The Cambridge Korn Courant

On January 28th, we gave Orli her Hebrew name at shul. To nobody's surprise, it matched her English name: Orli Rachel. Read below for a speech we gave that includes some words of Torah entwined with an explanation of how we arrived at her name:

This week’s parsha, Bo, is full of excitement: the final three plagues, the first Pesach, Yetziat Mitzraim (the Exodus from Egypt). Good movie material. But what struck me about the parsha is that Yetziat Mitzraim isn’t all about freedom. Rather, the transition from being oppressed in Egypt to the exodus and fulfilling our destiny in Israel is full of commandments: keeping the calendar, Pesach laws, the law of the firstborn, tefillin. Indeed, these commandments are all intimately tied to remembering slavery, and specifically to the very first moment of transition. Freedom isn’t about forgetting the past, but about learning how to turn the past into something holy. Freedom isn’t a free-for-all, but living in a manner consistent with the path of G-d. Freedom from oppression, but a freedom founded on principles and structure.

There are three themes relating to structure in this parsha that I want to focus on – all of which have to do with my daughter’s name, coincidentally: 1) darkness vs. light, 2) community, and 3) continuity.

You might say darkness is not a theme, but just one plague. Not so. In fact, darkness appears in all of the final three plagues: enough locusts to cover the land and create darkness; the ninth plague which was darkness; and makot bechorot, which happened at midnight. Each of these affected the Egyptians, but for Jews there was light.

To quote a dvar from Rabbi Yakov Luban at the OU:

The Rabbis tell us that when a Jew visited an Egyptian home, there was light for the Jew and darkness for the Egyptian. The very same spot was both light and dark, depending on the viewer’s perception. The Jew saw the hand of G-d clearly revealed, but the Egyptian remained in the dark, seeing nothing at all…

There is an important lesson to be learned from these events: We all have traces of Pharaoh’s personality lingering within us. We, too, sometimes deny self-evident truths and close our eyes to blatant realities.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto, in his classic work of Jewish ethics, Mesilas Yesharim, instructs every human being to ask himself the question, "Mah chovosi ba’olami?" What is my obligation in life? Why did G-d create me with unique talents and abilities? What is the purpose of my existence?

This inquiry is fundamental, yet many people live out their lives never once having pondered this question and its implications.

If the behavior of Pharaoh and the Egyptian people strikes us as absurd, perhaps we should look at ourselves and become inspired to open our souls, to see the light of the Almighty which illuminates the entire world.

Which brings me to Orli’s name. Orli means “Light to me,” and we do hope that Orli helps us open our eyes and souls.
Furthermore, I believe there are at least two types of light in this regard: diffuse, and structured. Diffuse light brightens a room and a soul, and already Orli has brightened our lives. However, there is also the guiding light—such as that of the full moon that illuminated our way out of Egypt. This light—and the light of G-d—illuminates our path and provides structure for the world, just as on the first day of creation. And this brings us back to the transition from the darkness of slavery to the structured light of freedom; a freedom with rules and laws, but rules and laws that guide rather than oppress.

A brief interlude about Orli’s namesakes: Our daughter is named Orli (light for me) after her great-grandmother Rachel (Sara’s maternal grandmother), who also went by Rae—as in ray of light, get it? And she is named Rachel after both great-grandma Rae as well as her great-Grandmommy Rose (Josh’s paternal grandmother), whose Hebrew name was Chaya Rochel. Her two namesakes also experienced a great transition in their lives—not from Egypt to Israel, but from Poland to America. Both had difficult transitions: Grandma Rae through poverty and the Great Depression, and losing her mother shortly after the birth of her youngest brother; and Grandmommy through the horrors of the Holocaust. But both, like Bnei Yisrael, kept traditions and order an important part of their lives. Indeed, Sara’s grandmother literally brought order to Sara’s family every Pesach, coming to NY and cleaning their house top to bottom. And Grandmommy—far from rejecting her Jewish identity after the Holocaust—sent her sons to yeshiva and ensured the continuity and persistence of structured Jewish life.

And that is what this parsha is all about to me. Structured freedom, in the context of a people, of community. We read about the first Passover—a meal we all ate at the same time, as a family or as a group of families—just as we do today. We read about the commandment of Nissan being the first month—setting our calendar to establish order for the community. We read about marking our doorposts and recounting Yetziat Mitzraim—not just this one time, but as “chok l’cha u’lvanecha ad olam” – a statute for us and our children forever. Even as we transitioned to freedom, we proclaimed our identity as a nation and remembered where we came from---not just for us, but for our children as well.

Light & structure, community, and continuity. This is what makes us free, and it is our hope that Orli Rachel flourishes in the context of this structured freedom toward Torah, chuppah, and ma’asim tovim (Torah, marriage, and good deeds.)