Jewish audio on chabad.org. This class is presented by Rabbi Leibel Schapiro. Rabbi Leibel Schapiro, a noted Talmudic scholar, is the dean of the ישיבה גדולה Rabbinical College of Greater Miami, the rabbi of Congregation בית מנחם, and a community leader in Miami Beach, Florida. As we just heard, the topic is, what's in a name? What is the idea of a name? When we talk about names, in truth there are two kinds of names that we're able to talk about. We could talk about names concerning a general species, a general kind, like for instance, a human being is called an adam. That's a name. An ox is called a שור. In Hebrew it's an ox. A horse is called a סוס. So these are names, but names of a general kind. And then we have names of an individual person. This person is called משה, this person is called אהרן, etc. etc. And we find in sefarim the explanation of what is behind the name that is concerning a general kind, and we find in sefarim what's behind the name concerning an individual person. And we are able to learn one from another because whatever is written concerning the general name also applies to individual name, and also whatever is concerning the individual name applies to the general kind. But obviously we have to apply it in the proper way. We'll start first with a name concerning the general kind, concerning a certain category. And that we find starting from the Chumash. In Chumash it says, that's why I opened the Chumash: ויצר ה׳ אלקים מן האדמה, this is a pasuk in פרשת בראשית, ויצר ה׳ אלקים מן האדמה כל חית השדה ואת כל עוף השמים, ה׳ created from the earth all the animals of the field, all the birds of the sky, ויבא אל האדם לראות מה יקרא לו, and He brought them to adam, to אדם הראשון, to the first human being, to see what he will call them. וכל אשר יקרא לו האדם, whatever name the adam the man אדם הראשון gave him, נפש חיה הוא שמו, the life of this living thing, that's his name. On this pasuk the Midrash says that first Hashem came to the malachim, to the angels, and He asked them if they are able to name the different kinds of things that we have. And it says they weren't able. They weren't able to name the different species, the different kinds of animals, the different kinds of birds. Then finally Hashem brought all the animals and all the birds to the human being, to אדם הראשון, and the pasuk says that he called them the names. And Hashem said to אדם הראשון, I mean to the malachim: Look, חכמתו גדולה מחכמתכם, his chochmah, his wisdom is greater than your wisdom, and he's smarter than you. He was able to give them names while you weren't able. Many of the mefarshim ask, what's so hard about giving a name? Why is this a great chochmah of אדם הראשון to give them a name? And why couldn't the malachim do it? The malachim could have decided anything. Bring over an ox and call him cloth, that'll be his name. Bring over a horse and call him beam and it'll be his name. You could make up anything. What's so hard about making up a name? Why did Hashem, why first couldn't they do it and why did Hashem say: Look, חכמתו, his chochmah is greater than your chochmah, there must be some special chochmah in giving a name. So the mefarshim explain, the Ramban on Chumash explains and the Shlah, Shlah Hakadosh goes into this at length, and he says that the concept of a name is not just a decision that these and these words will be the name of this and this thing. It doesn't work that way. A real name means that this is the source of life for this thing that has this name. In other words, we know that every living thing, bichlal everything in this world has a source, a שורש, a source in the higher world in שמים, in heaven. And the chayut, the life that is given to everything in this world comes from its source in heaven. The name is the צינור, is so to speak the pipe, is the wire through which the chayut, the life comes down. And that's what the pasuk says: וכל אשר יקרא לו האדם נפש חיה הוא שמו, that whatever the Adam Harishon called, whatever animal it was, the name was נפש חיה, that was its life. In other words, the name represents the source of life of every object that has a certain name. And that is in one of the few things. It's Or in the meaning of the word, that the word that is the name of the object or of the animal has a certain meaning which fits to the life that is going to be given to this animal, or it is in the letters of the word of this name, that these letters specifically, the meaning of the letters, fits to this animal or to this object, or sometimes even the shape of the letters have a connection to the life force that is given to this thing. For instance, שור. He calls an ox a שור. The word שור has a specific connection to an ox. The letters ש, ו, ר in Hebrew has a special connection to an ox. The shape of the letters ש, ו, ר have a special connection to an ox. Not not necessarily do we know how. Certain things we could figure out, certain things we can't. But definitely these letters of this name, they are the ones that represent the source of this object of this animal, and the life force that is given to this animal goes through the צינור, the pipe of this name. Let's use an example: Adam. Adam is the name that is given to the human being. So the word Adam actually describes what a human being is. And that we find in Chumash. In Chumash it says in Bereishit, why did Hashem call him Adam? So the pasuk explains, כי מאדמה לוקח זאת, because he was taken from the ground. How was a human being made? Hashem made a form of a human being in the ground, and then it says ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים, he blew a life, a neshamah of life into this person, and then it made him alive. So the person started from the ground. That's why he's called Adam. In different place, actually in Shlah it says, why is a