This is perhaps the most common question in commentaries on this section. Whether the commentary is entitled, “From Yaakov to Yisrael,” “Introspective Identity,” “The Name of Yisrael and Yeshurun,” “Your name is Israel,” “The Battle with Esav and the name Yisrael,” “Is It Yaakov or Yisrael,” “Yaakov and Yisrael: What’s in a Name?” “Yaakov Becomes Yisrael,” “Bolt of Inspiration 44 – Both names Are True,” “Yaakov’s Change of Name,” and on, and on, and on…, the question is discussed over and over again.

It is not as if there is a shortage of topics in this section. Some overlap, such as Jacob’s relationship to his brother, Esau. There is the tale of the rape of Dinah, which seems at first glance to have little if anything to do with naming and its meaning. Reuben slept with his father’s concubine. The Parashat is full of sex and betrayal. Yet, the story of Jacob wresting with the angel who blesses Jacob by changing his name is understandably a preoccupation.

However, there is another story about a change of name that ends the section. Rachel dies in childbirth and gives her son one name that is soon displaced when his father gives him another name. I will start there and then return to the story of Jacob’s name change.

But first a preamble. In Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 2) set in Capulet’s orchard, on one of the most famous scenes in the Shakespearian repertoire, and one of the most romantic passages of all of literature, Romeo appears ruminating and talking to himself.

The theme is simple and direct. Two lovers are separated because their families, the Capulets and the Montagues, are feuding. Each of the lovers would surrender their names for the sake of their love. They hate their names. Their names separate rather than unite them. Names are tribal. Names are divisive. Names are identified with conflict. For what’s in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

However, the human story in the Torah begins by giving things names. An apple is an apple. A banana is a banana. A rose is indeed a rose and would be something else by another name. Names have meanings. Names have significance. But not in the world of romantic love.

The story of Jacob in relationship to Rachel is one of the few stories of romance in the biblical text. After all, Jacob was smitten with Rachel and worked seven years to win her hand in marriage. And when tricked by Laban, Rachel’s father, who substituted his older and plain daughter in place of Rachel in the bridal bed, Jacob worked another seven years to finally gain her hand in marriage. Compared to such dedication and sacrifice, Romeo’s self-torment as Juliet stands on her balcony seems like infatuation rather than deep love, perhaps the same infatuation Jaccob and Rachel felt for one another when they first met.

But that is not how the love affair ends. Near the end of the Parashat, in chapter 35, verses 13-20 read as follows:

Jacob set up a pillar to commemorate where he spoke with God which he named, Beth-el, “House of God.” He also set up a pillar upon Rachel’s grave known, not just until the time when the Torah was written, but until the present as Rachel’s Tomb. Between those two bookends, Rachel gave birth to her second son whom she named Ben-oni, son of my pain, son of my suffering, before she died in childbirth. Jacob, after the love of his life died, renamed the boy, Binyomin (בנימים), Benjamin, perhaps son of my right hand. This does not seem very respectful to the love of his life, usurping the name she gave their son with his own.

One explanation is that Jacob did not want his youngest son, who became his favourite, to live under the shadow of possible guilt that his being born was responsible for his mother’s death. His father wanted to give him a positive message, a very positive one, by designating Benjamin as his favourite son, son of his right hand. Or it could have been, not about favouritism, but about a son whom he wanted to carry forth with his strength of his right hand. Or perhaps a third meaning; he wanted Benjamin to be straight and not deceitful, a characteristic associated with left-handedness; he did not want his son to be sinister. In any of these interpretations, the renaming was a romantic gesture, not one of disrespect or supplanting, but of heightening the prospects for his youngest son.

But Benjamin has another meaning, son of my old age. In this sense, there is a rivalry between his son remembering his mother’s pain or, alternatively, remembering that he, his father lived long enough so that he, Benjamin could be born. Do you want a name associated with your mother’s death and pain or with your father’s perseverance and determination unto old age?

But Rachel’s death on giving birth is not simply a matter of pain, but of greater perseverance, of seeing the birth through in spite of the pain she experienced. In this, there is an implied remonstration to Jacob – he remained someone who never knew himself and wanted to hide himself and, therefore, as a projection, also wanted to hide and bury the memory of the pain that Rachel went through. For the stories tend to focus on what Jacob sacrificed to win the hand of Rachel.

But what about Rachel? She was beautiful. She could have had the pick of anyone. But she not only waited 14 years, but was willing to share the marriage bed with her older sister. That is real sacrifice! Rachel knew that Jacob was by nature a dissembler and supplanter, not only of his brother Esau, but even of his wife whom he sincerely loved. Perhaps he even knew that the name she gave her son would be replaced, but at least her youngest son would know that it had been replaced. It was her gift to the truth of her existence and the truth of his birth rather than fake news built on fantasies that perhaps characterized his father. For his father, though extremely hard working, was not only timid, not only a mother’s boy, but a dissembler, even when his brother wanted to forgive and forget for love of his younger twin.

In the future, the tribe of Benjamin almost became extinct in the period of the civil war at the time of the rule of the judges and, in the war between the northern and the southern tribes, the remnant of the tribe of Benjamin was absorbed by the tribe of Judah. The name of Benjamin as a distinct line in history was eventually extinguished. As his mother suffered in pain and died, so would his progeny.

Whatever the name, whatever the meaning of the name, it cannot simply be tossed away on the ash heap of history as both Romeo and Juliet were willing to do for the sake of love. For the sake of real rather than romantic love, we want our children to remember us and to know what we want, what we expect of them, what we hope for them.

But what about Jacob being renamed Israel?

To be continued

With the help of Alex Zisman

That is an interpretation for another day. Sudfice to say, Israel survived. Israel lives on until this day even though eleven of the twelve tribes disappeared in history. For Jacob earned his knew name when he not only prevailed over man but over the divine.