her a little dress out of a lace curtain she made a crown out of some old wrapping paper and cardboard and she dressed little Esther ku as Esther the the Queen Esther and her father read the Megillah and every time they came to the name Esther the other children would look over at STK and smile and she knew she was very proud she was very proud of her name that night the night of her third birthday as her mother put her to bed she said to her she says mommy I'm so lucky to be Esther as I said that was the last happy day they had at that point it was obvious what was happening and they had to get rid of her they couldn't keep her there in the ghetto anymore so they made arrangements they found a peasant family that lived in some far far off remote little tiny little village in the middle of some farmland where where the Nazis wouldn't even be interested to go look and they made arrangements that a sticker should be shipped off there so what happened there there was this young man handsome young man blond hair blue eyed and his Esther his mother spoke to him and said you know this yes this is the girl that we spoke about and he says okay I'll wait I'll wait for you to speak to her and as the young handsome blond-haired blue-eyed man is waiting Esther cos mother says to her she says you're gonna go with this man right now so she says are you and Tati coming with she says no we're not coming with you gonna go with him and you have to remember you are not Esther kit your name is ava and she started crying she says I have to go and I and and you and Kathy can't come with I can't have my mommy I can't have my Tati I can't even be a stalker I can't have my name started crying so the young man with the blond hair and the blue eyes he came over and he very calmly said to her in Yiddish Esther Kay you're going to bring your name with you but it's gonna be your secret every night you'll say Sh'ma silently in your heart and you remember that your name is Esther Kay and who your mommy is and who your Tati is but it's a secret and has to stay right in here and he pointed at the little girl's heart the little girl says to the young blond-haired blue-eyed man speaking fluent Yiddish do you also have a secret he says yeah I also have a secret and with that he he took her into the countryside and she was brought to a peasant family after the war there was a complete discombobulation people couldn't find each other transportation was completely cut off railroads were not operating the roads were bombed but miraculously this this young mother and father survived they survived and he set out to look for Esther Kay so they knew where she was they knew the town they'd never been there but they knew the town they knew the name of the family they knew the address so they come to the town and and they made a plan the young father and mother they made a plan look we can't shock this girl you know she's become acclimated to a different life and they knew this stories they were all hearing the stories about the hidden children first of all they didn't 100% know they're gonna find her because there were stories where the peasants who agreed to take Jewish children ended up handing them straight over to the Nazis then there were other stories where the peasants wouldn't give the children back where they kept it would they they they they grew attached to the children they didn't want to hand them back to their families so the young husband and and wife they made up a plan they said here's our plan we're not gonna say we're not going to go up to her we're not gonna say who we are we're just gonna say hi we're strangers to her remember and just make friends with her and let her get used to us and we'll see how long it takes and then after a while you know after she warms up to us and she decides were nice people then we'll start to hint to her that were her mother and father and she's you know our daughter that was the plan that was absolutely the plan they walked up to this little house and a little cottage and they see a little sunburned girl with matted dark hair with bare feet playing in the dirt outside of the cottage and they they see this as this is their daughter but they don't say anything they get closer so they don't startle her and they say hello little girl how are you doing come here and she turns around and she runs inside and they hear her screaming ma come outside there are strangers here so a woman peasant woman comes out of the of the cottage she's wearing a black kerchief on her head and she holds the little girl by her hand and she looks at this young couple and she has this completely blank expression like there's no expression behind her eyes to reveal what she's thinking or not thinking she just gives them this sort of stony gaze and she tightly squeezes the little girl's hand now when that happened that moment the mother the real mother has this flashback to the day when her daughter was born the day in the hospital to that farmer's wife sitting or lying next to her in the bed next to her in the hospital saying give me the child give me the child she sees now her daughter with this peasant woman holding her hand so firmly and looking at them with no recognition no not a word not anything and at that moment she just broke down the mother the real mother she broke down and their whole plan went out the window the whole plan that they're gonna gradually warm up to her and she just screams out after decay like that's it plans out the window that's there and all of a sudden it's like the little girl woke up from a dream and her demeanor her face everything just changed she looks at this young couple she says mommy Tati and she runs to them and embraces them so I tell you the story because I think it illustrates to us the power of a Jewish name the power of Jewish identity and how even in a situation where one is in a veritable slumber that there's a way of calling upon that that that true identity and and reawakening it that's the power of the Jewish name which is the Jewish identity on a little bit of a lighter note I'll tell you a story that happened in less harrowing times a story that happened little vignettes happened in the 1980s on Wall Street in in the 80s there was a big big hedge fund guy named Sanford Bernstein he was managing hundreds of millions of dollars big big successful totally secular Jewish guy and he was rockin and rollin on Wall Street and not religious at all intermarried and he met a rabbi and he started getting into Judaism and almost like in spite of himself