person called Adam? For a different reason, which is an opposite reason. It comes from the word אדמה לעליון. Adam comes from the word אדמה. אדמה לעליון means I will compare myself to the above. This is an expression that Nevuchadnetzar said. He said to Hashem, I am compared to Hashem. And an Adam is called Adam from the word אדמה לעליון. And here we have two opposite meanings in the word Adam. On one hand, Adam means כי מאדמה לוקח זאת, he came from the ground. And here we have Adam, אדמה לעליון, he's connected to the top, to above. And the emet is, the truth is, that because of these both meanings, that's why a person is called אדם. Because we know that a human being is made up of the highest levels and the lowest levels. He is made up, it says, מעליונים ותחתונים. He is the lowest of all creatures, that is the truth. The way the human being was created, he was created as the lowest of all creatures. All other animals were created alive. A behemah, an animal, was created to begin with, a live animal. A human being was first a piece of mud, which other animals were not. So he was created in the lowest form. On the other hand, the nefesh, the life force that a human being has is much greater, comes from the highest levels. And we're not even talking about a neshamah, a נפש האלוקית, the godly soul that a Yid has, which is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, which is part of Hashem. But even of a regular human being, a non-Jew also has a nefesh, a life force which is greater, higher than the nefesh of any other living thing that exists. So he has עליונים and he has תחתונים, he has the highest and the lowest, and that's why he's called אדם. So the word אדם expresses what the human being is. It also says that the word אדם is made up of three letters, א, ד, מ, and these three letters describe actually what a human being is. Because the way a human being is able to express himself different than other creatures is that he has מחשבה, דיבור, ומעשה: thought, speech, and action. The three letters א, ד, מ actually express these three. The דלת is an abbreviation of the word dibbur, speech. The מם is an abbreviation of the word maaseh, action. And the אלף, it says in sefarim, is machshavah, is thought. Since in the thought, in the machshavah of the person, there we have the first level of words. Where is the first level in the person where words start forming? Not in the dibbur, not in the speech. It's in the machshavah, in the thought. Even though in the machshavah of a person we do not feel the words. When we think about something we feel the thought, but not the words. Actually the expression in Chassidut is the idea shines rather than the words. When we speak, we actually feel words. But nevertheless, there are words already in machshavah. And that's why אלף, which is the first letter of the אלף בית, represents the beginning of where words form, which is machshavah. So א, ד, מ represents מחשבה, דיבור, ומעשה. And that's why A person is called אדם, and many, many explanations why a person is called אדם. But the same is concerning a shor, why an ox is called a shor, and a horse is called a sus, etc., etc. The word, the name, which the words of the name, they show what the object is. They show on what the source is, and they show on the way the chayut comes, the life comes from above into this object. And this is concerning a general species.

The same applies concerning every individual person, the individual name that a person has. It says, like it says נפש חיה הוא שמו, the name of a person represents the chayut, the life the person gets from above, from Hashem. It has a connection to the person's shoresh, to the person's source. We actually find it also in Chumash. It says, why was she called Chava, which is her name? So the pasuk says, היא היתה אם כל חי, because she was the mother of all living things, which means all living human beings of all later generations. So she was called Chava. The pasuk says concerning the first thing, concerning the general kind, just like we said about Adam, it says לזאת יקרא אשה, why is she called isha, a woman has a name isha? כי מאיש לוקחה זאת, because she came from the man, she came from the person, from the man's side. But this again shows from the pasuk that the name has a connection to the, in this case, to the kind, or by an individual, has a connection to what the individual is. And that's what it says in sefarim, that the name of a person is connected to the source, the shoresh of the chayut of the person. It brings down the life to the person. It also indicates of all, it indicates all the future things that will happen to this person, and the name also shows the characteristics of the person. It says in a Midrash that our generations are not like the earlier generations. The Midrash says that. Well, the Midrash was written about 2,000 years ago, so the Midrash already 2,000 years ago complained that our generations in that time are not like the early, earlier generations. The earlier generations, it says, when a person would name a child, he would name the child because he would see what the child is. He would name the child based on the future things that will happen to the child. That's how great the people were, they were able to see. Now, it says, people are not that great, so you name a child after a grandfather, a grandmother, a קרוב, a relative, after somebody. But nevertheless, the Arizal writes that when you name a child, it's a נבואה קטנה, it's a small, a miniature prophecy, because Hashem puts into the head of the parents to decide which name to give based on the shoresh, the root, the source of the life of this person, of this child, based on the qualities of the child, and based on the things that will happen to the child. It's a nevuah. They say a story that once a chasid came, I think it was to the Rabbi' Shalom Belzer, I'm not sure, I think it was the Rabbi' Shalom Belzer. He said, \"I had a child, and I want to name him, and since I ask the Rebbe before I do anything, I want to ask the Rebbe, tell me, what name shall I give my child?