The true nature of a Jew is that he is a mirror of Hashem. What is reflected is not his individual personality but rather Hashem alone.
The proper definition of a Jew is a person who accepts upon himself Heaven’s Kingship. It is the awareness that he doesn’t go by a name. He is a nobody. He is nothing but a mirror through which the glory of Heaven is revealed in the world.
The Rambam, when he succinctly defines the whole avodah of human beings, says the following amazing words:
Chazal already summed up this whole matter succinctly in a few words that express this matter in a most complete way.... I am referring to Chazal’s statement that “All your deeds should be for the sake of Heaven.”
This is the essence of a Jew: I am not in the picture; I am just mirroring Hashem. Some who looks at me sees what Torah is, what Hakadosh Baruch Hu is. Just as a table is not a chunk of wood, but a table, so a Jew is not just a person. If you take a deep look at him you will see Kevod Shemayim. All his deeds, everything he does, is to reveal the glory of Heaven in the world.
Yehudah is so named because he admitted. יהודה = הודה. It says "Yehudah, to you your brothers will admit." Chazal say about this:
Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Yehudah, “You admitted to the incident with Tamar, and your brothers will admit to your being king over them.”
Yehudah had the strength to admit what he did. And we are all called after him. The word “Jews” – Yehudim – comes from Yehudah.
Admitting to a bad or embarrassing deed is one of the hardest things in life. Let’s say someone spills a cup of water out the window, and a person happens to walk by on the sidewalk below at just that moment, and the water splashes all over him. The person who poured the water out instinctively jumps away from the window so the one below won’t know who did it. Maybe he will instead blame the neighbor one floor up...
It’s hard to admit to the truth.
It's even harder when the Gedolei Hador have gathered, and one of them recounts that yesterday someone disturbed his sleep until late at night – maybe someone knows who it was? And now, in front of all the Gedolei Hador, the one who did it needs to admit and say, “It was me.” This is such a hard thing to do.
Now let’s look at what happened with Yehudah. Yehudah was a great navi. He was the founder of one of the Twelve Tribes. Once, he was going on his way and he saw a woman by the roadside. Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent an angel who pushed him into it, and he thought he had committed an aveirah. This is how Chazal explain the story.
Now the day comes when Tamar is brought to beis din, before Yehudah, who was the head dayan. But he wasn’t there alone. Yitzchak Avinu was sitting with him.
Do you know who Yitzchak Avinu was? At the Akeidah, Yitzchak saw the Shechinah, and since then he went blind, because his eyes were riveted on the Shechinah, and he no long saw sky or earth, houses or trees. His eyes were fixed on the Shechinah alone.
Yehudah was sitting there with Yaakov Avinu, too. About him it says "The G-d of Yisrael called him ‘E-l.’" He was imbued with G-dly sanctity.
Another person present was Reuven, the firstborn of Yisrael. And also Shimon, the teacher of children, about whom it says that he is “like eternal stars.” And Levi, who was called Hashem's “friend.”
Now, in front of all these great personalities, Yehudah is standing, and when Tamar asks him to please recognize who the signet and the cords belong to, hinting that he should admit to the deed he did, Yehudah overcomes the enormous shame and says, “She is right. It is from me.”
When he said these words, his entire personality crumbled. There was nothing left of him. If an ounce of “I” had remained in him, he would not have been able to admit it.
This act of admittance showed that he had left his personality and personal identity behind him. He was no longer the individual he had been but rather a mirror of Hashem. And for ever and ever, he is called “Yehudah.”
יהודה. This is the Name of Hashem with the addition of the letter daled, which represents the word dal, “impoverished.” In other words, Yehudah’s name means: If you see this impoverished, non-existent person, you are actually seeing the Name of Hashem.
This is why we are all called Yehudim, Jews. This is our name forever, because a Jew deep down knows how to admit [and thereby transcend his personal identity].
