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Post by hollygail on Mar 12, 2017 1:22:18 GMT -5
What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are certainly welcome to do so but you are also welcome to chime in!
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Post by hollygail on Mar 12, 2017 1:23:52 GMT -5
It’s Purim! Be happy!
Esther’s other name is Hadassah, the feminine form of the Hebrew word for myrtle, hadas, which is one of the four species (in the lulav and etrog) we hold on Sukkot. One question is why she has to have two names. One example, of course, is the tribal name (on the one hand) and the name used outside of the (Jewish) community, like you all know me as Holly, but when I’m called up to Torah, I’m called with my full Hebrew (actually, partially Yiddish) name. However, there’s also another way to look at it.
There’s a Hebrew root samech/tav/resh (sounding like s/t/r) which has to do with “hidden” (so if you start the three consonants with with the short “e” sound, you get Esther). She is told by Mordechai to “hide” her Jewish identity when she goes to the “beauty pageant” (my terminology, not his). God’s name does not appear, and one Jewish teaching is that the very fact of its lack of appearance was a way to “hide” God’s presence behind the scenes.
There are scores of possibilities we could discuss regarding only Esther, or only names, not to mention scores of other things about Purim. However, let’s take only one: names.
Do you know what your Hebrew or Yiddish name means? How about your secular name? Have you ever changed your first and/or middle name, or chosen your own last name (or first or middle, for that matter)?
My first name in Hebrew/Yiddisih is Chaya and it’s from the same root as “chai,” which means “life.” When people toast, they say “l’chaim” (to life). Chaya is the feminine form. As far as “Holly” is concerned, my father’s father’s mother died weeks before I was born. She was known in this country as Hannah, so my parents wanted a name that started with an “H.” My mother had recently read the original Dr. Spock (not Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame, mind you) book, and was taken by the chapter about sibling rivalry, so she and my dad offered my 6 1/2 year old sister the privilege of naming me. She came up with “Holly” and kicked herself when her own daughter was born (my niece is named Deborah, and is called Debbie). She routinely calls her daughter by my name (and refers to her by my name) and calls me Debbie (and refers to me as Debbie too)…
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Post by savtele on Mar 12, 2017 10:35:36 GMT -5
Boker Tov All! Things have quieted down here. Today I don't have to leave the house! {{{{happy dance}}}}
My Hebrew name is Elisheva (wife of the high priest, Aaron). Elisheva & Shoshanna seem to be names that "rotate" down the generations in our family. (My mom is Shoshanna, as is my DD, and my DGD & one of her daughters are Elisheva) The meaning of Elisheva is "God is my oath."
My secular name, Angelika, "like an angel" - means "messenger." It is interesting to me that I spent all my working years as an Admin Asst - a "messenger for the boss," if you will. And if I have an opinion, you will know about it!
I need more coffee - and my kitchen looks like a disaster for some reason. (oh, and we have a mouse-in-the-house) My work is cut out for me today!
Have a good day ladies!
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Post by happysavta on Mar 12, 2017 15:52:12 GMT -5
I have 3 names, Frieda, Faige and Tzipora, all equally relevant. Frydja (Faige) was my paternal grandmother and I was named for her. Faige and Tzipora both translate to "bird". Hebrew speakers/Israelis call me Tzippy. My parents called me Faigele. And teachers/co-workers/English speakers called me Frieda.
The grandmother whose name I carry lived in Lodz and raised 4 sons, a daughter and a granddaughter there. In Feb. 1940, all the Lodz Jews were forced into Lodz Ghetto where conditions were increasingly harsh. She was there together with my paternal grandfather, her daughter and her granddaughter. My grandfather died of starvation in the ghetto. Sometime in late 1943 or early 1944, I think, my grandmother was forced into a cattle car with her daughter and granddaughter who was about 10 then, and transported to Auschwitz. She was separated from her daughter and granddaughter upon arrival. They passed the first selection, she did not. She was murdered in the gas chamber at Auschwitz on the same night she arrived. My aunt and cousin were sent to a side camp of Auschwitz and they survived. My cousin remembers a goodbye nod from her grandmother. No one has a picture of her. Nothing she owned was passed on. She has no grave to visit. The only thing she left was her name. Of her sons, only my father survived. He came to America, while my aunt and cousin went to Israel. That's the story behind my name.
