Shemot. The gift of women, choosing our gaze

Why is it that in a patriarchal culture, the merit of choosing the names of the boys who were to become the twelve tribes of Israel was given to a woman?

With parashat shemot, we open the second book of the chumash, the book of shemot.

Shemot means "names", and this is not anecdotic from a jewish perspective: the name, for us, points to the essence of a being.This is why we take our time before we name a new born. 

At he beginning of the book of shemot, right after a recap of the names of the tribes, the hebrews, enslaved, will soon loose their name. When Moshe is born, it is said that he comes from the union of a “man from the tribe of levi” and “a woman from the tribe of levi”.

Moshe himself isn’t named until the daughter of Pharaoh finds him, and gives him a name.

Judaism is traditionally a patriarchal culture: a culture in which men have the power to decide things about their family and their society.

Women were meant to become mothers, and preferably to bear sons- the best way to ensure the family’s future livelihood, hence the fierce and tragic competition between the two sisters, Rachel and Lea, the two wives of Yaakov, who were willing to give their maidservants to her husband for the night so that, through these “transparent” women, each of them could have more sons.Yet there is something strange in the story.It looks like a detail, it is not.

The names of the first sons of Yaakov, Reuven, Shimon, Levi and Yehuda, these names who have become the names of our tribes- even more, the name Yehuda, which we all bear today collectively, as Jews (Yehudim), these names were given not by their father. as was the case of They were chosen but by their mother.And not only that: they were not taken out of any characteristic the child presented.

They came out of her own subjective experience, which they were meant to speak for.The experience of a woman who was, as a wife “snua”, hated by her husband.Lea’s husband Yaakov loved her younger sister and not her.

In fact he had never meant to marry her, and was tricked into this.

And Lea felt it constantly in her marriage. And God saw her.

This is why the verse told us, a few parashiot ago (bereshit 29.31)

וַיַּ֤רְא יְהֹוָה֙ כִּֽי־שְׂנוּאָ֣ה לֵאָ֔ה וַיִּפְתַּ֖ח אֶת־רַחְמָ֑הּ

And God saw that Leah was hated, and, opened her womb

And then suddenly, Lea has four sons, one after the other.

With the first, she felt God “saw” her suffering- the root of the name Reuven comes from seeing.

With the second, she felt God “heard” her prayer- the root of the name Shimon is hearing.

With the third, she felt this time her husband will be by her side -Levi comes from the verbe lelevut- to accompany someone.

With the fourth, she was ready to thank God.

This is where our name, Yehudim, comes from: from thanking the divine.

But that brings me back to my opening question: why is it, that in such a culture where women were merely there to ensure a descendance to their husband, and a possession of them, such a power of naming all of us today was given to this mother, and this neglected wife?

Precisely, according to the Hasidic Master Kedushat Levi,to teach us a very deep concept in Jewish spirituality: hashgasha pratit השגחה פרטיט

-literally supervising the details/the individuals.Hashgacha pratit is often translated as  divine providence.

To the kedushat Levi, this simple detail in the role of naming Bnei Israel is to remind us how much Life Source cares for the suffering of each of us, down to the most “insignificant” in society:

וזהו שקראו האמהות השבטים כנ"ל, להורות שהקדוש ברוך הוא הוא המשגיח על כל הנעשה בעולם התחתון 

ואין דבר הנעשה בעולם התחתון בלי רצונו יתברך. 

This is why the Matriarchs named the tribes as described above—to teach that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the One who oversees all that takes place in the lower world, and that nothing occurs in the lower world without His blessed will. 

It takes faith to see hashgacha (divine providence) in our lives when things are difficult.

But this is where human agency comes into play.

It is up to us to choose how we look at things.

Do we orient our attention on what is unfair, painful, frustrating? Do we choose to see any blessing we receive?

From this choice of orientation of our perception of our reality, from simply recognizing (lehodot) what we do have, can come gratitude (hodaya).

When, instead of focusing on what we don’t have, we choose to being grateful for what we do have, our perception of our whole life changes.

This is the secret to Happiness.

And we have it in our name, Yehudim.