language 
Fri Jan 16, 2009 at 15:55:34 PM EST
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(great post - promoted by Mik Moore)
Shemot. Names. That’s the Hebrew title of this parsha and of the entire book of Exodus. Why? Because it starts: “Ve’ele shemot beney yisrael…” “And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, and Yehuda. Yisaschar, Zevulun, and Binyamin. Dan and Naftali, Gad and Asher.” Why doesn’t the text just say “These are the sons of Israel…?” Other lists of people in the Torah (e.g., “X begat Y”) just give the names without stating that they are names. So why does this parsha introduce the sons of Jacob with the word Shemot?
To answer this I turn to a midrash: “Rav Huna said in the name of Bar Kapara: Because of 4 things Israel was redeemed from Egypt: They did not change their names or their language, they did not speak lashon hara (evil gossip), and not one of them was promiscuous” (Vayikra Raba 32:5). Clearly, some of the rabbis considered language and names important enough that they spoke of them in the same breath as two central prohibitions: lashon hara and promiscuity. What do language and names have to do with divine redemption?
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