Page 4 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 20,1983
World-National
M-T
By
RABBI MOSES J. BURAK
Question: When an adult gets circnmcised, when does he get his Jewish name? How did he get along wi&out a Jewish name over the years?
Generally speaking, a boy gets his name at hisbris. But, what does one do if ayoungster is too sick to undergo this surgery? What does one do if the child- is born of a family with haemophilia? This fairly simple little operation could cost him his life, as the blood won't stop flowing. Shall such a child be without his Hebrew name? That is not the
Rabbi Barak
i way of Judaism, to punish the innocent and the || I blameless. Therefore, some say that such a ;| I <:hild should be given his name at once, and this || will enable us to ask God's blessing upon him :| I in the customary mi she-berach.
This seems to me a bit strange. A number of i:| :j distinguished sages did quite well without the |ii ij use of a first name. This is seen in the Talmud ;| I where we have a galaxy of great scholars and i: i; otustanding men, called only by the name of i| ij the father. i|
The best known of these, and the easiest to il |; find, for they are in your siddur; in Ethics of the :|: I Fathers, Chapter 4:1&2, are Ben Azzai, and g I Ben Zoma. In the Mishna, Yoma, Chapter .3:9, i > we have Ben Gamla who served as Cohen |^ I Gadol, the High Priest. One Mishna later, we |^ I meet Ben Kattin ^ another creative High Priest. :|
I am not saying that these men did not have |^ i first names. But, they got along spendidly :| : without them, being known as the Son of Azzai, |5 i or the Son of Zoma. Even the leader of an army || i got by with the name Bar Kochba, the Aramaic 1 1 form of Son of Star.
; These names are so real that the Laws of i; i Gittin discuss, in Chapter 130:11, the case of f| [ the witness whose name is Joseph son of jl I Jacob, who signed the document with the ^| I words, Son of Jacob, Witness. The document is p i kosher. M This being so, every child has ajname right at ig birth; if his father^s name is Yitzhak, he is || automatically Ben Yitzhak. So, if we need to || say a prayer lor a sick child we have a name to :| call him by, even before the ceremony of 1 naming the child.
Now, we all know from personal obiservation ij; that when a baby boy has his bris on the eight || day of his birth, he gets his name right then and i there. j| This tradition of giving the name at the |j; festival of the bris is very ancient. According to M Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter48:35: "When i Moses was born, his parents saw that his face § was like an angel of God. They circumcised him J on the eighth day, and named him Yekusi-el." j| Shouldyou wonder why we donHcall him by ji that name, the aiswer is that the woman who i pulled him out of the water and raised him g; afterwards, and covered all the costs, deserves |j that the name she gave him remain with him § fbralltime.
In 'Edus le-Yisrael, page 129, the learned || sage quotes a source who tells us that an adiilt |j must be given his name at the time of his |i circumcision. It was Abram whose name was |jj changed to Abraham at the time of his circum- ij cision. No less a source than the Zohar, |j Genesis, 93A, states that Abraham got this ;| name at his bris.
There was one man whose name was not |j given to him athis bris: Esau.
entme
sign
ating anti-semitism
NEWYORK-
Leaders of the main political parties of Argentina, including the Peronists and the opposition Radical Civic Union, have signed a
manifesto categorically repudiating anti-semitism, the World Jewish Congress reported last week.
Meanwhile, a leadership delegation of the
British MP
By
GAYE APPLEBAUM
OTTAWA —
The first meeting of the parliamentary committee for Soviet Jewry, under its hew chairman Jim Peterson, is scheduled for Oct. 25, with guest speaker British Member of Parliament Greville Janner, chairman of the all-party parliamentary committee for the release of Soviet Jews.
Janner is weU known to the British Jewish community. He is chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization serving the Jewish com-munities of England, Sfcotland and Ireland, similar in function to Canadian Jewish Congress.
Peterson a Toronto MP, is no stranger either to the Jewish community or the Soviet Jewry cause. Since he was elected to the House of Commons in 1980, Peterson has been an active member of the committee he now chairs.
