What's Your Name, Again?

By Rabbi Joshua ( multi-facetedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

At the end of parshas Noach, we are informed about the family of Terach, and the marriage of two of his three sons, Nachor and Avram, we are told, took wives. The name of Avram's wife was Sarah, and the name of Nachor's wife was Milkah, the daughter of Haran, who was the father of Milkah and Yiskah. Rashi says that Yiskah was actually the same person as Sarai, and that the name Yiskah was takne fromthe word 'sacha,' which means 'to see, because she saw with the holy spirit, and becasue everyone looked at her beauty. Rashi also says tat yiskah has the connotation of 'nesichs,' or nobility, a caharactertic trait that sarah also possessed. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt'l, , in the third volume of his Kol Ram, asks why she is ultimately known only as Sarah, which has only one meaning, that of being a ruler over others, rather than by the name Yiskah, which has three separate meanings, as Rashi points outHe answers that, actually, being known by one name, with one meaning, is a greater accomplishment than being known by a name that has multiple meanings.Wouldn't it be bettter t use a name that implies more kinds of praise?

Rav Moshe zt'l, answers that when someone is still young, he is praised for many things, so that he will be encouraged to grow. Once he has gotten older, however,and accomplished many praise-worthy things, he is known by only one name, having achieved much in his life, and not requiring the kind of encouragement he needed when he was young. The editor of Kol Ram notes that Rav Moshe said this in 1979, in a celebration held in connection with the wedding of one of his grandsons, Hillel Tendler. While the groom is given many praises when he gets married, he said, when he gets older, he should be known by one name, which encompasses his entire personality. I believe that what Rav Moshe was saying is that a person should strive to have an integrated personality, so that he only needs one name, a name that encapsulated in one word who he really is, and what he represents.

Actually, what Rav Moshe said at his grandson's wedding was said about him by his distinguished and devoted student, Rav Nisson Alpert, zt'l, when he spoke at Rav Moshe's funeral in 1986. Rav Alpert said that different Torah scholars are distinguished by their erudition in different tractates or orders of the Talmud, or for different, specific character traits in which they excelled. In this way, they are, in a sense, somewhat disprportionate in their gestalt, with one part of their scholarship or personality appearing being greater than the other, just as a person with specific physical attribute appears a bit strange in that the entire body does not appear as an integrated whole. Rav Moshe, however, was great in everything, in terms of his erudition as well as his personalty. Everything fit together, and, therefore, he did not appear unusual in any way. This, I believe, is what Rav Moshe meant in his remarks about Sarah, and in the message he gave to his grandson in 1979.

Interestingly, Rav Moshe's cousin, Rav Yosef Dov soloveitchik, zt'l, as brought in Man of aith in the Modern World also known as Reflections of the Rav, volume 2), pps. 88-89,said something similar in regard to Sarah, in explaining a well- known Rashi in the beginning of parshas Chayei Sarah. The Torah tells us there that the lifetime of Sarah was' one hundred years and twenty years and seven years,' and ends the verse by saying,' the years of the life of Sarah.' Rashi explains that all of her years were equally good. When she was one hundred yeas old she was like a twenty- year old, in regard to sin, in taht just as a twenty year old has not sinned, because punishment from heaven only begins at age twenty, so, too, at age one hundred, Sarah had not sinned. In addition, when Sarah was twenty, she was as a seven year old in terms of her beauty. Rav Soloveitchik explained that what Rashi is suggesting is that Sarah carried with her, into each successive stage of life, the positive characteristics of the previous stage, so that all three stages of life, childhood, youth and adulthood, were, ultimately, integrated within her personality. This is waht the word sarah, according to Rav Moshe, zt'l, implies- an integration of the different positive traits that Sarah developed throughout the different stages of her life.