Babies & B’reishit
This past Sunday, I led a baby naming for a newborn girl.
Such a perfect way to start the new year.
New baby. New Year. (Or the other way around.)
The father had told me he had no idea what a baby naming entailed.
That’s because we’re making it up as we go, bringing attention to girls as we strive to gain equal recognition for females upon entering the Covenant. (This is not to mention what to do for an intersex child, or how interesting that the rabbis of the Talmud recognized the reality of many genders.)
Adding to the complication of a make-it-up-as-you-go approach, the father is of Jewish Eastern European ancestry while the mother is Chinese Malaysian and Christian.
It’s another one of those situations with an interfaith couple where the Jewishness of the baby might be called into question in the majority of the Jewish world. (Patrilineal descent is not yet widely accepted, you may know.)
People will most certainly (and sadly, in my opinion), ask, “To which tribe does this beautiful new being truly belong?”
The couple seems to live a secular life for the most part, and when I asked the mother how she felt about having a Jewish naming ceremony, she shrugged and said that bringing her Christian faith into it was of no consequence to her or her family; thankfully, everyone had been very accepting.
I thought it was important to dig a little more into her spiritual journey, just to make sure.
She shared that she’d been intensely involved in her church ministry as a teenager, but when she came to the U.S. and met her husband, all that had changed.
Why, I asked?
They looked at each other thoughtfully, and simultaneously said, with a cute, shared laugh, that he had “messed it all up” for her.
Meanwhile, the father has become quite nostalgic for his Jewish childhood and bar mitzvah training and, despite how boring it had been, wants that for their child.
The mother mostly cares about finding and recreating the kind of community she’d had back home with her church. If that’s through a synagogue, she said she’d be perfectly happy.
Fast forward to a week later, and extended family were gathered in a small dining room area. Far away, Malaysian family were on Zoom.
And right from the beginning of the ceremony, the mother started to cry.
Oy. That had not been my intention.
I’d opened with a little niggun/wordless melody from psalm 118, which is part of the Songs of Praise/Hallel, during Sukkot. It seemed appropriate, considering it was the last day of the holiday.
“Open the gates of Righteousness, so that we may enter, and thank you,” the psalm says.
“Because we have to be the ones to open those ‘gates’ and set so many things right in this precious world.” (Lots of nods in agreement.)
I talked about how all the holidays, from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, bring in joy, but also tears and nostalgia as we remember our ancestors with more than one Yizkor service sprinkled in:
“We’re here to celebrate this new baby with joy, and also to remember ancestors for whom this beautiful baby is being named.”
“Also, Sukkot, when we pray for rain, reminds us of the precariousness of life through the temporary shelters we put up; from the onset of pregnancy through the birth, and on and on…do we ever stop worrying?
That’s when I looked over at the mother and saw the tears.
Because it was all so true!
But we were here to bless this baby, to lend support and love to these new parents. to begin to lay the foundation of community the couple needs to bring up a child in such precarious times.
We each put our hands over our heart, the most powerful organ of the body whose energy connects us all, absorbed the loving, healing energy into our palms, and spread it out to the family and the world.
Everyone took turns shaking the lulav, raining down blessings on the baby and the world, holding the etrog, the citrus fruit, often interpreted as a representation of the heart, against our chest.
The great grandfather held the baby and gently sang her songs in Yiddish.
When the moment came for naming this child, she received names that honored both her Chinese and her Jewish ancestry.
As the mother explained the Chinese name, she apologetically said something about male lineage—and I thought, “My people have the same problem.”
This week, after many false starts to the New Year (three weeks!), we finally begin Genesis/B’reishit.
We begin at the beginning of the world, as our creation story goes.
In the very first chapter, second verse, the Earth is described as a kind of unformed void, a sort of chaos/וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ/v’ha’aretz hayta tohu va’vohu.
After creating light, and the sky, the water and the land, God said, we will make “adam” (literally meaning creature of earth) in our image, with our likeness: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ/Va’yomer Elohim na’ase adam b’tzalmeynu, kidmoteynu (Gen.1:26)
The next verse says, “And Elohim made Adam/earth being, in his image; in their image Elohim made them; male and female he made them: וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃: Va’yivra Elohim et ha-adam b’tzalmo; b’tzalam Elohim bara oto zachar u’n’keyva bara otam (Gen.1:27)
What does it mean that Elohim, the first name given for God, is plural? Who’s the “we” that makes humans in “our” likeness?
And if God has no image, then how can we be made in that image?
And how is it that the first impulse is to make man and woman at the same time, as equals, only to change the story later so women know that men have dominion over them—and over all other creatures?
We have a lot of work to do to return to that first impulse to proclaim “We” and “Ours,” instead of “Me” and “Mine.”
We have a lot of work to do to return to a place of equal respect for females—and for all genders—yes, return to that too, perhaps.
It will take a lot of work to get back in touch directly with the land and our food sources.
But, as we know from science, the Earth is constantly correcting the mistakes we humans make as we try so desperately to gain dominion over her—and fail so miserably.
Seeing the way this family cradled and blessed and reveled in the beauty of this new life, welcoming her with open arms, putting aside any possible concerns about each others’ tribes, was a little window into a world where everyone is recognized as created in Elohim’s image–-a world of We, connected to the earth, as we naturally are, living in synchronicity with her—a world where we might leave nature to do its thing of healing in these very chaotic times.
So we ask for the gates of righteousness to open for us, so that we may enter, and make what’s wrong right again–and we will say thank you. And Amen.