He has worked closely with the Canadian Committee for Soviet Jewry and has on several occasions attempted to intervene with officials in the Soviet Union on behalf of imprisoned Re-fuseniks like Vladimir Tsukerman and Anatoly Scharansky.
A spokesman in Peterson's office said an invitation has gone out to all MPs to attend the meeting and join the
1,000 ^agogues send
MONTREAL —
Sales of Israel Bonds in North America during the High Holiday synagogue appeals totaled more than $40 million, accordhig to Thomas 0. Hecht, national president of the Israel Bonds Organization in Canada.
"This year's residts represented one of the best holiday peacetime achievements in the history of the Bond organ-
ization,^'he said. "With this outstanding response by congregants in North American synagogues, IJ.S. and Canadian Jewry have again demonstrated that diey respond to Israel's economic needs in peace as well as in times of war."
Hecht noted that by enrolling 109 new synagogues in this year's appeal, the Bond organization has exceeded the
1,000 synagogue mark for the first time since 1951 when the organlza' tion was founded.
"We attribute a m^or part of our su^ess to die rabbis of the congregations which participated in this year's appeals. Their inspiring leadership and their effective Bond sermons were a key factor in this year's outstanding holiday achievement," he said.
committee. "While there are always 15-20 active members on the committee, Mr. Peterson hopes to increase the actual participation in the committee's concerns, as well as attract new members," she said.
He believes the situation in the Soviet Union is becoming increasingly alarming for Soviet Jews and hopes the committee will be able to mount a concerted effort on behalf of the persecuted Refuseniks, the spokesman explained.
country's Jewish community held a private meeting with the president of the republic, General Reynaldo Big-none, during which they expressed concern at recent anti-Semitic outbreaks inthe country.
According to the Latin American branch of the WJC, distinguished Argentine politicians and intellectuals sighed the manifesto, published in the press, in which they "appeal to the citizens to repudiate every anti-semitic attempt against the basic tenets of the Argentine constitution, the basis of national coexistence,''
They noted a renewal of anti-semitism and racism "expressed through various publications, violence against Jewish schools, and attacks on cultural institutions and synagogues."
The manifesto stressed that "pubUc opinion should be aware of the fact that anti-semitism, which is deplorable in itself, is a means of destabilizing regimes and puts in mo-tion authoritarian mechanisms." It further warned that "in times of crisis, anti-semitism and
other forms of racist discrimination are used by elements who oppose pluralism as a form of life and democratic toler-
ance.
Among the party leaders who were signators were Deolindo Felipe Bittel (Peronists), Raul Alfonsin (Radical Civic Union), and Oscar Alende (Intransigent Party).
Earlier, Presidente Bignone received a delegation of the Dele-gacion de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA) led by its president. Dr. Sion Cohen Imach. The DALA, the central representative body of Argentine Jewry, is a WJC affiliate.
At the audience with Presidente Bignone, which was granted five months after having been requested, the Jewish leaders expressed the concern of the community "at the anti-semitic outbreak lately noticed in the country." They spoke of the proposed article 213 of the Argentina penal code which outlaws any form of racial or religious discrimination. This item was dropped firom legislation during the government of General
Juan Carlos Ongania and DAIA stressed that it would enhance the prestige of the present government to have it reinstated.
Cohen Imach also discussed with the president Argentina's stand at the recent New Delhi m'eeting of the Non-Aligned at which various anti-Israel resolutions had been adopted. "If Argentina considers it valid to join with the non-aligrted world we have no objection because that is a matter of national sovereignty; but a real non-alignment should mean that you are not with one superpower or the other," Cohen Imach said.
He suggested it was wrong to condemn Israel for its war in Lebanon without'saying anything against Russiia's invasion of Afghanistan. He told the press that President Bignone reaffirmed Argentina's non-alignment "but this did not mean changing its tradtional relations with the State of Israel."
Joining Cohen Imach at the meeting were the vice-president of the DALA, Luis Comisaren-co, and secretary-general Hilel Rubinson.
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