he became completely religious and when he did he took out a full-page ad in New York Times whatever that costed in those days was in the middle you know this in the 80s you know this is Reagan's economy The Wall Street in the 80s and he took out a big full-page ad in New York Times the big letters just said call me Zalman he's not going by Sandford anymore he's going his name is Solomon hiam call me Solomon and he told the whole Wall Street that's it so just by saying just by using a Jewish name call me Solomon that said everything that it needed to say that was the message a Jewish name speaks volumes speaks infinity so now let's let's talk about let's return to our question you remember our original question we're in the second of the five books of Moses and in English it's called Exodus which is a very obviously fitting title because it's a book about Exodus it's about it's a book about the Jews going down into Egypt and coming out how come in Hebrew it's called the Ailish mice now you could say oh because that's the first unique word of the first verse no it's not just that it's not happenstance not convenience not Convention the book is called mice because if you want to know the secret to preserving Jewish identity even intimates volume even in Egypt even in the darkest exile you want to know the secret mice the aylesh mice been a throw these are the names of the Jews these are the Jewish names that as long as the Jews had their identity they would be able to be redeemed you think about it like this 210 years the Jews are in exile in Egypt in a in a world totally antithetical to their own values after 210 years how can we expect there to even be a Jewish people left to redeem okay God comes he wants to send his redeemer sending Moses to take the Jews out well how do we know there even are anymore Jews assimilation can take place very rapidly over two centuries and yet the secret is the English mice benissa know they had their names we bring it down a little bit when we want to reach out to a Juke when we want to wake up a Jew what do we do we don't tell the Jew how important Judaism is we don't sell the Jew on the importance of mitzvahs we tell the Jew how Jewish he is which is partially why I think so many it's just a fact so many thousands tens of thousands of Jews in our generation have returned to Jewish observance based on a question excuse me sir or excuse me ma'am are you Jewish I remember when I was a Sheva Bukka Friday afternoons they would close up the Shiva and I would go stand out in front of Columbia University in between Columbia and JT s that was my spot and for a couple of hours every at of Shabbos at Santa with my Trillin and with the tea lights the Shabbos candles and the Shabbos candle lighting guys excuse me sir excuse me ma'am are you Jewish are you Jewish who are you you know there's an expression it's not what you know it's who you know that's exactly true when it comes to Judaism it's not what you know it's who you know or maybe we should put it more like this it's knowing who you are as long as the jun knows who he or she is everything's gonna be okay and therefore if I were to ask you what's the most important concept in Judaism what's the most important idea not philosophically what's the biggest idea I'm saying practically speaking what is the one idea that must be preserved before all else is it monotheism is it the divinity of the Torah is it the coming of the Messianic era and I would say all of these are indispensable to Judaism you don't have Judaism without any of these ideas you need all of these ideas for Judaism but you know what if there are no Jews oh what's what's gonna be with Judaism that's to preserve Judaism but how do you preserve the Jews the Jews have to know that they're Jews so the most important idea is Jewish identity and when Jews have a Jewish self-concept a Jewish name then Judaism is preserved then Judaism is alive so that's it that's that's that that's our lesson the Ailish miss Benet you throw a bomb it's Naima you have to know who you are you have to know who who your parents are you know you throw is an acronym to Russia Tavis you'd seen Raisch Aleph lammott it's not just a reference to Jacob whose name was also youth role or Israel but it's a reference to all of our fathers and our mothers yeah they're all included in that one name because the yard is Y it's yank if the sin is surah the rash is rifki and Rahel the Aleph is Avraham and the LA mid is Leia so in the word you throw you have all of our holy patriarchs and matriarchs in other words you have the entire idea of the golden chain of the Jewish people that reaches back to our very origins Ailish makes Bonet you saroja boy um it's Naima that when you know who you are you know who your parents are you know who your grandparents are you know your origins you know your identity your true identity like a Stoker who preserved her identity because of a Jewish name and was able to come back to Jewish observance and to raise Jewish children and grandchildren because she had a Jewish name so that that's a lesson for all of us we have to know we have to be clear about our Jewish identity when you're talking also about the tenor of our children how we educate our children what do we educate them primarily most important thing we need to teach them they are Jews teach them who they are the whole Judaism isn't applicable to them until they know that they're the Jews so first and foremost tell your children how do if they are and tell them that is the essence of who they are and that their deepest identity deeper than anything else is the fact that they are Jews and that they are children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Leah and when they have that then everything else falls into place and the same with ourselves in other words what's your New York Times full-page ad what's your call me Zalman what's your statement to yourself and to the world that your Jewish identity is the core of who you are there are many different ways that we look at ourselves how we describe ourselves this is my job maybe that's one way this is my my age this is my my nationality this is something that I'm an expert in these are all ways of describing ourselves and we might identify with some of these things to a certain extent or to a larger extent but our core identity when you get to the bottom of it Who am I Who am I Who am I I am a Jew I have my Jewish identity and when that is intact Ailish maurice Mineiro then we can go into a mitzrayim and we can come back out