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 [Jacob’s] principal residence will be only with me, because I have as many sons as all his other wives combined.”

According to the Kabbalah, our Jewish given name is not merely a product of our parents’ personal preference. Rather, G-d endows parents with the wisdom to choose names that are uniquely associated with their child’s soul. Indeed sometimes you can see how a child’s personality is very much reflected in their Jewish name.

As such, the name Zevulun signified not only the milestone that Leah reached with his birth, but also the nature of this specific child. And the change that Zevulun’s arrival brought - Leah’s tent becoming Jacob’s primary home, was due not only to Zevulun’s status as Leah’s sixth son, but also to Zevulun’s distinct character. Since he was associated with the idea of zevul, a place of primary and permanent residence, his arrival brought similar blessing to his mother’s life.

What personal association did Zevulun have with “places of residence”? The tribe of Zevulun had can a well-known arrangement that 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”. To this day, the partnership between those involved in the business or professional world and the support they give to those whose occupation is Torah study and Jewish education is called the “Yissachar-Zevulun partnership.”

The tribe of Zevulun’s involvement in business afforded them unique opportunities to bring G-dly meaning into the material world and its ways. Their business dealings were “for the sake of Heaven,” - in their case, to support Torah study - and their using of material means for the fulfilment 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 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.”

As Chabad Lubavitch Shluchim who have made Leeds our home for almost eighteen years, Dabrushy and I very much share the experiences and appreciate the community. Returning home from a truly uplifting International Kinus Hashluchim, I was reflecting on this and how, in my conversations with other shluchim, we all tried to “sell” our community, talking about the positives and opportunities that we have.

Sure, some of this may be because of our innate Chabad Lubavitch positivity, but it is also because we have come to appreciate that, while there may be communities that are looked at as more classically “observant” or have more Jewish facilities, there is a beauty in the Zevulun Jews who all strive in their own way to make their local community a proud Jewish one.