Your name reflects more than just your parents’ feelings and whims at the moment you were born. According to the teachings of Kabbalah, parents are endowed by G-d with the wisdom to choose names that are associated with the unique source from which their child’s soul stems. Hence, though Leah attributed her choice of the name Zevulun to the milestone she reached by having her sixth child, but  the change that this brought about in her life was essentially due to the uniqueness of this new arrival, whose distinctive character is expressed in the name Zevulun. As this child (and eventual tribe) was associated with the idea of “Zevulun”, meaning “a place of primary and permanent residence”, his arrival brought a gift in kind to his mother’s life as well; Leah’s tent became her husband’s primary home.

Where do we find that Zevulun excelled in developing places of residence? In the arrangement that the tribe of Zevulun made with the tribe of Yissachar: “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 (Rashi, Devarim 33:18).”

Zevulun’s business successes were not only financial. Their immersion in trade and commerce afforded them unique opportunities to infuse G-dly meaning in the ways and goods of the material world. More so than by the Torah study of their partner tribe Yissachar, the tribe of Zevulun’s dealings “for the sake of Heaven”, in their case, to support Torah study, and their utilization of their material means for the fulfillment of G-d’s commands, transform this lowly physical world into a bastion of G-dliness. Like the name Zevulun, meaning “principle residence”, it is specifically the businessperson who develops this world into a place that G-d can call home.

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—Likutei Sichos vol. 30, pp. 134-136