Sometimes the greatest insight comes from what seem to be the simplest of questions.

A few weeks ago, a parent and child came to speak with me at Kiddush after Shabbat morning services, each armed with a question. The parent asked first, about the biblical verse connected to her son's name. Jewish tradition teaches that a person's identity is wrapped up in his or her name. Every Hebrew name has a matching biblical verse, the first and last letters of which correspond with the first and last letters of the name. If a person should ever forget his name, he has the mnemonic device provided by the verse to help him remember. This is supposed to be of assistance in times of pain--when your mind might be occupied with other thoughts--if you are hoping for intercession from the heavenly court. Armed with a few books and strong wireless Internet signal, I was able to answer this somewhat esoteric query fairly quickly, to the satisfaction of all parties.

The child's question was, on the surface, much simpler. What, he wanted to know, was the verb for what a rabbi does? Immediately, I began to search through the Hebrew verb list I carry in the recesses of my brain for the word I was sure was buried there. Coming up empty, I offered the English word. "A rabbi teaches, yeah, teach, that's it," I said.

The child replied with another question: "There isn't a more rabbi-specific word?"

"No," I said, "that's pretty much it."

When I was a student in Israel, I was pleasingly surprised by all of the Hebrew words that had been coined to describe modern life. The word for computer, for instance, derives from an ancient word meaning to calculate or think. Some Modern Hebrew words are more playful. The infinitive verb l'hizdangef is derived from the name of one of Tel Aviv's main drags, Dizengoff Street. The verb is meant to embody the slow strolling up and down that street done by citizens of Tel Aviv on sultry summer evenings.

Etymologically, the word "rabbi" is derived from the word rav, meaning great or distinguished. This is supposed to allude to vast knowledge. The "i" on the end signifies possession--the person using the title as a form of address is, in essence, saying, "My person of a lot of knowledge."

Just doesn't feel right. Sure, I've learned a few things over the years, but so have most people who have lived long enough and paid attention along the way. And I like to think of my car mechanic as my person of a lot of knowledge. He may not know a lot about Judaism, but he certainly knows many useful things that elude me.

I've spent some time thinking about that child's question over the past number of days. Upon ordination, "rabbi" gets appended to the ordinee's name, so perhaps the questions of mother and child were not so far apart.

If I were to come up with a verb that I thought approximated what a rabbi does, I might choose lihateit, to juggle. That was some of what I picked up while studying to be a rabbi, though not in the classroom. Ask me to show you sometime.