snippets from the weekend

( On the Mark, travel, ballet )

parsha name

I noticed something in the torah reading Thursday morning that I found interesting. Each parsha is named by the first significant word (that isn't "and God said to Moses" :-) ), or at least that's how I was taught. The opening of this past week's parsha is "eileh toldot Noach" (these are the generations of Noach"), and the parsha is named Noach. "Eileh" is not a significant word; what about "toldot"? Well, there actually is a parsha named Toldot, so the word is good enough -- that one begins "v'eileh toldot Yitzchak".

Now we can't have two parshiyot with the same name. We see the occasional two-word name (like this week, "Lech L'cha"), so the rabbis could have chosen "Toldot Noach" and "Toldot Yitzchak", but they didn't. They could have also dropped "toldot", choosing "Noach" and "Yitzchak"; again, they didn't. One gets a parsha named after him, and the other doesn't.

Given that, it's kind of interesting that Noach -- who doesn't really impress the rabbis as a person of high character -- gets the distinction of having a parsha named after him, while Yitzchak, a patriarch, does not. I wonder how that decision was made (anyone know where that would be discussed?). I would have assumed that this would be an honor and a patriarch would rate.

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