Shem

The word shem means both “name” and “purpose” in Hebrew. It's a person’s obligation to live up to their name because it is their calling. My Yemenite Hebrew teacher has dark painted eyes and freckled olive skin. Her English ebbs and flows as she explains her meaning. “Your purpose,” she says, “is to reveal the gift of yourself, to let your true self become exposed.”

My name is not Hebrew but Greek, and means “pure.” I share the same name as St. Catherine of Egypt, the same saint that the monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai is dedicated to. I found this out this year and during my search two other things: that St. Catherine refused to marry unless she found someone who surpassed her in beauty, intelligence, wealth, and social status and that after she died her body was supposedly carried by angels to Mt. Sinai from Alexandria.

It is only recently that I have let people hear my vision of Mt. Sinai. When I was a little girl I kept it to myself, afraid to speak about something so important, afraid of jinxing it, afraid of making it as mundane as everyone else’s you see.

In the middle of class a girl mentions that she’ll never find the perfect man. “Yes you will, yes you will,” my teacher quickly walks up to her. “You must believe it.  Rav Cook said that when you have an image of something you truly want, of something you dream about and you know everything in it, you can describe every single little detail, it has no choice but to come down to earth. It’s not visualizing, this isn’t Buddhism,” she says shaking her head, “this is Judaism and you must speak it,” she puts her hand up to her lips, “speak your reality and it will be created.”

 “I see no difference in a dreamer who believes in God and a dreamer who doesn’t,” one boy says.

“The only difference is if you think there is something other than yourself. If it’s not just you, there’s God.”

Yesterday I met with our Madricha and I told her a little of my story. “This is very interesting,” she says in a quiet voice. “I would like to help you. I would like to help you go to Mt. Sinai. I think it’s possible.”

And I want to say “No, that’s okay. I’ll get there on my own, you’ll see.” But I’ve been thinking, and maybe I am not as great as my name and maybe the point of a dream is to share it.