The Talmud in Tractate Berakhot includes a surprising statement: Anyone who calls Avraham (Abraham in English), ‘Avram’ transgresses a positive mitzvah. Rabbi Eliezer goes even further, arguing that doing so violates a negative mitzvah. Once God changes Avram’s name to Avraham, we are no longer permitted to call him by his former name.

What is so wrong with calling Avraham Avram? Couldn’t a nickname simply be a sign of affection?

At the end of last week’s parsha, parshat Noach, the Torah tells us that Terach, Avraham’s father, died in Haran. This is a strange place to mention his death. The Torah has not yet told us about God’s command to Avraham to leave his homeland, and the chronology seems out of order.

The medieval biblical commentator the Sforno explains that the Torah mentions Terach’s death here because Terach never made the effort to visit Avraham in the land of Canaan. He never saw with his own eyes the great name his son had made for himself there.

Perhaps this is why the Talmud prohibits us from calling Avraham by his former name. Terach could not imagine his son growing into someone new, with accomplishments of his own. For him, Avraham remained Avram. He could not see beyond the son he had known to the person his son had become.

This can also help explain God’s initial seemingly redundant command to Avraham to leave not just his homeland but also his father’s house. At home, Avraham lacked room to grow. He needed to leave behind not just his physical homeland, but also the assumptions that defined him there.

We all carry images of the people in our lives. We remember who our children were when they were young, who our parents were when we were young, and who we think those around us have always been. These memories can be reservoirs of powerful emotions, but they can also become limitations. When we insist that someone remain the person we remember, we deny them the possibility of growth. The Talmud’s insistence that we call Avraham by his new name reminds us that people are not frozen in time. We must allow others to change and to become more than simply who we imagine them to be.

Rabbi Noah Leavitt is spiritual leader of Oheb Zedek Cedar Sinai Synagogue in Lyndhurst.