The verse above is a good example of the saying that all translation is betrayal. Translating ha-ivri as “the Hebrew” does not reflect the nuances and depth of the Hebrew word and lessens our ability to connect with our texts and our ancestors. The Hebrew enables us to understand the subversive nature of our ancestors and our potential, as Jews, to impact on the world around us. 

The adjective ivri is related to the verb “to cross over”. It’s an unusual word used only a handful of times in Bereshit and is generally a word that comes in later texts. The classic Brown, Driver, Briggs dictionary tells us it means “the one from beyond” or “the one from the other side”. The rabbis, in Genesis Rabbah, try to explain this mystifying word as describing Abraham as “the one who came from across the river”. Used in this way, the word signifies that Abraham was a foreigner, he was other. This adjective is a marker which could be used of Jews throughout the ages — refugees, wanderers and perpetually in exile searching for the Promised Land.  

Yet if we delve a little deeper, we can see there is more potential hidden in this word. In the same midrash, Rabbi Yehudah said ha’ivri signifies that the whole world was on one side (eh-ver) while Abraham was on the other side (eh-ver). The word describes not only Abraham’s historical journey but his very nature and, by extension, that of the Jewish people.  

We have, from the beginning of time, been traversers. We have been subversive and questioning. Like Abraham we have been and are radical in both our thinking and our practice. For instance, we included strangers in the lists of those we had a duty to care for, alongside widows and orphans, who were the only ones mentioned in other Near Eastern law codes.  We were radical in reformulating Judaism after the destruction of the Temples by shifting Jewish belief and practice away from sacrifices to personal prayer. Like Abraham we demonstrate “holy chutzpah”, as Rabbi Arthur Green calls it, by questioning authority, even God. As we move across borders, both geographic and symbolic, we critique the broken parts of our society and demand more from each other.

May we inhabit our nature as ivrim in order to better our world and stand with those who are marginalised and persecuted, our current-day wanderers.