\" So the Rebbe says to him, \"I don't understand you. What you're doing now is a very foolish thing.\" He says, \"You know, a Rebbe has ruach hakodesh, has the holy spirit, has prophecy always. A chasid hardly ever has a chance to have ruach hakodesh. Here, a few times in a lifetime, you have a chance to have ruach hakodesh. If you're going to name your child, that will be ruach hakodesh, and you want to give it away to me too? Keep it for yourself!\" And he wouldn't tell him. By the Rebbe, we know many times when people would ask the Rebbe what name to give a child, he wouldn't tell. Decide yourself. And the decision usually is based on a grandfather, grandmother, somebody a tzadik, a relative, but it doesn't mean that there's no indication of what the child is. So it says that the child's name shows is the source of chayut that brings the chayut on that, is the צינור, and it also shows on the qualities of the child. And we find this in Chumash many, many times. And I marked down here some of the places, the sources in Chumash. For instance, by Yaakov, it says, why was Yaakov called Yaakov? Because when he was born, וידו אוחזת בעקב עשו, his hand was holding on to the heel of Esav. Akev means a heel. So he was named because of what happened then. But what it really means is that when he was holding on to the heel of Esav, Rashi says, why did he hold on? Because he wanted to come out first. Why did he come out first, want to come out first? Because he claimed that he really was the first, which, according to what it says in sefarim, in shoresh he was higher, so he should have been first. So the name Yaakov represents that he was in shoresh higher. And later on, when he took away the berachot from Yitzchak, from Esav, Yitzchak gave him the berachot, and Esav complained, what did Esav say? \"Is the reason you called him יעקב ויעקבני זה פעמים, because he cheated me twice?\" The word Yaakov comes from the word akev, which means cheating. And he says, First he cheated me out of the bechorah, my firstborn rights when he got me to sell it to him, and now he cheated me out of the berachot. So he right away knew, Esav understood, that he was given a name because it showed on something that's going to happen later. And it davka says in sefarim that the avodah of Yaakov shows on a certain avodah of cheating the yetzer hara. That's what Yaakov's avodah was. He cheated Lavan, he cheated the yetzer hara. He was the real epitome of truth. Pasuk says תתן אמת ליעקב. Yaakov has the middah of emet. But he did it in a way of cheating the yetzer hara and cheating Esav and cheating Lavan. That's an important way of getting kedushah away from the kelipah, from the yetzer hara. So that's why he was called Yaakov. So here we see that the name that was given to him was because of something that later on happened to him. We find in Tanach, in Shmuel, the story of David Hamelech, that when David was running away from Shaul, and he stopped in a place and he wanted food, so he sent his officers to go to a person called Nabal to get food, and he wouldn't give him. And later the this person's wife came, Avigail, and she brought food. And when David spoke to her, he said about Nabal, he said כשמו כן הוא, he is like his name, נבל שמו ונבלה עמו. He is Nabal, Nabal means disgusting. The word נבל means disgusting. His name is disgusting, and he is disgusting. So again, here we see that this shows. Sometimes we even find more, that a name not only is given because it expresses what the person is, sometimes it said a name causes a certain characteristic in a person. And I will quote what it says in Tanchuma, in the Midrash Tanchuma it says, לעולם יבדוק אדם בשמות יקרא לבניו. A person should always be careful the name he gives to his child. כי לפעמים השם גורם טוב, אי גורם רע. Because sometimes a name can cause good, and sometimes a name can cause bad. If you give a name after a rasha, it could cause bad, chas v'shalom, it could bring out a bad characteristic in a person. If you give a name after a tzaddik, it could bring out a good characteristic in the person, a good midah in the person. We find a story in Yoma, in Gemara Yoma, the Gemara says about a person who was called Doeg, Doeg ben Yosef. Now Doeg was the name of a rasha, and this child was called Doeg. And his father seems like passed away when he was young, and his mother would weigh him every day, and whatever he gained, any weight he gained, that amount she would give to the Beit HaMikdash. Nu, a tzadeket of a woman, imagine! But when it came to the חורבן בית המקדש, guess what she did? She slaughtered him and ate him. That was the situation. And the Gemara quotes a pasuk where it says that even נשים רחמניות, pitiful mothers, will come a time when they will eat children. And the Gemara says, why did that happen? Because his name was Doeg. Now it doesn't mean it was a punishment for giving the name, because if it would be a punishment, the punishment should have been given not to the child, but to the parents. It brought about, this was brought, I don't want to use the word mazal, but this brought to the child a mazal which was not good, so it came because of the name. You have to the, having the Midrash says that you should be careful which name you give. The Beit Yosef writes in the Sefer Magid Meisharim, this is a very interesting sefer, this sefer was written by the Beit Yosef, things that he learned with a malach. The Beit Yosef, the one that wrote the Shulchan Aruch, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, he had a teacher, a