Parents get to name their children. I remember wanting to name my youngest child who was born female and hence not requiring surgical intervention to make her Jewish (see, eg, the Brazilian Film … The Year My Parents Went on Vacation) … i.e., my child who was born perfect, just as she was … I reasoned to name her Bas Yishai...בת ישי … hinting for just such an undamaged Female Moshiach. “Who says Moshiach must have been androgenized in utero?” Fortuitously my grandfather intervened … I relented but complained (going on tickling my Zaida ר׳ חיים אברהם קליין) that he was complicit in choosing my Hebrew Name … חיים צבי … which (un)fortuitously in Gematria was the same as פץ. He, in his typical way, smiled, called me by my Yiddish Name, instead, patted me on my foot-taller than his head and lovingly offered: “Name her Bas Sheva” and with my wife, I did. The following represent some notes I’ve taken on birthing and naming in Breishis. Achtung! Typos are likely many … I’d like to read a Dvar Torah on this, someday … I may have to write it, myself.
שלא נאמר "When We Begat the Begats" … Birthing and their Sequelae
(How not to name/parent in 35 easy chapters: Omnis definitatus est negatus — Maybe? (B. Spinoza))
It begins with the Curse/Adam and Chavah: (Gen 3:16) הרבה ארבה עצבונך והרונך…ואל אישך תשוקתיך והוא ימשל בך
Adam named for the dirt he comes from and returns to. Chava for passion.
[Greatly will I make your pain in childbirth as you're passionately drawn to your man who will rule over you.]
Kayin's naming? (Gen 4:1) קניתי איש את יהוה [maybe: I got my Guy from God] Hevel's naming is uncertain; maybe he's just הבל, just nothing, הבל הבלים Eccl..
Sequelae: Kayin kills Hevel and takes no responsibility (Note similarity: Kanisi and Kin'ah, maybe … homophonically, if not grammatically, connected … a tradition)
Noah: Naming unclear with Kids … Shem, Cham, Yafes
Yishmael: (Gen 16) Yishmael Named by an Angel: וקראת שמו ישמעאל כי שמע יהיה אל עניך (Gen 11…) [And you'll call him Yishmael, for God heard your suffering] And, then Avraham confirms the choice of names.
Sequelae: Yishmael is nearly killed by Father but serves him as a servile son with Eliezer. Huh?
Action: Lot's children are not named, particularly. Avraham plays the Wife/Sister game for second time and then Sarah conceives. No wonder she feared people’s mockery?
Yitzchak: ותאמר שרה צחוק עשה לי אלהים כל השומע יצחק לי (Gen 21:6) And Sarah said, God has made a mockery of me; everyone who hears this will mock me, too. Many, many uses of the root Tzchok.
Sequelae: Yitzchak, a sad clown of sorts, suffers with a Tzchok at hands of his brother and also his son, Ya'akov. Yishmael “Tzchok’s” his younger brother.
Ya'akov and Eisav: (Gen 25:22) ויתרוצצו הבנים בקרבה … אם כן למה זה אנכי [And the boys ran about themselves inside of her and she said … if it is to be thus, why should I go on?]
Aisav is named through his color (like an object). Ya'akov name by Yitzchak due to his competitiveness.
Sequelae: Yup! The Brothers fight. Rivka continues to be disgusted קצתי בחיי מפני בנות חת [I could end my life just thinking of these non-Jewish girls] and the marriage that began in the only love reported thus far festers, faulters, is foul, and ends in a disfunctional family.
Ya'akov's Kids (starting in Gen 29):
1. Re'uven born of a hated Mother שנואה היא … naming? ראה יהוה בעניי כי עתה יאהבני איש (Gen 29:32) [God understood my suffering; maybe my man will love me, now] … Sad.
Sequelae: Re'uven beds his Father's concubine, Bilhah. (who put him up to it? We don't know.) He does initially defend Yoseph at the pit but otherwise?
2. Shim'on born again of hated Mother: כי שמע יהוה כי שנואה אנכי ויתן לי גם את זה (Gen 29:33) [For God got it that I was hated and He gave me this one, too.]
Sequelae: Shim'on becomes a mass murderer.
