by R. Norman Lamm

This essay is excerpted with permission from Derashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages–Exodus. All brackets and ellipses are added by the editor. This essay was written in 1974 but seems even more timely today in the Internet age.

In the Bible, as in all Semitic culture, a name is more than a means of identification. It is somehow related to essence, it is mystically identified with the substance, with the individual. Therefore, the Torah usually explains why a specific name is given to a certain individual.

It is for this reason that I have often wondered about those occasions in Jewish life, and general life, when the reverse occurs, when a name is covered up, deliberately omitted. It may be instructive, therefore, to analyze the varieties of anonymity…

I suggest that the anonymity the Torah employs here [Ex. 16:20] is a way of denying to the arrogant and the wicked the very publicity they seek. Thus, Datan and Aviram considered themselves leaders, but the Torah referred to them as merely anashim, (ordinary) people. They wanted to make a name for themselves, so the Torah denies them that which they most wanted. Hence, their anonymity.

People who do not have the courage of their convictions, and are not willing to engage in serious dialogue, do not deserve to have others listen to their monologue Similarly, the Talmud removed the name from the greatest heretic of the Talmudic era, Elisha ben Avuyah, and refers to him simply as “Aher,” “the other one.”

Perhaps too, this is the reason why the Torah does not name the Pharaohs of Egypt who are so prominent in the Exodus story…

[Another reason…] The Torah cloaks Pharaoh in anonymity not in order to provide a livelihood for historians, antiquarians, and anthropologists who will build careers on the problems of identifying Pharaohs. Rather, it is a challenge to this historically, rather than individually; to attempt an overall view rather than being lost in picayune details. Had the Torah mentioned the name of the individual Pharaoh, we would have discovered details of his biography, and then depth psychology would have taken over and we would have found individual reasons for his malice… [T]he lessons of history recede and are lost on us. So the anonymity is there in order to fix the moral responsibility for one’s actions. No matter what the reasons, man cannot escape the guilt for the consequences of his decisions on society and history…

The third variety of anonymity is fairly obvious: modesty. A man who performs a good deed and does it for its own sake signifies this absence of ego-dividends by obscuring his own name.

Thus, one of the highest forms of charity (Bava Batra 10b) is matan beseter, one who gives secretly, so that he does not know the recipient, and the recipient does not know him…

The anonymous letter has the same value as a check signed by “Anonymous” Similar to this is the fourth variety: sensitivity to the feelings of others. The Vilna Gaon, in his halakhic writings, made it a practice never to mention the names of those with whom he disagreed, or those whose these he disproved. What was important was the shakla vetarya–the reasoning and dialectic, not the personalities involved…

In this respect, it is interesting to notice a significant difference in practice between Anglo-Saxon case law and Jewish law. In American law, whether in the law-books or newspapers, cases are titled by the names of the litigants. As a result, all the dark secrets of a couple’s domestic difficulties are spread out for all the world to see, satisfying a casual reader’s prurient interest as much as teaching students legal principles… How different, how much more sensitive, how much more moral, is the practice of Jewish law, the responsa literature. In the great majority of instances, cases are not discussed by using the real names of people, but instead Jewish respondents will use fictitious namess, especially those of the first large Jewish family, for example Reuven, Simeon, Levi, Rachel, Leah, Sarah… The real names of the individuals are protected by the anonymity which comes of sensitivity.

Finally, the fifth variety of anonymity is that of fear, or better, cowardice. Anonymity is often the cloak of the spineless and gutless…

Related to this form of cowardly anonymity is the anonymous letter writer. As a public figure, it has not been unusual for me in the course of the years to receive an occasional anonymous letter.

I confide to you: I never pay attention the them. I never try to figure out who the writer is, never try to decipher his handwriting or discern how he changed his style or punctuation or spelling in order to disguise his identity. I just don’t care. People who do not have the courage of their convictions, and are not willing to engage in serious dialogue, do not deserve to have others listen to their monologue. I consider them nothing but pathetic.

And yet I recognize that it is often difficult for a person to voice criticism and place himself squarely behind it…

Sometimes I think that the anonymous letter-writer is really revealing his true identity as symbolized by his anonymity: namely, nothing, the absence of personality, or better–the absence of character. The anonymous letter has the same value as a check signed by “Anonymous”…

I wish to conclude with a species of anonymity which is radically different: divine anonymity…

The Name of God cannot be revealed as long as the name of Amalek is not erased. God suffers partial anonymity as long as the Amaleks of life still defy Him, still disturb the peace of mankind, still have “a name” in the world. The struggle is between the Name of God and the name of Amalek; between the anonymity of the One and the anonymity of the other.

Our prayer therefore is that, regardless of the varieties of human anonymity, God no longer be anonymous in our lives. “May the Lord be acknowledged as King over the entire world; on that day the Lord will be One and His name will be complete” (Zechariah 14:9).