malach, actually a malach from heaven came and learned with him. And what the malach taught him, he wrote down in a sefer and he called it Magid Meisharim. The malach was called a maggid. And in the Sefer Magid Meisharim, the the the Beit Yosef writes that all people who are called Avraham have a נטיה, have a certain inclination of doing chesed like Avraham Avinu. All those people who are called Yosef, he says, has this have the middah, the ability of fighting the yetzer hara when it comes to עריות, when it comes to aveirot of adultery, just like Yosef fought his yetzer hara against the wife of Potifar. Or he said, those people who are called Yosef have the ability of feeding other people, because Yosef was the one that fed the whole world. So he writes clearly that if a person's name is Avraham, there is some characteristic of Avraham that in this person. Actually the Nefesh HaChaim, Rav Rav Chaim Volozhiner writes something similar to what the Beit Yosef writes in the Magid Meisharim. Then there is a Gemara in Berachot where the Gemara says, מנלן דשמא גרים? Where do we know that a name could have an effect? And the Gemara quotes a פסוק, לכו חזו מפעלות ה׳ אשר שם שמות בארץ, אל תקרי שמות אלא שמות, that because of a name, this could have an effect. Then there is a Gemara in Sotah, the Gemara says that the meraglim, the spies, and we look in the Chumash the names of the spies, that all their names represent And then the evil deed that they did. And the Gemara says we don't really know how. Two of them the Gemara says, for instance, just to use one example, one of them is S'tur ben Michael was the name of one of the spies. So the Gemara says סתור means destroying, לסתור, to destroy. Michael comes from the words מוך קל, he made Hashem weak. They did went against Hashem. So this all shows that the names that were given when they were born showed on things that they were going to do later on and it's possible it just caused them to do it. It says in Chumash that when Yaakov had the fight with the malach, the malach asked him, \"What's your name?\" So the Me'evar Yabok writes, why did he ask him what's your name? Because through the name, he would be able to see what is with Yaakov Avinu. Because of that, some people write, which is not accepted really, that you should never change the name of a person. We know that when a person is, God forbid, sick, we change his name because the name changes the mazal. Some write not to do it, because you're tampering with different higher worlds, because the name has something special, some special meaning. Elimelech and Naomi, we know the story of Rut. Elimelech and Naomi were called, it says in the Midrash, Elimelech is אלי מלך, that to me will come the king. And we see taka later from Rut, who was a relative, came David HaMelech. Naomi was called Naomi because it comes from the word geshmak. נועם, נועם means geshmak. And that's why when she came and they said this is הזאת נעמי, she said don't call me Naomi anymore, because my life is bitter. But the name Naomi was because she was that way. Betzalel, the one that made the Mishkan, why was he called Betzalel? So it says that when Moshe Rabbeinu came down, Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to him and he told him that Hashem said he should make the Mishkan. So first he told him make the aron, the ark, and make the table, and make the mizbeach, and then he told him to make the Mishkan. So he says to Moshe, \"I don't understand. Is that the order of things? First you make the furniture, then you make the house? You make the furniture, where are you going to put it? First you have to make a house, and then you make the furniture.\" So he says, \"Are you sure that's what Hashem said? Didn't Maybe Hashem said first make the Mishkan and then make the kelim?\" And Moshe said to him, \"You're right. That's actually what Hashem said. בצל קל היית, you were in the shadow of Hashem, as if you were standing there when Hashem spoke to me.\" So his name was Betzalel because of בצל קל היית. So from all this we see from, and there are many, many other sources in Gemara concerning Mordechai, the Gemara says why was he called Mordechai? Why was he called Mordechai ben Shimi ben Kish? All the different names that the Gemara constantly and מדרשים דרש'ס explains their names according to things that happened to a person or according to the type of person that these people were. Ruth, for instance, why was she called Ruth? Because she had a grandson שריוה that had woven shirim, praises to Hashem, so she was called Ruth because of that. So here we see not only is it important for the person himself or herself, but it even means sometimes something that will happen to the grandchildren. That's how important a name is. So basically, what we're saying here is that a name that is given to a person is very important. It, as it says concerning the name Adam or anything else, concerning even the animals, the general name of a kind, and the same is concerning an individual name, that it has a connection to the שורש הנשמה, to the root of the נשמה, the source of the נשמה, and the chayut comes down in this world through the name. Also it has to do with things that might happen to the person and to the quality, the characteristics of a person. Sometimes the person has it, and sometimes it makes the person have it.

