CHAPTER TWO - Birth Ceremonies and Life Beginnings

A: BACKGROUND

4. NAMES AS STATEMENTS OF PARENTAL IDENTITY

Once again, this is borne out in reference to the tradition.

There is a well-known episode in Moses' life when he fled from Pharaoh's wrath, after he realized that his murder of an Egyptian overseer had become known. He sought "asylum" in Midian, after fate played its ironic hand. Having just discovered his strong bond to his People, he was forced to flee into exile with the knowledge that he was unlikely ever to return. At a certain point, he settled down in Midian and married a local woman, Zipporah - indeed a tragedy for a person who has only recently discovered where he really belongs!

The depth of Moses' lifelong feeling of exile is revealed to the reader of his story, however, only when he fathers a child - a son. The name that he gives his son is Gershom (literally, "a stranger there"). The text explains that this is because Moses was "a stranger in a strange land" and the assumption of the text is that the strange land refers to Egypt. Most commentators skip over the story seeing it as a self-evident statement, but further thought should alert us to an intriguing idea.

What sort of a father would call his own son "Stranger"? If Moses indeed did call his own child "Stranger," it is clear that he wanted to pass over his own feeling of cultural alienation in Egypt and in Midian to his child. He wanted Gershom to grow up with the same kind of cultural alienation that Moses himself had experienced through much of his life in two different societies. Any child that grows up with the name "Stranger" is going to have enormous problems fitting into the society where he lives. At some point in his young life, he is going to turn questioningly and perhaps angrily, to his parents, asking why on earth he has been saddled with a name that is not only ridiculous, but also extremely difficult for him. Moses must have been aware of that when he chose the name for his child: no thinking or considerate parent lands a child with a name that is going to make them the object of ridicule for a lifetime!

Moses must have planned the moment when, many years in the future, Gershom would turn round with the question, because he, the father, would have the answer ready, involving an explanation of Gershom's (and Moses') real cultural identity. Moses clearly meant to pass on to his son the feeling of exile, the fact of not belonging: his instrument for doing so would have been a name, and it would have worked. Names given to a child do reflect the cultural identities of the parents, and it is the parents' wish that that identity will be passed down to the child. Names are a weapon in the battle for cultural survival: moreover, Jewish names in Egypt kept the Children of Israel apart.

Moses was not the first to use this ploy. Earlier on, in Bereishit 41, we read about a related act by Joseph of naming his two children by an Egyptian wife with names that reflect his bitterness, despite his prosperity in the alien land of Egypt.

Names are indeed a key to cultural identity, often chosen by Jewish parents to represent the cultural orientation that they hope their child will take.

Jewish children of would-be Hellenizers in ancient Eretz Yisrael and, of course, the Diaspora called their children by Greek names, in order to indicate the desired cultural direction. The perfect example of conflicting cultural directions within a family is found in the story of the Maccabees and the Hasmoneans. If the first generation - the one of the rebellion - received names like Yehudah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar, a couple of generations later we find mixed names such as Yochanan Hyrcanus. Just a short while later, we find that the Jewish name has been totally dropped and the children are called by names such as Hyrcanus or Aristobulus. It does not mean that the parents of the last named did not want their children to be Jewish. It does mean, however, that they wanted them to embrace the Hellenistic culture together with their Judaism and to consider themselves as citizens of a wider cultural universe.

Examples can equally be drawn from recent times. As Jews became increasingly integrated into western host cultures in recent generations, it became very common to give the child two names, a Jewish (Hebrew) name for ritualistic purposes within the Jewish world, and a non-Jewish name to be used in outside society. Is it surprising that in so many cases, the "outside" name became the "real" name with which the child would identify?

Over the last twenty years or so, an interesting counter-trend has developed in parts of the English speaking world. Many parents have returned to giving their children "Jewish names" for use in outside society. These Jewish names are given usually in the form that is most familiar in the outside world. Biblical names, most prominent in this respect, are given in the anglicized form that would be recognized by the outside world (Saul rather than Sha'ul, Joseph rather than Yosef, Noah rather than No'ach). This return to Hebrew names in the vernacular form suggests, once again, a very specific message about cultural identity that the parents wish to convey to their child.