I can tell how and from where people know me by the name they use when calling me. Camp friends call me one thing, family call me another, and colleagues use another name still. You too, likely, have many names that depend on circumstances.

Sometimes we are surprised to learn new names people have for us as we wonder what they mean by using a moniker we did not authorize.

Contrary to the Shakespearean adage, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Judaism teaches that names reveal intrinsic characteristics and significance. The Torah frequently preserves multiple names for things. We see this with places, like Hebron which is also called Kiryat Arba (see Judges 1:10 and Joshua 14:4). We see this with people, like Joseph who also had the Egyptian name, Zaphenath-Paneah (Genesis 41:45). We even see this with God and the manifold appellations for The

Eternal One.

This week’s Torah portion, Devarim, uses multiple names in recounting the journey of the Israelites and the people they encountered. It is noteworthy that the Torah extends this practice of citing multiple names to such seemingly minor details as names for sub-groups of tribes encountered only in passing. Deuteronomy 2:11 tells of a group of people, “[who] are counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.” In verse 20, Scripture describes another group as, “Rephaim, whom the Ammonites call Zamzummim.” We might wonder: why should we care what the Moabites or Ammonites called these people?

Some commentators argue that the Torah relates details of local terminology to ground the narrative in the real-world geography and lived experience of its contemporaneous readers. We might care more about these names if we lived in the

biblical times and knew these people by those same names. Other commentaries explain the root meaning of the different names — “Emim,” for example, is said to come from a word meaning “dread” or “terror.” In that case, the Torah shares these names to convey how impressive it was to see such fearsome peoples bested by weaker tribes. Such a detail was meant to bolster the reader’s faith that spiritual power can overcome physical might.

I believe these verses are also meant to remind us, as Walt Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself,” that it is true for each of us to say: “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Names in the Torah and elsewhere in our tradition are not mere labels. Names convey spiritual meaning, historical context, or the inner character of a person or place. Changing names can be part of working toward deep, inner transformation, healing, or a new start.

The Israeli poet Zelda Schneerson Mishkovsky (who went only by her first name, Zelda) explored the layers of meaning inside each of us in her poem about names: “Each of us has a name, given to us by our stature and our way of smiling, and given to us by our clothes. … Each of us has a name, given to us by our sins, and given to us by our longing. Each of us has a name, given to us by our enemies, and given to us by our love. Each of us has a name, given to us by our fast days, and given to us by our craft … and given to us by our death.”

May these long, easy days of summer and this time of recounting the stories of our ancient biblical journey open to us the layers of our inner self and all the names by which we can be known.