Likkutei Sichos Vol. 35 – Bereishis 1
1. "And the man gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the heavens and to all the beasts of the field" — and fish are not mentioned. We find two opinions on this. Some explain that he did not name them (and as the reason, the Radak writes: "He did not mention the fish of the sea, because by the nature G‑d gave them it is impossible for them to come before man, since they live only in water, and when they leave the water they die; nor do they have organs for walking, only organs for swimming"). Others say that Adam HaRishon gave names to the fish as well (only the verse does not state it explicitly).
At first glance one could say that these two opinions depend on how the naming itself is defined. By way of introduction:
The Midrash relates that the Holy One, blessed be He, told the ministering angels that man's wisdom is greater than theirs: "He brought before them the cattle, the beasts and the birds, and said to them, 'What is the name of this?' — and they did not know. He passed them before Adam and said to him, 'What is the name of this?' (He answered:) 'This is an ox, this is a donkey, this is a horse, this is a camel,' and so on."
The point is that Adam HaRishon's wisdom lay in recognizing the qualities and nature of every creature, and he gave them names expressing the essence and nature of those so named — as explained at length by the commentators on the Torah and on the Midrash.
This can be understood in two ways: (a) The naming serves man: through the names he recognizes, and makes known, the qualities of the creatures that bear them. (b) The naming was for the sake of the creatures themselves: before a creature has its own name, its qualities are not (so) revealed, and when it is called by its own name they come to light, and so on. According to this, the name serves (also) the creature that bears it (and one may say that the very act of naming brings out the nature and qualities of the creature named).
At first glance, one could say that this is the reason for the difference between the opinions as to whether Adam named the fish too:
According to the opinion that he did not name the fish, the reason is that the naming is for man's sake, so that he can make use of the creatures and so on — and this does not apply (as much) to fish. As the Chizkuni writes: "He did not bring the fish, for they are in the water and do not come out, and if they come out they die, and he has no dominion over them." [Although the verse says explicitly, "and they shall rule over the fish of the sea," dominion over fish is not like dominion over the beasts of the field and the like, which man rules and uses while they are alive; whereas his dominion over fish is that he takes them out of the water, whereupon they die, and he eats them, and so on.] Since this is a limited use, there is no need for Adam HaRishon to give them names.
According to the opinion that he named the fish too, this is because the naming is (chiefly) for the sake of the creatures themselves — through it their nature and qualities are revealed — and this applies to fish as well.
2. One may say that this is the point of Rashi's comment on the verse "and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name": "Transpose it and explain it: every living creature to which the man would give a name — that is its name forever." At first glance, what is Rashi teaching by adding that this is its name "forever"? And why did he not explain (in line with the plain sense of the words) that the name Adam HaRishon gave came from his recognizing the nature and qualities of the thing — in the words of the Radak, "that was its name — the name befitting it according to its nature," or as the Chizkuni writes, "that is the name proper for it, for his mind agreed with the mind of his Creator"?
[On a deeper level, the sefarim explain "that was its name" to mean that the name Adam HaRishon gave is its true, essential name. For example, the ox (shor) is so called because of its root, which is the three letters shin-vav-reish in the Holy Tongue, and so with all of them. Therefore Adam HaRishon, who had surpassing wisdom and grasped and knew the root and essence of every species, could call them by their true names — as the Maggid explains at length.]
One may say that Rashi follows the second approach above: in the naming, Adam HaRishon acted to reveal these qualities. On this basis Rashi explains "that is its name forever" — Adam HaRishon's action is a lasting, eternal effect on the thing that bears that name.
3. Now the Torah opens the subject of the naming with the words: "And the L‑rd G‑d formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." Only afterwards does it go on to the naming itself: "And the man gave names…"
At first glance, from the fact that the verse opens with "And the L‑rd G‑d formed…" (although the account of the creation of the creatures was already given earlier in the parshah), one could bring proof that the naming is something that concerns and acts upon the creatures themselves. That is why it is said as a continuation of "And the L‑rd G‑d formed…" — the forming of the creatures — since naming them is, as it were, the completion of their forming.
