When our matriarch Leah bore her sixth son, she named him Zevulun, a derivative of the word zevul—place of residence, saying, “Now my husband will reside with me.” As Rashi explains, “His [Yaakov’s] principal residence will be only with me, because I have as many sons as all his other wives combined.”
According to the Kabbalah, your given name is not merely a product of your parents’ personal preference. Rather, G‑d endows parents with the wisdom to choose names that are uniquely associated with their child’s soul.
As such, the name Zevulun signifies not only the milestone that Leah reached with his birth, but also the nature of this specific child.
Zevulun’s association with “places of residence” can be explained in light of the well‑known arrangement that the tribe of Zevulun had with the tribe of Yissachar. “Zevulun and Yissachar established a partnership: Zevulun will dwell at the seashore, and go out in ships to trade and make profit. They will thereby provide food for the tribe of Yissachar, who will sit and occupy themselves with the study of Torah.”
The tribe of Zevulun’s immersion in commerce afforded them unique opportunities to infuse G‑dly meaning into the material world and its ways. Their dealings “for the sake of Heaven”—in their case, to support Torah study—and their utilization of material means for the fulfillment of G‑d’s commands transformed this lowly physical world into a G‑dly place to an even greater degree than was accomplished by the Torah study of their partners, the tribe of Yissachar, who hardly engaged in worldly affairs.
Hence the name Zevulun. For it is specifically the Zevulun, the businessperson, who has the greatest potential to develop this world into a zevul, a place that G‑d can call home.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 30, pp. 134–136
