How the Rabbis Teach Torah

Imagine that you are, I dunno, a Spanish nobleman and your Name is Juan Carlos Fernando Jorge Rodrigo Salvador Alfonso Alfredo.

But they call you Rodrigo. They only call you Rodrigo and have never told you that you have other names.

Your Family, Friends and everyone around you also only call you Rodrigo.

They, like you, are only called by one name.

Now here's where it gets weird as hell: Everyone talks about Juan Carlos Fernando Jorge Salvador and Alfonso as though they were other people who lived long ago and far away. Sometimes they use the Female forms of those names too.

They've told you that Jorge and Salvador were very great saints and you can never so much as hope to be anything like near their stature in greatness.

They've also told you that the name Alfredo, which they mispronounce, is God's Name and you must never, ever pronounce it or the mountains will melt.

They've told you that Alfredo, which they mispronounce so as to protect you, only talks to people as great as Jorge and Salvador. Only they can be close to Alfredo.

What state of mind would you be in?

That is exactly how the rabbis teach Torah to their students. And that is how they learn Torah. And that is how they translated Torah. And you get to read a 4th generation translation of total schizophrenia and think it's the gospel truth.

Know too that the Hebrew word for Names is also equal to the Hebrew word for Place. Names generate a world, a locus. So when someone tells you you have only one name and calls you only by that one name, they isolate you into one place and identity as well.