But Rashi has already cited, from "the words of the Aggadah," that "this forming (yetzirah) means dominion and conquest, as in 'When you besiege (tatzur) a city' — that He subdued them under man's hand." And at first glance, this is how it must be explained according to the opinion that the naming is only for man's benefit — as is also clear from what the Chizkuni writes, as cited above, that the naming is connected to dominion over them.
Still, the overall content of the passage implies that the naming had an effect on the creature named. For the verses about the naming are placed within the passage about making "a helpmate for him" (the forming of Chava), which implies that naming the creatures too concerns the thing named, like the forming of Chava, which was the completion of her creation (and of Adam's).
[Although the commentators explain the flow of the verses this way: when the Holy One, blessed be He, said, "I will make him a helpmate for him," He brought before him every beast of the field and so on to name them — that is, to consider them and recognize their nature — and after Adam had seen and understood them and their names, and saw that there was no creature fit to be a helpmate for him, "but for Adam there was not found a helpmate for him," then "the L‑rd G‑d cast a deep sleep… and He took one of his ribs… and the L‑rd G‑d built the rib… and brought her to the man" — still, (besides the fact that this explanation itself needs clarification: since it is revealed before Heaven that there is no creature fit to be a helpmate for him, why did He bring all of them before Adam HaRishon to consider their nature and so on (by naming them), until he came to realize that there was no helpmate for him? — still,) since every detail of the Torah is perfectly precise, it is reasonable to say that the account of the naming is placed within the passage of the creation of Chava (not only because through the naming it became clear to Adam HaRishon that none of them could be a helpmate for him, but) chiefly because it is also connected with it in content.]
4. It seems to me that according to all opinions Adam HaRishon's naming had an effect on the creatures named, only that this can be in two ways, as will be explained.
By way of introduction: in the creation of the world there are two aspects. (a) The creation itself, by the Holy One, blessed be He, is such that a thing comes into being as a separate entity, in which it is not evident that its existence comes from the Holy One, blessed be He. (b) The purpose of creation: "and He placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it" — that man, through his avodah, should bring the world and everything in it to be batel (self-nullified) to the Holy One, blessed be He [as Adam HaRishon did as soon as he was created, on the sixth day, when he called upon all the creatures to accept upon themselves the sovereignty and rule of the Creator, proclaiming, "Come, let us bow down and kneel; let us bless before the L‑rd our Maker"], until he reveals in it its true existence — in the words of the Rambam, that "all that exists… exists only from the truth of His existence."
On this basis, one may say that these are the two ways of understanding Adam HaRishon's naming: whether it is a continuation and completion of the creation itself, done by the Holy One, blessed be He, or whether it belongs to the purpose of creation and to man's work.
5. The explanation:
As created by the Holy One, blessed be He, the creatures are not divided into particular species, only into general categories. So we find in the Ten Utterances by which the world was created that only general categories are specified [for example: on the third day, "Let the earth sprout vegetation… fruit trees…"; on the fifth day, "Let the waters swarm with swarms… and let birds fly…"; on the sixth day, "cattle, creeping things and beasts of the earth"] — not the names of particular species (as among animals: ox, donkey and the like).
This is what Adam HaRishon's naming accomplished: through it every species became recognizable and distinct in its own right.
[This is like the halachah that by calling a thing by name one acquires it — that is, one thereby removes it and transfers it from another's domain (or from ownerless property) into one's own. So too, by giving names, one "removes" a thing from its (general) belonging to the general category, so that it becomes a particular thing.]
According to this, Adam HaRishon's naming completed the creation itself, for only then was each species finished in the quality that sets it apart from other species (of the same category).
