Bereshit – The Decider in Chief

How vain, without the merit, is the name

— Homer

 

Proper names are poetry in the raw.  Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

— W.H. Auden

 

Good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls.

— William Shakespeare

 

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.

— Playground Taunt

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

— Salman Rushdie

 

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.[1]

— Oscar Wilde

 

A Few minutes after I recited the blessing that proclaimed that my baby boy would henceforth be called “Avraham Moshe”, Enid’s grandmother can be seen and heard asking – incredulously – “What’s his name?”  The moment, captured for posterity on a VHS tape, still makes me cringe thirty-four years later.

It’s not that she didn’t hear his name; it’s that she couldn’t process the information.  It had to be a mistake!  Slowly it dawned on her that her first (and only) great-grandson would not bear the name of her recently deceased husband. Disappointment notwithstanding, she was characteristically gracious until the end.  She never once took it out on him.^[2]

I do not regret the name we chose.  Indeed, it’s hard to image my son being a “Harry” or anything other than Avi, for that matter.  What I regret, though, is that in my zeal to observe a custom of not referring to the pre-circumcised baby by name, I did not even consider for a moment that the sound of his name at his bris would be an assault on the senses of a beloved, elderly, widow.

In the years since, I’ve counseled many new parents to be sympathetic to the complicated emotions that are embedded in the choice of a new child’s name.^[3]  Of course, parents are empowered by the laws of nature and man with the absolute right to pick the name of their offspring^[4].  But that power – like every demonstration of power – should be wielded thoughtfully and compassionately.

During Hakafot on Simchas Torah, I took an unscientific poll of the men around me.  I asked them: “Who picked the names for your children?”  All but one of the men admitted that their Eshet Chayil either picked the name or allowed him to choose from a (very) short list.  One of my friends went so far as to divulge that his wife also picked the names of their grandchildren!  As Henry Ford once said to a complaining customer, “you can have a car in any color you want as long as that color is black”.

That brings us to the first couple, Adam & Chava.  With no one to name after, they had the luxury of infinite choices.  Is it easier – or harder – to pick a name for your newborn bundle when no one has ever done it before?  This is an Isaac-Newton-watching-the-apple-fall-moment!  Should it be an arbitrary word?  Do we go with a pleasant sound?  A feeling?

And the man (conjugally) knew his wife, Chava, and she conceived and bore Kayin. She said, “I have created a man with Hashem.”

וְהָ֣אָדָ֔ם יָדַ֖ע אֶת־חַוָּ֣ה אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וַתַּ֙הַר֙ וַתֵּ֣לֶד אֶת־קַ֔יִן וַתֹּ֕אמֶר קָנִ֥יתִי אִ֖ישׁ אֶת־ה׃

[Gen. 4:1]

The name chosen has meaning and a back-story.  In the English translation (above), I have elected to renderקָנִ֥יתִי  as “I have created” because lost in the more common interpretation^[5] is that “Kayin” represented her crowning, creative, achievement.  Did you notice that Chava – not Adam – names her son?

“Kayin” was “the one that she creates”^[6].  In her Oscar-worthy speech, she gives appropriate thanks and credit to her creative partners, Adam and God, but she is not shy; she knows that she deserves creative control and naming rights.  What’s more, naming her first born baby was not a consolation prize for having fulfilled God’s curse after the sin in Eden:

And to the woman He said, “I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing; In pain shall you bear children.  Yet your urge shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכׇל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּלְאָדָ֕ם לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃

[Gen. 3:16]

Recall that it was Adam who named all the animals:

The man named all the livestock, the birds of the sky, and the beasts of the field, but for man he did not find a helper to be his counterpart.

וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכׇל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּלְאָדָ֕ם לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃

[Gen. 2:20]

This woman was not created merely to be Adam’s “assistant”.  She was his עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ his “counterpart”, his “partner” in life.  Still, that she was not quite a “50-50 partner” is hinted to by the fact that Adam asserted dominion over her by naming her, too:

The man said, “This time, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.  This will be called ‘woman’ because this was taken from man.”

וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֮ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקְחָה־זֹּֽאת׃

[Gen. 2:23]

Adam first calls his womenאִשָּׁ֔ה  because – just like a man -he saw her as an extension of himself.  Later (Gen. 3:20), he renames her “Chava” because she will become the mother of his children.  Chava dutifully accepts her names and roles.

Was Adam an un-woke “cave man”?  Or is this God’s Will?  Indeed, Chava’s second-class status seems to be explicitly ordained: “…your urge shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

With an infant now in her arms, Chava comes to understand that God’s words have a funny way of coming true, and not necessarily the way the casual reader suspects.  For what seems at first blush to be a curse of submissiveness is really a glimpse into the greatest blessing of all.

That Chava is the parent who names Kayin is an indication that a permanent shift in the dynamic has occurred in this nuclear family.  The honeymoon is over.  Chava is no longer a girlfriend or an ideal, paradigm of motherhood.  She is … Mommy.  She has a job to do.  She picks up the reigns quickly.  She seized immediate control by naming her son.  She leaves no doubt who will be making the big, child-rearing decisions moving forward!

By naming him Kayin, Chava also tells us that she has had an epiphany.  She now knows what it means to create life in a way that her husband is simply incapable of grasping.  She now appreciates that what her husband perceives as a childbearing curse is a double blessing – as a wife and mother.  New life emerged from her.  And it is not just the baby who clings to her!  So does her man, even if she lets him pretend to be the one in charge.

On the curse “your urge shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you”, the Talmud (TB Eruvin 100b) suggests that men and women are “wired” differently.  When it comes to carnal desire, men are more impulsive and verbal; women are more thoughtful and reserved.  Concludes the Talmud: זוֹ הִיא מִדָּה טוֹבָה בַּנָּשִׁים. “This is a good trait for women”.  Women have it right.

Holding a swaddled Kayin, Chava also understands what God meant way back when she was still a newlywed in Paradise:

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

עַל־כֵּן֙ יַֽעֲזָב־אִ֔ישׁ אֶת־אָבִ֖יו וְאֶת־אִמּ֑וֹ וְדָבַ֣ק בְּאִשְׁתּ֔וֹ וְהָי֖וּ לְבָשָׂ֥ר אֶחָֽד:

[Gen. 2:24]

The “one flesh” is not the joining of man and woman in a sexual act.  It is the new life that is created by that act of love.^[7]  It is the shifting of the priorities from being merely husband and wife to being mommy and daddy, from the pursuit of personal happiness to the more sobering – and existentially joyous – pursuit of giving shape and form to that newly created life.

Food for Thought:

• Kayan’s brother, Hevel, does not appear to be named by either parent. Why?
• Why is he called Hevel?
• When did he get that name?

 

Shabbat Shalom!

[1]. Gwyneth Paltrow would disagree with Oscar’s observation.

[2]. This was not the last time I did something that profoundly upset her, but I shall save that story for another time.

[3]. I’ve also counseled many parents and grandparents (and spouses) who were inconsolably angry at the names chosen.

[4]. A Tennessee judge was removed from the bench when he ordered a baby’s name to be changed from Messiah to Martin because it offended his religious sensibilities.

[5] See, e.g., https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8168/jewish/Chapter-4.htm (“Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, and she said, “I have acquired a man with the Lord.”)

[6] See, Rashi on Gen. 14:19.

[7] See, Rashi on Gen. 2:24.