My Hebrew Name -- תומר יצחק בן אברהם אבינו ושרה אמנו

In a move that I assume surprised no one, I converted to Judaism last week in the days leading up to Shavuot. (Well, some people were surprised to learn I wasn’t already Jewish!) I chose the Hebrew name

 תומר יצחק בן אברהם אבינו ושרה אמנו

Tomer Yitzchok ben Avraham Avinu v’Sarah Imeinu. Several people have asked me why I chose it, so here is a short list of my reasons.

Tomer:

1. In college, my Israeli professor asked that we use our Hebrew names in class. As the only non-Jewish kid, I didn’t have one, so he gave me the name Tomer, meaning “date palm,” presumably because it sounds like Tim.

2. I love the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, even nagging one of my shuls into having a Tu B’Shvat Seder the last couple of years, which I co-led, and having a tree name fits well with that. Plus I like the connection, through that, with the four worlds and the Etz Chaim.

3. My birthday on the Hebrew calendar is 15 Tishrei, the first day of Sukkot, and the lulav is taken from the date palm tree (see Leviticus 23:40).

4. The word tomer appears in that form in Judges 4:5 as the Tomer Devorah, the date palm of Devorah, under which she would sit to make judgment – and I, aspirationally, would like better discernment to have better judgment.

5. There is a commentary on that verse that states that Devorah judged under a palm tree because the Jewish people had lev echad, one heart, in their service to G!d – another thing I would like to strive for. (Megillah 14a)

6. This verse is part of the haftarah for Beshalach, since Beshalach contains the Song of the Sea and the following chapter in this haftarah contains the Song of Devorah – and music is central to how I worship.

7. Just as the haftarah contains my name, so in Beshalach, there are three verses of 72 letters apiece which, when permutated a certain way, produce the 216-letter name of G!d.

8. After crossing the Red Sea, the first place the Jewish people are able to relax and catch their breath is Elim, with 12 springs and 70 date palm trees. (Exodus 15:27)

9. Not counting Tanach/Mishnah/Gemara, after the siddur, my favorite Jewish text is Tomer Devorah, by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a work of Mussar and Kabbalah. The first chapter is an exposition of the Thirteen Supernal Attributes of G!d in Micah 7:18-20, which we are to emulate, being made in the image and likeness of G!d, to be loving and of service to our fellow creatures. The tenth chapter is a beautiful exposition of how to bring the sefirot of the Etz Chaim into our lives throughout the day, centered around davening Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv.

10. The date palm makes an appearance in Psalm 92, Mizmor Shir L’Yom HaShabbat, the psalm for Shabbat. I love the Lewandowski setting of that verse, Tzadik kaTamar.

Yitzchok:

1. The word means “he will laugh” and is given as Yitzchok’s name because both Avraham and Sarah laugh when finding out they will have a son at a very advanced age. I am the only child born to older parents after 20 years of marriage who thought they could not have children. And I love to laugh and to make people laugh.

2. The Akedah, Genesis 22, in which Avraham attempts to sacrifice Yitzchok because G!d told him to until the angel stopped him. My own father metaphorically sacrificed me to his warped religious fundamentalism.  I have wrestled with this text for over 30 years and have come to believe the most important event, for me, is when Avraham returns to the two young men with them after the sacrifice without Yitzchok (Genesis 22:19) – which I now read as Yitzchok walking away from an abusive situation to find a new life – which I have done in my own life.

3. Yitzchok is able to heal from this horrible situation to find his own relationship with G!d and to embrace acts of lovingkindness, when it is related (Genesis 24:63) that he goes out in the afternoon to meditate in the field and looks up and sees camels – I read gemalim, camels, as related to gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness.

4. This is the origin of Mincha, according to the rabbis, and points to my love of liturgy.

5. In Genesis 25:11, it is stated that after the death of Avraham, G!d blesses Yitzchok his son, which Chizkuni and others read as Avraham failing to bless Yitzchok, with G!d making up the blessing.

6. Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer states that the chatimah of the second brachah of the Amidah was uttered by Yitzchok when his soul returned to his body when the angel of Hashem restrained Avraham from schechting him. I find this brachah, G’vurot, very meaningful. There is a question addressed to G!d that is meant to be rhetorical, “Who is like You?” – but which I have realized can be taken as non-rhetorical – the word for like, “domeh,” is the same shoresh as “d’mut,” “likeness,” and Genesis 5:1 states that we are made in G!d’s likeness. We are like G!d when we do the things mentioned in the brachah – lifting up the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captive – that G!d is prasied for doing. What these things have in common is that they restore people to the fullness of their selves, whom they are created to be – and helping people to do this is more difficult than just helping them solve a problem.

7. There is also a Mussar connection to Yitzchok that is meaningful to me. In the Mussar text Mesillat Yesharim, the Ramchal lays out the path to go from being Yashar (upright) to Tzadik (righteous), through restraining one’s yetzer hara. Then, by expanding one’s yetzer tov, one can move from Tzadik to Chasid (pious). By devoting oneself more and more to the love of G!d, one becomes Kadosh (holy). These spell out Yitzchok. As Rabbi Moshe Shapira observes in Afikei Mayim, this same progression is used in the Shokhein Ad prayer near the end of Psukei d’Zimra in Shacharit of Shabbat – b’fi yesharim, tithalal – by the mouth of the upright, You will be praised, etc. I actually now think of this connection each Shabbat morning during the Shokhein Ad, making it a prayer that I may grow in this path of Mussar through these steps. I love Joey Weisenberg’s setting of this prayer.

I hope and pray that, as I enter the Jewish community, I may live up to the name Tomer Yitzchok.