Adam HaRishon's naming can also be explained on a deeper level — as part of man's avodah, to bring about bittul (self-nullification) in the creatures:
It is known what the Alter Rebbe writes: the names by which all the creatures in the world are called in the Holy Tongue are the very letters of the Holy One's speech that bring into being and give life to that particular creature. The source of all names is in the Ten Utterances of the Torah (by which the world was created); for although not all the names of the creatures are mentioned in the Ten Utterances, they derive from the Ten Utterances through combinations, substitutions and transpositions of the letters. From this it follows that the names of the creatures are something essential to them: from the very moment a creature comes into being, it has its name, which is its life-force.
If so, Adam HaRishon's naming of them after they had come into being is something higher still.
The explanation may be this:
Although every creature has within it a G‑dly power that gives it life — and that is its name by which it is called in the Holy Tongue (which derives from the Ten Utterances, as above) — this life-force is not revealed in the creature. In particular, the creatures do not feel the G‑dly life-force within them, nor that their whole existence is only from the truth of His existence — to the point that there is room for the mistake of "My river is my own, and I have made myself." This is the meaning of "And the man gave (literally, called) names…" — calling denotes revelation: Adam HaRishon called out and revealed in every creature the G‑dly life-force (which is "its name"), and thereby brought about bittul in all the creatures.
On a deeper level still: the life-force invested in each creature is a contracted life-force. That is the meaning of the names' descent from the Ten Utterances of the Torah through substitutions, transpositions and so on — a contraction and descent of the life-force from level to level, "until it can be contracted and invested, and a particular creature can come into being from it." But by naming them, Adam HaRishon called forth, drew down and revealed in every creature also the source and root of its name in the Ten Utterances — higher than the level at which it descends and contracts to bring these particular creatures into being — up to "(the utterance of) the mouth of G‑d" itself, "of which it was said, 'Surely it could have been created with one utterance' — that is the utterance that includes all Ten Utterances, from which the ten particular utterances were drawn and divided" (as explained in Likkutei Torah).
6. One may say that this is the basis of the two opinions (mentioned above) as to whether Adam HaRishon named the fish of the sea too, or only "all the cattle… and the beasts of the field":
According to the first approach (in line with the plain sense of the verses), Adam HaRishon's naming defined the particular nature of each creature — that is, it set its existence apart from its source. This applies only to the creatures of dry land (all the cattle, the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field), which were created from the outset as beings distinct and separate from their source. Not so the fish of the sea: they were not created to be beings in their own right, but are always covered and absorbed in the water, and their whole existence is the water [as emphasized by the law that everything in the sea is ritually pure, since their essential existence is the water (and in the view of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, anything that comes from a creature of the water does not form an interposition, since their true existence is the water)]. There is therefore no room for naming them to set them apart from their source (beyond the separation that results from their creation itself), since what their existence is meant to be, as created by the Holy One, blessed be He, is not to be separate.
This brings out the deeper intent of the words of the Rishonim cited above, who give as the reason Adam HaRishon did not name the fish that they cannot come before man, since "they live only in water, and when they leave the water they die." This is not an external reason — that it was impossible to bring them before Adam HaRishon to be named — but follows from what the naming itself is: since the existence of fish is absorption within their source, not separation and going out from it, there is no room for naming fish.
But according to the inner explanation above — that the naming completes the purpose for which all creatures were created, calling forth and drawing into them the life-force from their source and root, so that they become absorbed in "the utterance of the mouth of G‑d," the source and root of their coming into being, as above — this applies to all creatures: not only the creatures of dry land, which are visibly separate from their source, but the fish of the sea as well. For their existence as it is down below is the existence of a created being, although their true existence is the waters of the sea; and man's avodah is to bring about in them bittul and absorption in their source — a bittul higher than that.
One may say that this matches the meaning of the creation and forming of Chava described in this parshah. Outwardly, (the forming of) Chava brought about a descent for Adam HaRishon — in the plain sense, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, which caused a descent in man and in all of creation. On the other hand, the purpose of her creation was to bring about an ascent in creation, as it is written, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." When man fulfills his mission in the world and "fills the earth," he brings about an ascent beyond all comparison in man himself.
(From talks of Shabbos Parshas Bereishis, 5737 and 5746)