Now, one of the ways we see that a name is connected to the essence of the person is by the fact that sometimes when a person faints and you can't revive him, the only way to revive the person is by calling him by his name. That's what it says in sefarim and I believe it's בדוק ומנוסה, it's been tried out. Sometimes they try, they push him, they try to revive him, nothing helps. But if you whisper the name into his ear, he'll wake up. Now it doesn't mean because you woke him up because you spoke loud. You could scream, you could put on the music, it won't help. But if you whisper his name into his ear, he'll wake up. What is the reason for that? Because the name is able to reach into the essence of the נשמה. And let me explain it. What's the idea of fainting? How do we look at a concept of fainting? And I'm not saying it from a medical point of view because I don't know, but I'm just saying it from what the Torah says, from what sefarim say. The idea of fainting is like this: a person has a nefesh, has a life. Again, we're not talking here about the נפש אלוקית, the godly soul. A life. Every human being has a source of life. Now that source of life contains all kinds of powers and abilities. For instance, in the source of life we have the ability of seeing. What happens is that power of sight comes out from the source of life and enters into the eye. The ability of hearing enters into the ear, the ability of understanding enters into the brain, of feeling enters into the heart. So every part of the body takes out a certain koach, a certain power, from that source of life. When a person faints, what happens? His source of life, his power of life is still there. The proof is, he's still alive, he didn't die. So he's alive. But what's there, we call it the חיות כללי, the general life is there. What's missing is the specific powers that have to come and enter into every individual part of the body, that doesn't happen. For some reason it doesn't function, it didn't come. What happened, for some reason, the kochos that came into the different individual part of the body went back to its source, and they are now back in the עצם הנפש, in the essence of your life. If you want to revive the person, what you have to actually do is, you have to bring back all these kochos from the source of life, life the way it's in that נקודה דחיות, in that חיות כללי, that general life, and you have to draw it from there and bring it back, it should start working in we call the כחות הגלויים, in the revealed part of the person. So he'll be able to see, he'll be able to hear, he'll be able to understand, etc., etc. So when we want to revive the person, we have to do something to reach to that source of life, because if we're going to reach anything further than that, we won't accomplish anything, because in the level of the כחות הגלויים, the level where the chayut, the life comes into individual parts, that part is missing, so we can't accomplish. What we have to do is go back to the source and take it back. So if we say that by calling a person by the name, we are able to revive the person, that means that by calling the person by the name, we reach, we touch that level of the עצם הנפש, and therefore we are able to bring out the kochos, these different powers, back into its place. And that revives the person. Now he's able to see, now he's able to hear, he's able to understand. So that shows that when you call a person by his name, you touch the עצם הנפש. You touch the עצם of the person. We see something else, when you call a person by his name, he will turn around. Not part of him will turn around, the whole person will turn around. That means that this is called the עצם, the essence, the person himself is, turns around and answers, relates to you, to the name that he's called. Sometimes you have a person preoccupied, he's thinking about all kinds of things, and you could push him and you, and he won't, won't listen. But when you call him by his name, he'll turn around, because when you call him by his name, it affects his essence. It's similar to a story told by the Alter Rebbe that once the Tzemach Tzedek, when he was a little boy, his grandson, was sitting on his lap, and he was saying: zeyde, zeyde! So the Alter Rebbe says: Vu iz der zeyde? Where is the zeyde's? So he points to the Alter Rebbe's nose. The Alter Rebbe says: No, that's the zeyde's nose. So he points to his ear: No, that's the zeyde's ear. Where is the zeyde? So he jumps off, goes out door, and then opens the door and screams: zeyde! The Alter Rebbe turned around. He says: Aha, this is the zayde! Because he turned around with the whole, the whole person turned around, the whole being. And the same thing is when you talk, when you call a person by his name, that makes the whole person turn around. So this all shows that the name is connected to the etzem of the person. Now, on the other hand, we have to know that a name is really not essentially part of the person. The best proof is a person could live without a name. Before you give the child a name, he's still, is also alive, and it's possible for a person to live all alone and he wouldn't even need a name. The only reason a person needs a name is in order for other people to call him, for other people to refer to him, but the person on his own could live without a name. So that, on the other hand, shows that the name is not a real important part of the person's essential life. But the truth is like this: it is not the essence of the person. What it is, it is that thing that connects the essence with the giluy. That is that part that connects the shoresh, the root above, the source of the person, to the kochos, to the person, to the person's working in the person's nefesh in his guf. The person has two, every person has the nefesh itself, his life, and then you have the way that nefesh is important to live a normal life. So the kesher, the chibur, the connection that's there between the source and the way a person is able to exist and live, that's what the name is. As we see from what I quoted before in the Midrash, when the Midrash said that Adam Harishon was able to call them by name, why? Because he saw their shoresh. The malachim couldn't do it. The question is, why not? The malachim are closer