OU Torah Insights Project

Surely, you have personally said or have heard someone else say, "I am proud to be a Jew."

We always hear "I am proud to be a Jew," but how come we never hear, "I am proud to be an Israelite," or "I am proud to be a Hebrew"? In fact, we speak of Judaism, never Israelism or Hebrewism.

What makes "Jewish" stick?

The name Jew comes from Yehudah, whose eloquent plea on behalf of his brother, Binyamin, opens this week’s parshah. In the subsequent parshah, Yaakov blesses him: "Yehudah—your brothers know you."

It is Yehudah in whom we take special pride.

But what is the special quality that distinguishes Yehudah from his brothers—the quality for which he is chosen by his father to precede the family to Goshen and establish a Jewish presence in Egypt?

A young man once interviewed for a job. Toward the end of the interview he was asked, "Are you a responsible person?"

"Of course," he said. "In my last job—everything that went wrong, they held me responsible."

Responsibility—that is Yehudah’s prime quality. Yehudah’s words resound through history, "I have taken responsibility for the youth."

Yehudah would guarantee his family’s and his people’s future.

This guarantee, this commitment to the future is the hallmark of Jewish living.

A Hasidic Rabbi extracts from Yehudah’s protection of Binyamin the ultimate quest in life—the quest for continuity, for a learned and observant youth to carry on future generations.

"How can I return to my father and the lad is not with me," Yehudah asks Yosef. The Rabbe replays this very question to our generation: "How can I face my Heavenly Father if I do not bear responsibility for our youth?"

We are Jewish because we are like Yehudah. We are responsible.

Rabbi Rakowitz is rabbi of the Sephardic Jewish Center of Canarsie in Brooklyn, New York.