“Homo Sapien” or Communicator? Homo Sapiens, the scientific name for the human race, is Latin for "wise man". Yet, in Jewish philosophy, the Human being is referred to as “Midaber”, the "Speaker". Indeed in the verse regarding the creation of Man, “and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul”, Onkelous, the early translator of the Torah into Aramaic, translates “Living soul” as “speaking spirit”. Right from the beginning of Genesis, the Torah attributes great significance to speech. Creation comes about through Divine Speech, where each act of creation is introduced by the words “and G-d said”. Just as G-d created the world with speech, man, too, creates and shapes his environment through speech. When the entire world became corrupt, causing G-d to bring the flood, Noah alone found grace in the eyes of G-d and was critical in the recreation of civilization. What was the secret to Noah’s spiritual success? What were the circumstances that influenced the person he became? While the Torah does not address this question directly, there may be a hint in the verse that explains why his parents gave him his specific name (which is in itself an anomaly, as in most cases, the Torah lists the names without explaining the meaning of the name). The verse tells us: And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty two years, and he begot a son. And he named him Noah, saying, "This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands from the ground, which the Lord has cursed." (5:28-29) Unlike most of the names listed in the generations between Adam and Noah, which imply descent and moving away from G-d, the name Noah is exceptionally positive and extraordinarily ambitious. Growing up, every time Noah heard his name spoken, he heard that while the broader society believed that human beings could not escape the spiral descent of the negative inclination of man, he, alone, could bring comfort to the people around him, to the entire earth, and to G-d. Judaism believes in the power of speech to express the hidden potential within reality. Words of kindness, compassion, and optimism have the ability to bring out the positive traits that are hidden within every soul. Ultimately, it was the spoken word that created Noah and saved civilization. The Kabbalah adds a deeper dimension. The deepest need of the human psyche, the key to meaning and joy in life, is the need for connection. Unlike the Greek philosophical model, where intellect is the greatest quality of man, Kabbalah teaches that the human soul, at its core, is spiritual. Every physical existence is defined by its properties and definitions, whereas the soul is comfortable only when it escapes its own character and connects to another person. The human soul, therefore, finds its greatest meaning, not merely in growth and advancement of the self, which is accomplished by the intellect, but rather by the power to connect to others, the power to interact and communicate, to transcend the self and create a deep relationship with others.