to the shoresh than Adam, Adam is down here, the malachim are up there. And the shoresh, the root, the source of everything, is in higher worlds. So therefore, why didn't they see? The pshat is not that they didn't see. What you need to see in order to give the right name is you have to see the The connection that's there between the way it's in the shoresh and the way it's down here in order to function. That's the idea of a name. A name has both ends. On one hand, it's connected to the essence of the person, as we said before. On the other hand, it's not the essence for itself, but the essence in order to function. You can't You could exist and live without a name, but you can't function normally without a name. So the name is that that connects the etzem, the etzem in the neshamah, the etzem in the shoresh, in the source, to the way a person will function outwardly in the way a person has to live. And that's what the malachim couldn't do. See, the malachim, being that they're in higher worlds, they saw the shoresh. For instance, it says the shoresh, the root of the ox is the shor of the merkavah. In the merkavah, in the chariot of Hashem, you have a shape, פני שור. The malachim saw it faster than Adam Harishon. But they couldn't relate how the shoresh could come down here. That's what they couldn't do. Adam Harishon, since, as we said before, he's made up from עליונים ותחתונים, from the highest and the lowest, he's able to see that combination. So Adam Harishon was able to give the name. So in other words, the name has all the things we said before. But at which point? It is the point of bringing all the inyanim, the things the way they are, into the body, into the person's normal life and normal way of functioning and existing. And that's what the Midrash says, that the earlier generations, people who gave a name their children would see all this. They would see the shoresh, and they would see what to do, what names to give, to connect that shoresh to the person. And that would also express the things that will happen to the person, express the different characteristics of the person, and that would also sometimes cause the person to have certain characteristics. But they would see it. But later generations, people can't see it, but we know it's there. Rabbi Meir, it says in the Gemara, was able to see it. It says רבי מאיר מדייק בשמא. Rabbi Meir would make would be careful in a name. The Gemara tells a story, Rabbi Meir came to with other chachamim, he had to stay over at night in a hotel. So before he took the room, he asked the owner, \"What's your name?\" And the owner said, \"My name is Kidor.\" So he tells the chachamim, \"I'm not staying here.\" So he left. The other chachamim didn't care. They stayed. That night, he robbed them all. And Rabbi Meir like, \"You see, I told you.\" So they asked him, \"How did you know?\" Says, \"Well, his name was Kidor. There's a pasuk in Chumash that says כי דור תהפוכות המה, that they are a turned-over generation. This is part of the curses, a part of the negative things that Hashem says about the Yidden that will happen later. So the word Kidor,\" he says, \"is a name that represents negativity, and therefore,\" he says, \"I was afraid.\" Now, it doesn't mean that if a person has a name which shows a certain trait, it forces the person to be that way, because Rabbi Meir himself said, \"I'm not saying that he has to be that way, but at least there is some kind of a feeling that a person has to a certain thing, and that could be or because of the name, or the name showed what he really had.\" Now, we don't know exactly what Rabbi Meir saw, but it was Rabbi Meir was able to see, and it's only Rabbi Meir. It says that Rabbi Meir was special. Rabbi Meir could see things which other chachamim couldn't see. His name actually is, and if we're talking about names, Rabbi Meir's name was Meir. Meir means it shines. And the Gemara also says his real name was not even Meir. His near real name was Nehorai, which in Aramaic means to shine, לשון נהורא, אור. So he was able to see by him things shine. It says in the Gemara that in the Sefer Torah of Rabbi Meir on a pasuk in Chumash Bereishit, Parashat Bereishit, where Torah says that Hashem made כותנות עור, he made a a belt of skin of leather for Adam vaChava. So עור is spelled ע-ו-ר. That means leather. In the Sefer Torah of Rabbi Meir, it says אור with an אלף. Whatever that's to mean, because it's a question, how is a ספר תורה כשר with that wrong word? Mefarshim talk about it. But the idea is that it was or with an alef. עור with an ayin means skin, leather, which blocks the light. By him, everything shined. The Gemara says in Eruvin that in truth, Rabbi Meir's way of learning and understanding was deeper than all the other חכמים. But the halachah is not like him. The חכמים didn't agree to him in many halachot, and the reason is because לא ירדו חכמים לסוף דעתו של רבי מאיר. They couldn't understand him, how deep he was. So Rabbi Meir, who was so deep, he was able to see in the names really what the name represents. Other חכמים, even the חכמים couldn't see it. But the fact is that it's there, that in the name we have all the different things that I mentioned before, and they're all brought out in a name. And that's why it says you have to be very careful what kind of name you give a child, because the name could mean a lot. It says that a name even has a special connection between the parents and the child. Being that a name is so ential, and the connection between the parent and the child is essential, therefore we find an interesting thing, that sometimes when a parent starts feeling, it's an arousal of love to a child, the way to express it is by mentioning the child's name. Start thinking, and you say, ach, Moshele, Moshele. And that, it says in