Flying Letters

Names are often the first way by which we are known. We introduce ourselves, or we introduce one another and so on. Some names we are given, some we choose, some we discover. And some we earn.

In 1994, I was in Jerusalem on the beautiful campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. This was in my first year of cantorial school, and I was to sing an aliyah during the weekday Torah reading.

Someone asked my Hebrew name. Now believe it or not, I did not know my Hebrew name or if I even had one. I couldn’t text my mom, cell phones weren’t a thing back then. And they needed a name on the spot. So I asked, “What is the closest Hebrew name to Jessica?”

“Yiscah.” And that has been my Hebrew name ever since. 

Let me introduce you to another Yiscah. She only appears once in the Bible—in Genesis 11:29. She was the daughter of Haran, an older brother of Avram which would make her Avram’s niece, but later commentators understood her name to be an earlier name of Sarai. Many argue that they were one and the same person. They claim this was her name before her marriage. It would also validate the tradition that Sarah was a prophetess as Yiscah means “One who sees.”

Sarah Imeinu, our mother, had many names, and as we read this week in Chayei Sarah, she had many different lives as well. Her most famous name change was in Genesis 17:15, “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.’” 

Avram became Abraham. Sarai became Sarah. Both of them are transformed with the holiness of a hey, an essential part of God’s four letter name. But what happened to the yud from the end of Sarai? What became of this little letter?

Remember, for the sages, the letters had personalities and, yes, demands. Aleph, for instance, wanted to know why it wasn’t starting the Torah. What chutzpah! Other letters had other complaints and requests, of course. After the yud was removed from Sarah’s name, the Midrash teaches that this little yud flew up to the Throne of Glory to confront God. He had a taina, a complaint. 

“You removed me from the name of the greatest tzaddeket—the greatest righteous woman—to walk the earth! Where am I supposed to go now?” 

Hashem comforted the little yud. “I removed you as the last letter of a woman’s name, but in time you will be placed at the front of a man’s name who will lead Israel.” Who was that? Does anyone know? 

In Numbers 13:16, Moses gifted Hoshua bin Nun—Hosea—this same yud to change his name from Hoshua to Yehoshua, putting a yud in front of his existing hey and harnessing the power of the Tetragrammaton, God’s ineffable name. The yud had found its power again. 

The complaint of the yud might seem like a cute little tale on the surface, but it hides a deeper meaning. The yud wanted to be seen and understood. The yud wanted to have a purpose. The yud wanted to connect to someone or something greater than itself. Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Yeshiva University brings down the teaching that each letter of the aleph-bet has a light that is hidden. Our mystics teach that each letter is part of the hidden light of creation. Inside of us is that same light, yes—a light that at times it can seem as if no one sees or understands.

Think of it as a crossword puzzle. We see a letter here, a letter there, we may try to guess at the words. Perhaps we are correct. Sometimes, we assume and get things wrong. The wise will pause and make sure to get all the letters, the meanings, the names correct. And some will forge ahead without checking, leading to mistakes and misunderstanding. This is why it is important to know and be known.

As I taught on Rosh Hashanah, each of us has a koach, a potential deep within us. Our role in this life, and what Hashem wants from us, is to take that potential and manifest it into action, into deeds in the physical world. Each of us has a unique gift, just like the letters, and our deepest need is that until the day we pass from this world, we continue to reveal this letter, this light, this meaning within us — through our study, our teaching, our example, and our love. The letters of who we are seek to be known, understood, and celebrated. 

In the Talmud, we read of the death of Rabbi Chanina, a martyr burned alive by the Romans while wrapped in a Torah scroll for the crime of teaching Torah. They put wet wool on him to prolong his agony. He endured despite this. Eventually, his executioner removed the wool and fanned the flames, accelerating the end. 

He is one of the martyrs we traditionally read about on Yom Kippur. As he was burning, his students asked him, “Rabbi, what do you see?” 

”I see the parchment burning, its letters flying to the heavens.” 

What did he mean? One possibility is that the spirit of the Jewish people will outlast her enemies, that rabbis may die, temples may fall, but our people will live. But we also understand that the letters, the essence of our souls, transcend the physical world. We may burn. We may perish. The letters may feel locked inside. But there is a world beyond this one where our neshama is redeemed and the letters are free. Those who have tried to redefine us will fail, for they see only letters and blanks, not words or meanings.

Okay. If each of us is a Torah, what became of the letters of the six million killed and burned? Where did they go? Some say these letters are all around us by the millions, searching and waiting. We may be surrounded by their letters. 

Let us take a moment. Try to sense that.

Our task is to grab these letters by finishing the work our martyrs were unable to complete. How many stories have been left unwritten? How many insights into Torah and Talmud lost? How many poems and songs silenced? We need to finish the prayers, the learning, the songs.

How much is lost by that which we push away, that which we willfully refuse to understand?

The greatest sage who ever lived, Rabbi Akiva, was but a poor and illiterate shepherd. Rachel, the daughter of a wealthy man, saw beyond that and fell in love with him. Her father forbade their marriage and forced them to live in dire poverty. But she saw Akiva’s koach, his potential.

She sent him to study Torah for twelve years. He came back to her with 12,000 students. When he peered into her window, he saw her arguing with her father that she wished he would study for twelve more years. And so he did. This time, he returned with 24,000 students. A huge crowd gathered to greet him. Rachel, in ragged clothes, approached him and fell at his feet. She was being pushed away by his assistants—they could not see who she was, they would not understand. And Akiva shouted out, “Let her be! What I have and what you have — it is all hers.” He knew that he—and we—owed the entirety of his teaching to Rachel. 

His Torah is her Torah. Her Torah is our Torah. 

She knew and understood him. And she believed in him. To the world, he was a poor, unlettered shepherd. But you are not what others see and judge. You cannot let others define who you are or what you can do. 

The secret of the letters is that their essence—your essence—can never be destroyed or changed. Your Torah is still within you, waiting to be written and learned. Even as the world burns around you, even as others struggle to redefine you, know that your truth, your light, and your letters cannot be destroyed.

Sarah, Yiscah, had more than one life. She had the one we can all see—the revealed life—and she had the hidden life of vision. So do we. Each of us is more than what others can see, and each of us has more strength than others can know.

May we all continue to wake up the letters and lights inside ourselves. May we remain true to who we are, not what others may claim we are. May we bring strength and hope to one another, and may we take hold of meaning in our lives now and in the days to come.