The second of the Five Books of the Chumash is called Shemos, "Names." From the earliest times, these Books, as well as the parshios into which they are divided, took their names from the first significant word or words encountered in them. Sometimes these names do not at all reflect the content of the literary entities they designate. For example, the names of the Third Book, Vayikra, "And he called," tell us nothing of the ritual and priestly components that almost entirely characterize this volume. On this count, the general name "Leviticus" seems much more descriptive.

The same is nearly true of the title for the Fifth Book, Devarim, "Words," which gives us absolutely no hint that it is essentially a reprise - a selective and telegraphic historical review of Israel's forty year trek through the wilderness, or that it preserves Moshe's magnificent valedictories as he takes leave of his people on the eve of their entrance into Eretz Yisrael.

Comparatively, the First Book, Bereishis, "In the Beginning," contains the kind of introductory information one would expect from that title, while the Fourth Book, Bamidbar, "In the Wilderness," talks primarily about the Jews' trek through the desert. Shemos, however, seems to fall somewhere in between. While the general name Exodus more accurately denotes the narrative of the Second Book, the title Shemos accurately describes the first parsha, also called Shemos, which is essentially a roster of the names of Yaakov's family who came down with him to Egypt at Yosef's invitation.

Therefore, it appears blatantly paradoxical that precisely this segment highlighting names, which also depicts the birth of Moshe, should introduce his parents in a curiously anonymous way: "And a man of the House of Levi took the daughter of Levi. And she conceived and gave birth to a son" (Shemos 2: 1-2). Even more astounding is that fact that they themselves studiously avoided naming their new baby. It was left to Pharoh's daughter, who found him floating on the Nile, to give him a name.

Accompanying the story of Exodus is the wellrooted tradition that Israel merited redemption, in part, because they did not change their Hebrew names. Names play a considerable role in that incomparable epic of emancipation. Yet the names of Moshe's parents go deliberately unmentioned until much later in Vaera, when Moshe is past eighty and already at the helm of Jewish leadership (Ibid 6:20). Even more consternating, of course, is the fact that Moshe carried an Egyptian name. The name Pharoh's daughter gave him was Moonios (see Ibn Ezra on Shemos 2:10). Others, undoubtedly before us must have been struck by this anomaly. But, I wonder, whether the answer that unfortunately comes to our mind could have been so readily conjured in another time.

Looking upon his original reluctance to note Moshe's parents name and that, in fact, he owed his own name to an Egyptian princess through the prism of events of these last years, one can find an easy, if uncomfortable, explanation. Moshe's parents had the sure sense that if their child was to escape Pharoh's decree of infanticide - "Every male child you should cast into the river" (Ibid 1 :22) - he would not be able to grow up publicly as a Jew. At the very least, he would have to be brought up among the Egyptians as one of them, his true identity hidden, forgotten, or unknown. And reared in the morally degenerate society, steeped in the nethermost depths of spiritual filth, there was a large chance, they knew, if not irresistible inevitability, that their son, however much they would be able to secretly instruct him in the opposing fundamentals of his Hebrew forbears, would be powerfully influenced by the environment around him, by the life and ease of his palatial surroundings. Indeed, the Ibn Ezra, writing on the verse, "And he went out to his brothers (l 'echav) and saw their affliction; and he saw an Egyptian man, striking a Hebrew man from amongst his brothers (mei 'echa-u)" (2: II), makes the incredible statement that the first reference to "echav" should be taken as his Egyptian brethren. They were Moshe's brothers. It is only the second reference -"mei 'echav", that refers to his Jewish brethren. In this one verse, there is a not-so-subtle shift from "echav"his Egyptian "brothers" to "mei 'echav" - his Jewish brothers. In the face of Egyptian brutality, Moshe suddenly knew, surely, who his brothers are. In that event, Yocheved and Amram did not want to have their names and distinctively Hebrew sounds attached to him, lest his behavior later bring grave embarrassment to the people from whom he sprung.

It is only after Moshe's mettle is tested, and the threat of humiliation lifted, that we are told the names of his parents. They did not want bold headlines screaming out at them the crimes of an Amramson or Yochevedson. At all costs, they aimed to prevent dishonor from coming to the seed of Avraham.

Jewish names sometimes seem to be associated with the most bizarre conduct. On a recent Sunday, when Arab unrest erupted in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, four blistering articles - all of which condemned Israel - appeared in prominent newspapers. More consternating was the fact that they were all written by Jews, and that the tone of their articles gave rise to a crescendo of international criticism of the Jewish State. Had these articles been written by non-Jews, any of these fulminations would have been susceptible to the charge of outrageGus prejudice, maybe even antiSemitism. But since they were composed by Jewish writers, they incite and give a hechser to hostility against Israel.

Maybe Amram and Yocheved had the right idea, after all. You don't give your Jewish name to your children until they have grown up and proven themselves. Until they reach that point, let them carry some non-ethnic name like Smith or Jones. Nobody ever sits up and takes notice quite the same about obscene mayhem when it comes from a Smith or Jones, as they do when it comes from an Amramson or Yochevedson.

However, there is this rub. Through the millennia, from the Torah on, when Jewish names were first given, we have understood that they help shape the destiny and character of the bearer - "shmah ka garem." He is moved to carry himself with a sense of who he is, and always reflects on the awesome responsibility that is his precisely because of who he is - all of this broached in his Jewish name.