What's in a Name

Vayishlach: What’s in a Name?

Names in Jewish tradition express essence, destiny, and spiritual identity.

In this week’s parsha, Vayishlach we read about two profound name changes. One of Yaakov becoming Yisrael, and the second of Ben-Oni becoming Binyamin.

On the night before he meets his brother Esav, Yaakov is alone and vulnerable, unsure of what will come.

In that darkness, he wrestles with a mysterious man, thought to be an angel, until dawn.

When he refuses to release the angel without a blessing, the angel tells him, “Your name shall no longer be Yaakov, but Yisrael, for you have struggled with God and with people and prevailed.”

Yaakov means “the one who grasps the heel,”

Yisrael means “the one who wrestles with God,” the one who does not give up, the one who stays in the struggle until blessing emerges.

Yisrael becomes the name of our people with an identity as people who wrestle, who engage, who ask questions, who struggle with faith, with life, with morality, and who grow through that struggle.

We are not a people of perfection; we are a people of perseverance.

Our name itself teaches what it means to be a Jew who keeps wrestling, keeps seeking, and keeps moving toward blessing.

Later in the parsha, we read about a second naming.

Rachel dies giving birth to her second son, and with her last breath she names him Ben-Oni, “the son of my sorrow.”

It is a name of pain, of loss, of a mother seeing the pain her son will experience not having his mother alive and present to raise him.

But Yaakov immediately renames him Binyamin, “son of my right hand,” a name of strength, hope, and forward-looking blessing.

The two names of Ben-Oni and Binyamin sit side by side at the same moment.

One expresses the raw truth of grief; the other expresses the possibility of healing.

Both are real.

Both belong in the Jewish story.

Yaakov chooses to anchor his son’s identity not in tragedy, but in strength.

When we hold these two stories together, we see that names shape essence.

The way we name ourselves, our experiences, our challenges, our future matters.

Yaakov shows us that even in sorrow, even in fear, we can choose the name that leads toward life.

We can carry moments of being Ben-Oni in times of loss, fear, struggle.

But as the people of Yisrael, we also carry the identity of those who wrestle and rise, who transform pain into blessing, who rename our challenges with courage and faith.

May we be blessed to live up to the name of Yisrael, of a people who struggle honestly, who grow through challenge, and who find the strength to transform a name of sorrow into a name of hope.

Much love and Shabbat Shalom.

Elissa