Tikkun Olam

Just found out today my new granddaughter's name.  It is the name of a strong, brave Eishet Chayil from the Torah, as is her older sister's. Big sister's name is Naomi, of Ruth and Naomi fame--remember Naomi--meaning beautiful, pleasant, or delightful--was such a good, loving human being that her daughter-in-law, Ruth, did not want to leave her after Naomi's sons and husband died.  She loved G-d, and after her personal tragedies, returned to her people with Ruth, who accepted Judaism and the G-d of the Jewish people.  Encouraged by her mother-in-law, she later became Boaz's wife, from whom the future King David would descend. Naomi's new little sister's name is Yael.  Yael, who is written about in the book of Shoftim (Judges), was the brave woman who dared go out of her tent , using her beauty and feminine wiles to lure the evil Canaanite general Sisera who was attacking her people, into her tent, getting him drowsy with warm milk, covering and then kill...

(nablopomo day 29) I was in a rush to get my post and pictures in yesterday, so I didn't pontificate on the significance of the name "Naomi." I remember, when my first Israeli grandson was born to my younger son, Nathaniel Blumenstein, I waxed eloquent ( or rather, my son did--I just copied and pasted his stuff!) on the meaning and significance of his name, Gavriel (which is translated as "Gabriel" in English) on my post back in November '08 after his birth, here . As is Gavriel, Naomi, too, is a special name.  It is Hebrew, originating in the TaNaCH in the book of Ruth.  Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth.  It means "my delight," coming from the Hebrew word, no'am , which is "pleasantness" or "delightfulness." The shoresh , or root, is " na-em ," which is 'pleasant' or 'lovely.'  The infinitive, " li-n'om , " means "to be pleasant." Hebrew grammar has seven different ...

I wrote last year about my new baby grandson and the name that my son and daughter-in-law chose for him after great deliberation and research. This new baby grandchild in Yerushalayim waited until very close to Shabbat before her parents had made a final decision on her name, which heretofore on this blog will be Tiddly (her Aunt Toodles was flying high: she was sure that her brother named her new little niece after her .) I was pondering the significance of Tiddly’s name, not recognizing it as a name from the TaNaCH. It sounded like “the dew of G-d” to me (והמבין יבין ), and I was trying to get my head around it, when I found this very interesting spiritual explanation of the name, and liked it so much, decided to post about it. First of all, let me say that we believe that a person's name is very important; it is already decided "in Heaven" what a child's name will be, even before conception, and the parents are given Divine insight in choosing the correct...

Well (I was taught never to begin a sentence with 'well'), big brother (all 1 year of him) --my new grandson's baby sister has a name, henceforth, in the interest of anonymity to be referred to as Googles and Tiddly, respectively. Her father, Nathaniel Bloomenstein managed to get to shul on Shabbat and get an aliyah to name her. Everyone (Mister Arnold Mayergi and his lovely wife Hardally, Nathaniel's sister Rambo, and of course, his wife Noodles and their two kids Googles and Tiddly) were together for Friday night seudat Shabbat. I know that Toodles, who left Israel in July, misses them terribly and really wanted to be there, but like us, she couldn't, for financial reasons. But I also know that she is thrilled at their choice of the baby's name, Tiddly, which is very close to Toodles' own--can't you tell? ( -Just spoke to Nathaniel B. on the phone-he was in bed already-and he said his sister Toodles' name had nothing to do with it!) He (Tiddly...