I love the tradition of passing names from generation to generation. I was so very, very disappointed in DS#1 and DS#2 for not carrying on that important tradition. They didn't want to argue with their wives about naming their children. My daughter, though, did follow the tradition and named one of her girls in memory of my aunt and the other for my husband's stepmother who raised him.
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lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,287 
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Post by lee058 on Mar 12, 2017 16:07:36 GMT -5
Hi everybody. Hope you are all well. Today, I alternated doing chores and relaxing. It's bright and sunny out, so it is hard to believe that my area will have a blizzard soon. Yuck! It has been mostly an easy winter and everything is blooming already, so no one expected a fierce snowstorm. I told DS that he is definitely taking Tuesday off from work and maybe Wednesday, depending on the state of the roads. I am going to cancel my appointments for Wednesday, including PT.
Re names: My name (Lee) has caused me problems all my life, but I identify with it anyway. I have had way too many people hassle me about it --- saying that it is a boy's name has been the most common annoyance.
Have a peaceful rest of the day, Lee
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Post by peachymom1 on Mar 12, 2017 19:46:47 GMT -5
Hello everyone, and Purim sameach!
My parents had three daughters before I was born, and they have lovely first and middle names. I don't know why they couldn't think of a middle name for me, but all they gave me was an L. The story is that since they couldn't think of a middle name, they gave me a middle initial that was the first letter of the first word placed on the Scrabble board of the game they played after I was born. The word was "light," so I got an L.
My first name is Dianne, which is just a name they liked, with an unusual spelling. Growing up, I was constantly spelling my first and last names, and explaining why I had just an L and no middle name. I always liked my first name, maybe because of the odd spelling, even though it's a variation of a pagan goddess's name.
My parents didn't give me a Hebrew name; I chose one for myself when I was 20. I chose Shoshana Aviva because I thought they were pretty names. Shoshana means rose or lily, and Aviva means spring. I guess I could have chosen something that at least started with a D, but nah, I picked what I liked.
As for my last name, when DH and I were engaged and talking about our names, we decided we didn't want to keep our own last names. My father had abandoned me as a child and rejected me as an adult, so I didn't want to keep the last name I was born with. And I didn't want to be Mrs. DH's Last Name, because that was his mother, who didn't like me and was opposed to the marriage. Both our last names started with an "n" sound, so we looked in a Hebrew dictionary for a word that started with the same sound. We liked "nitzahn," which means a bud or a blossom, and we liked the metaphor for our life together. I lived closer to the courthouse at the time, so I changed my last name legally to Nitzahn, and I got rid of the middle initial L while I was at it. DH took the name when we got married two years later.
We made sure to give our three children full first and middle names, both in English and in Hebrew. For me, one of the joys of their bar and bat mitzvahs was hearing them called to the Torah by their full Hebrew names, including DH's and mine.
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Post by louise on Mar 12, 2017 19:51:41 GMT -5
My father's father, Louis, died a few months before I was born, so I am named for him. My Hebrew name is Leah - there was a time in my life long ago when I thought of Leah as the unwanted sister Jacob was tricked into marrying but I let go of that pretty quickly and also later learned more complicated stories about Leah and Jacob anyway. Relatively recently, like a few years ago, when I started chanting haftarah at my mother's synagogue she told my Hebrew/Yiddish middle name was "Yenta". I said "no way". One because of my associations with the word yenta" and also because I had been Leah bat Tzvi Dov for many years and that is how I think of myself.
Last night and today were a Purim blast for me. Such madness in my synagogue including the adult shpiel "Hamonton" and karaoke after the service was over. Not many adults get dressed up and I haven't been inspired to do it in several years, so that was fun in itself. Wore it all again today for services and then for the distribution of the Mishloach Manot - takes about 50 people delivering to get all the bags out. At the end the person I was working it with and I drove around town making deliveries for the deliverers that were no-shows (always some of those)- the rabbi took a batch too. And now I'm wasted.
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Post by momof2 on Mar 12, 2017 23:41:40 GMT -5
Chag Purim Sameach!
Two celebrations today. A kids shield, and carnival at the reform temple. Then home for nap time. Chabad in the afternoon evening. Kids in bed around 8, so the time change will affect them more tomorrow.
At least everyone had fun. Cinderella, superman and queen Mommy.
I'm named after my great grandmother Tova, and my grandmother Esther (who was very sick and mom ask the rabbi's opinion about naming me after her. My kids have the same Hebrew English names: Sara Like a and Avi Isaac (Yitzhak)
Need to pack lunch for tomorrow.
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