sefarim, is deeper than another, other ways of showing affection. If you give a present, well, the present is limited. It depends how much money you have, it depends how old the child is, it's limited to different things, so if it's limited, it shows it's not really essential. Even when you give a child a kiss, the child has to be awake. There's a certain type of kiss when a child is sleeping, but that's a different kiss. Must be awake to feel it, generally. But to call it, to mention the child's name as a form of an expression of love to the child, the child could be overseas, and you could be here, and you just start mentioning the child's name. It's similar to what Rashi says in Chumash, that how come Hashem mentioned the names of the שבטים many times? מתוך חיבתן, because He loves them He mentioned their names. Because mentioning a name shows love, and by a parent to a child, that's more than by anybody else. Why? Because the name shows the etzem, but not the etzem in itself like we said before, but the etzem the way you take from the etzem and bring out into the כוחות הגלויים it was called, into the revealed parts of the person, and into the connection to others, but it's taking the etzem, and the child and the parent has a connection to the etzem. That's why the Gemara says יפה כח הבן מכח האב, that sometimes we find a child has more than a parent, even in physical things. You can have a father who God forbid, or a mother who can't see, and the child could see. The question is, how is that possible? If we know that you can't have an effect that should have more than the cause, if the parents are the cause of the child, how could the child have something that the parents don't have? The answer is very simple: like I said before, in the nefesh, every person has every ability. Every person has the ability of sight, has the ability of hearing. The only thing is, sometimes for some reason, it doesn't come out into the keli, into the vessel which is the eyes. If a person can't see, the eyes do not receive that koach, but the koach, the power, is there in the nefesh. The child takes from a parent not the כוחות הגלויים, not the revealed parts, but the etzem, and therefore the child could see, because in the child the keli the vessel of the eye is okay, and therefore it could take the sight, because it took from the father or from the mother it took the עצם הנפש. That's why it says in sefarim when it says יפה כח הבן מכח האב, that the koach, the power, of a child could be more than the father, so the expression is יפה כח הבן, one peshat is יפה כח הבן מכח האב, that the child can be stronger than, מכח, than the koach of the father, but there's a deeper pshat: יפה כח הבן, מכח האב. Where does the בן, the child, get that koach? That itself comes from the כח האב, from the koach of the father. So the connection of a child and a parent is very essential, and therefore it expresses itself through a name, because a name is something that's very essential. So what we get of all this is the importance of a name.

Now in truth, many of the things that I said before could apply not davka to a Yiddishe name, to a Hebrew name, could be to any name. And the truth is there is something in any name. You give a child a name, even not a Yiddishe name, there is something there, and this does show on certain things, and has a connection to the person's traits. It definitely is not like a lashon hakodesh, a Hebrew name, a Yiddishe name, because the Torah, lashon hakodesh and the Torah, that is holy, so there everything is much stronger. But there is something in an English name too, and that's why we all know that when people, many cases, come baalei teshuvah and they don't have a Hebrew name, and they ask to be given a Hebrew name, usually what would we do, this is what the Rebbe used to do always: ask what's your English name, and based on the English name he would give you a Hebrew name, or if it would sound the same, or it would have the same meaning. Why? Because the English name it's something. It doesn't mean we could be satisfied with the English name, we have to have Hebrew names because that is a very important thing, because that is much stronger of all the inyanim we spoke about before. That's why it says when the Yidden were in Mitzrayim, it says they kept apart of the Egyptians. What did they do? So there are three things: they didn't change their clothes, they didn't change their language, and they didn't change their names. We see in Chumash that Yosef's name was Yosef, and Paroh gave him a new name. He never again is called by that name that Paroh gave him, he kept his Hebrew name. And the Yidden in Mitzrayim kept their Hebrew names throughout the whole galut, which must must have been very hard, and the reason is because they saw what is the what's there in a Hebrew name. And that's why people are very careful, when you give a name to a child, should give a name after a tzadik, because it brings chiyut. from a higher level, it could cause the person, the child to have the characteristics of that tzadik to a certain degree. And also will show on the different midot that the tzadik had. Now whatever name a person chooses, that's min hashamayim, like I said before. But we have to do our part to choose a name which has more potential of being a name that will show great things. All this actually is taken from the names of Hashem. We know that anything that happens to people, anything that goes on down here is all taken from the way it's in Hashem. By Hashem, we also find a similar thing. We have Hashem and we have his names. Hashem has a name, not a name, he has many names. He has seven main names, שבע שבעה שמות שאינן נמחקין, there are seven holy names which you're not allowed to erase. Then there are tens of other names Hashem has: Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Ribbono Shel Olam, Hamakom, all kinds of names. But then we have the main names: י-ק-ו-ק, הוי'ה, אלקים, and קל, and and א-ד-נ-י, different names. The main two names is י-ק-ו-ק, הוי'ה, and אלקים. That's why we, when we make a berachah, we always say ברוך אתה השם אלקינו, so we use the שם השם and Elokim. Now these names are also things, names that express the connection that Hashem has to us. Hashem on his own, completely on his own, doesn't need a name. That's why we find an expression when we talk about Hashem himself. When Hashem gave us the Torah, the first word was אנכי השם אלקיך, \"I am Hashem your God.