3. Levi born to same hated Mother: עתה הפעם ילוה אישי … כי ילדתי לו שלושה בנים (Gen 29:34)
[This time will my man accompany me/be drawn to me, 'cause I gave him 3 sons
Sequelae: Levi becomes a mass murderer.
4. Finally, someone in Torah expresses gratitude, Leah (if that's not reason enough to recite her name before Rachel's in Shmoneh Esrei!): Yehudah born to same Mother, Leah, but this time in gratitude: הפעם אודה את יהוה (Gen 29:35) [This time, I'll thank God].
Sequelae: Yehudah becomes the first person in Torah to accept responsibility for wrongdoing and does it three times. Noch besser! and becomes Grandpere to the line of Dovid.
Rachel threatens suicide over her depressed/angry feelings about not having children. Ya'akov, being consistent, shows his inability to show empathy, following his Dad and Grandpa. (Gen 30:1-2)
5. Bilhah births/surrogates Dan but Rachel names: דנני אלהים וגם שמע בקולי (Gen 30:6) [God has judged/evaluated me and also listened to my voice]
6. Bilhah births/surrogates Naftali but Rachel names: נפתולי אלהים נפתלתי אם אחותי גם יכולתי (Gen 30:8) [With God, I schemed against my Sister and I prevailed.]
Not to be outdone, Leah drafts Zilpah into surrogate-service.
7. Zilpah births/surrogates Gad but Leah names: בגד (Gen 30:11) [Rebel! Rebelled! Rebellion! or "Good luck"(?)]
8. Zilpah births/surrogates Asher but Leah names: באשרי כי אשרוני בנות (Gen 30:13) [In my fotune … for daughters have seen me as fortunate.]
Sequelae: “Maybe some truffles?”
9. Yisachar's birth by Leah who purchased a Night with Jake. נתן אלהים שכרי אשר נתתי שפחתי לאישי (Gen 30:18) [God gave me my rental fee for having given my maid to my man.]
10. Zvulon's bith, by Leah, again. זבדני אלהים אותי זבד טוב הפעם יזבלני אישי כי ילדתי לו ששה בנים (Gen 30:20) [God has given me good stuff so from now on my husband will maybe bunk with me because I gave him six sons.]
11. It's a Girl! Dinah we'll call her … but nobody remembers why.
Sequelae: Intending to with Neighborhood Girls, she ends up with some hunk.
12. Rachel births Yoseph. יסף יהוה לי בן אחר …אסף אלהים חרפתי (Gen 30:23) [God gathered up my shame … may he give me another son].
Sequelae: Yoseph's life is all about power, shame and retribution.
Then Jake gets into the whole "horse trading and Trafim thing and leaves Lavan with his crew. After 20 years Lavan relents: וישכם לבן בבקר וינשק לבניו ולבנותיו ויברך אתהם וילך וישב לבן למקומו (Gen 32:1) [And Lavan got up real early and kissed his sons (?) and his daughters and blessed them; and Lavan left and returned to his place. The Esav meeting follows with Ya'akov convinced — guilty perhaps — that Eisav is his maleus maleficarum … his hammer of the evildoers that will come down on his always-conniving head and render punishments due. This is followed by the story of Dinah … arguably lying to her parents about where she was spending the night … ending in the Shim'on-Levi Genocide of the Chamor Clan. Ya'akov's response is that his sons made him stink among his neighbors. עכרתם אתי להבאישני בישב הארץ … ואני מתי מספר ונאספו עלי והכוני ונשמדתי אני וביתי (Gen 34:30) [You made me stink with the citizenry … And I? am small in numbers (of allies) and they will gang up on me and kill me and I and my tribe will be destroyed.]
Followed by "Promises, Promises."
13. The eclamptic (?) birth of Binyamin/Rachel's death: ותקרא שמו בןֿ אוני ואביו קרא לו בןימין (Gen 35:18) [And as her Soul departed as she was dying, she called him The Son of my Suffering and his father called him Binyamin … the Son of the Right Hand.]
And, more or less, the next 15 chapters are about Yoseph who gets rid of “Shame” with “Pride” and “Revenge.”.