Names
January 24, 2004

The convergence of two related themes inspired this morning’s sermon. The first is a perplexing verse in the torah reading, and the second is a ceremony this morning during which the infant, Hallie Fay Goldberg, received her Hebrew name, Haya Fayga.

The perplexing verse in the Torah comes in the context of Moses asking God what his name is. God tells Moses: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by my name Adonai.” Let me briefly explicate this verse by observing that God’s various names disclose varied aspects of God’s power. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God by the powers associated with the name El Shaddai. But they had not experienced God’s power to redeem his people which is associated with the name Adonai. The events of the Exodus would clearly display to the both the Israelites and the Egyptians God’s ability to free his people from bondage. That is why God announces his name to Moses as Adonai.

Names are very important. Whether for God or for us humans, they are our signboard to the world proclaiming who we are and what we are. Because they are so significant to our identity, names carry immense emotional freight. If our name is forgotten or misspelled or mispronounced, we become very upset. Our names are sacred to us.

Because names are so important, parents, like Hallie Fay Goldberg’s mom and dad, spend hours investigating and pondering possible names for their child. It is something that will be with the child for a lifetime and even live on afterward through appropriation by descendants.

The history of names is fascinating. In early biblical times, names were unique to the child and coined on the occasion of birth. Rachel, who lay dying as her son was born, named him “Ben Oni” – “son of my affliction”. It is not a name a child would want to live with so his father changed it to Benjamin. Moses was drawn out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter. In commemoration, she named him Moshe, which means “the one who was drawn out.” Moses’ first son is born in Midian where Moses had taken refuge after fleeing Egypt. We can tell how Moses felt about living as a fugitive and far from the palace where he was raised by the name he gives his first son. Moses called him Gershom which means “I have become a stranger in a foreign land.”

Names as I mentioned were unique - never to be used again. Over a period of a thousand years, we find no re-occurrence in the Bible of the names of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; nor of the Matriarchs: Sara, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah; nor do we find Moses again. Not one of the twenty-one kings of Judah was named after David, founder of dynasty and whose throne they succeeded. In the bible’s list of High Priests who served in the first Temple, no name is repeated. It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that according to ancient Jewish belief, names belonged to a specific person and when that person died, the name ceased also.

At some point in the Talmudic period, a change occurred. The practice developed of giving a child the name of an ancestor so that the ancestor’s memory would be kept alive. When an offspring received a deceased person’s name, it was akin to that person being born anew. It perpetuated his or her being.

But not only deceased individuals had their names passed on to a new generation. On occasions, children were also named for living people. Rabbi Nathan is quoted in the Talmud as being grateful to parents who honored him by naming their newborn infants after him.

In our own day, Sephardic Jews name after the living, but usually after a living grandfather rather than a living father. Ashkenazic Jews name only after deceased family members. When an Ashkenazic Jew marries a Sephardic Jew, the naming of a child can become extremely emotional because the Sephardic spouse feels the only proper way to name is after the living whereas the Ashkenazic spouse’s reaction is – that’s wrong – only the names of deceased ancestors should be passed on to their newborn child. Usually, a comprise is found to satisfy both traditions.

From a historical perspective, personal names among Jews reveal two tendencies. One is to maintain strictly Hebrew names. The other is to use names common in one’s general surroundings. Today, especially in the orthodox community, children have Hebrew names only. But outside the orthodox community, parents generally select names that are popular in the broader culture.

Both these tendencies can be traced back thousands of years. The first Jewish community outside of Israel in ancient times was in Babylonia where the Jews had been taken as exiles after the destruction of Jerusalem and the first Temple. One contingent of Jews was fiercely nationalistic and used only Hebrew names for their children. Another segment of the Jewish population selected local Babylonian names for their sons and daughters. When Alexander the Greek conquered the world and Hellenism became the universal culture, some Jews chose to give their children Greek names. When the Romans governed Israel, some Jews gave their children Latin names.

At first non-Hebrew names were used only in relations with non-Jews. They were a direct translation of the Hebrew. So if your name was Zadok, which means “just,” you became Justus to you non-Jewish friends and associates. If your name was Nathaniel, which means “God has given,” you became Theodorus. Gradually, however, the non-Jewish name became the more important one and finally the only one. To make certain that Jewish names continued to be conferred, the rabbis decreed that every Jewish boy be given a purely Jewish name at his brit, his circumcision. In that way, each boy had a shem kodesh, a religious name, by which he was called to the torah and which was used in official documents like a ketuba. This rule was not as strictly enforced with girls who in many communities were not given religious names.

The secular names that Jews chose have an interesting history. Some first names that we think of being very Jewish are nothing of the sort. In my grandparents’ generation, Isador was a favorite choice. It means the gift of Isis, who was an Egyptian goddess. In modern times, Jews began to use Isador instead of the Jewish names, Isaac and Israel. As Isador became more and more used by Jews, it was used less and less by non-Jews. But then Jews, who wished to assimilate, avoided that name, too. So other names like Irving became quite fashionable. Sidney, derived from Saint Denis, also became popular among first generation American Jews as was Hymen, derived from Hymenaeus, the ancient Greek god of marriage. If you wanted to name a child after grandpa Hayim you called him Hymen or Harry. Again, as Jews used these names more and more, non-Jews stopped using them because of their Jewish association even though they were not Jewish names in their origins.

The clear trend has been for each new generation of Jews to select more contemporary names for their children rejecting the previous generation’s names as too old fashioned or too parochial. So today you find children with the names like Scott and Sean Litvak as incongruous as it sounds, at least, to my ears.

Personally, I am heartened by the trend among young couples to select biblical names for their children. Jacob, Samuel, Jonathan, Joshua and Daniel; Sara, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, sound quite beautiful to me. A Jewish or biblical name helps root children in their past and strengthens their identity with the Jewish people as well as with their immediate ancestors. In our open society, every little bit of Jewishness helps keep Judaism and Jewish culture alive against great odds.

A midrash proclaims that one of the reasons that the Israelites in Egypt were able to survive Pharaoh’s attempts to destroy them was that they did not change their names. Reuben did not become Rufus and Shimon did not become Horace.

Jewish names are a constant reminder of our religious birthright. They connect us to our Jewish roots. They encourage us to emulate the Jewish values and ideals associate with the person for whom we are named. The names we confer on our children are an important way we can express our attachment to our Jewish heritage. If we are proud to be Jewish, let the names we choose declare that pride.


Shabbat Shalom