\" So the Zohar says that the word אנכי, \"I,\" means I who is beyond any name, because a name is a description. A name is a trait, a characteristic, it shows something. I am beyond that. So the Hashem essentially on his own is אנכי. Then, when he started having a connection to the world, to the people, it's already Havayah. The word Havayah already has a meaning. The meaning is to create. היה means to be, to create, but it's a level beyond creation, but the beginning of creation. That's why it's three words in one: היה הוה ויהיה כאחד, past, present, and future together. Elokim already means the way Hashem is the boss over the world. But before that is אנכי. Just like when we make a berachah, we use the same three terms. We say ברוך, then we say אתה, השם אלקינו, then we even continue מלך העולם. So it means blessed are you, who is you? Hashem himself. Then we say Havayah and then Elokeinu. So we have Hashem and we have his names. So we have Hashem essentially, and then the chiyut, the life that comes from Hashem into the world, goes through his names. That's why it says in Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer: עד שלא נברא העולם, until the world was created, היה הוא ושמו בלבד, it was only Hashem and his name. That's the first level of creation before the creation started. It already started with his name, was he, and before any connection to creation, it was only he, and then there's a level of he and his name, and then from there came creation. Because the name is like just like by a person, the name is the צינור, is that pipe, is that wire that brings down the chiyut and shows on the different things of a person. So does the name of Hashem bring down the chiyut of Hashem, the life of Hashem into the world, and it represents different things that happen to the world through Hashem. And because it's by Hashem that way, that's why by us human beings it's that way, too. Now the main thing that we take from here is the importance of a name and the importance of a Hebrew name, a Jewish name, a name which has kedushah in it, because then you cause a lot of kedushah. They tell a story that the Rebbe when he was in France, he was he studied in the university at that time in France, but once he had a farbrengen, and it was, I think it was Simchat Torah, there was a big crowd there. And during the farbrengen, the Rebbe said a lot of l'chaim and he went around the table asking everyone their name. Next year, in another farbrengen, and it were basically the same people there, and he looked at everyone and he told them, \"Your name is so-and-so,\" and he explained the connection between the name and the person. And he went around the table. They say the Rebbe's father used to do that too. There is actually a chochmah that there are people, like I said before R'' Meir could do, but there is a chochmah that people could through the names, I mean holy people could see through the names different things that could happen. So the names are that important. We have to know that when we give a name, the name has to be a name that we want the child should have. That's why a person who is, let's say, a rasha, we don't find any people called after resha'im. Don't hear anybody called Esav? Don't, what? Yishmael is an exception, but why? I believe why, because Yishmael did teshuvah. Rashi says Yishmael did teshuvah. But Esav never did teshuvah, so that's why we don't give a name after Esav. And after Yishmael we do, because Yishmael did teshuvah. But that, even that is an exception. We don't find any other, I mean, I think nowadays for some reason in Eretz Yisrael they give, Israelis give all kinds of crazy names. I heard a guy was called Nimrod. Yeah, one guy gave a name Nevuchadnetzar. A lady called me not long ago, she has a problem, what should she do? Her name that was given to her was Vashti. Yeah, she called me, what should I do? Of course, change your name! But that's definitely not the right thing to do because we don't want our children to be like Nimrod chas v'shalom, or like Vashti, or any of these people. So we have to choose good names. So names after a person counts, also the name itself has a meaning, and the name, for instance, when a person is sick and we change his name, we usually try to give him a second name Chaim, Chaim means life, or Rafael, because of the word refuah, which means cure, because the name itself has a meaning. It's not only because we change the name, the reason we change the name is because just in case the mazal was that, let's say, this guy this person's name is Mordechai, he had a bad mazal, now we'll change his name, we'll add Moshe Mordechai, it's a different mazal. It's more than that. Since we'll give him a name Chaim, that will bring chayut, because the name Chaim has a lot of meaning, and the name Rafael. And that's why we we try always these names. And בכלל, there are a lot of names that we could understand the meaning, and we try to choose such names which are after tzadikim, and names that have good meanings. But the main thing is that we have to look into the names, and when it comes to give a name, we should give a name that we feel is a holy name,