The Man with No Name
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O n Rosh Chodesh Adar 5719 at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in Crown Heights a baby boy was born to a Yerushalmi father and a Bronx-born mother.
His bris was held on Erev Tishah B’Av.
When it was time for the naming of the baby the baby’s father announced “Ron Yitzchok ben Yoel Moshe.”
The rav was silent but the chassidish mohel screamed out “Ron?! There’s no such name as Ron! His name has to be Aharon or Avrum… ‘Ron’ is not a name.”
The boy’s father fluent in five languages including Hebrew English and Yiddish pointed out that the name “Ron ” or more precisely pronounced “Run ” was the masculine equivalent of “Rinah” and insisted the baby be named Ron Yitzchok.
This was the beginning of an ongoing saga that has spanned more than half a century and stretched over two continents. It is the epic of a boy — and eventually a grown man — who has no first name.
The initial years in yeshivah were easy; after all even in Brooklyn in the 1960s most kids still went by their English names and Ron was perfectly fitting.
Once I reached high school however and began to visit other communities for Shabbos and then spent time in Eretz Yisrael things began to change.
When I’d go away for Shabbos I’d invariably be called up for an aliyah as Aharon Avraham Reuven — and/or any combination of the three.
Once it became known to the gabbai (or others) that I was not just claiming to be named Ron Yitzchok but that I was also “ben Yoel Moshe ” the real fun began. I was the target of countless jokes and wisecracks.
For example: “How can your father be named a good Satmar name as Yoel Moshe and you have the tzioni name Ron?” (My father was named after his great-grandfather Yoel Moshe Solomon who passed away in Yerushalayim in 1912 and had no Satmar connection at all.)
I was told in unequivocal language that I have no name and that whatever I may think “Ron” is definitely not a “real” name.
Even when I moved to Passaic and decided to be known by my legitimate and acceptable middle name of Yitzchok my troubles were far from over.
When I was called to the Torah I was invariably stuck with the task of telling the local gabbai that my name is not just Yitzchok it’s actually Ron Yitzchok. The strange stares and confused looks continued.
Finally Hashem decided to solve my dilemma His way.
I became the rav of the “Shul with a View ” and along with my rabbinical responsibilities came the total sacrifice of my first name.
Friends and family were suddenly uncomfortable and uneasy with calling me anything; it seemed that my first name was certainly no longer an option. I became “Rabbi” or “Rav” or “Rebbe” to some and more formally “Rabbi Eisenman ” to others. And although this is to be expected from congregants nevertheless I have noticed that even friends have taken on the practice of not calling me anything. “Rabbi Eisenman” is too formal for them and my first name is too casual. So invariably they will simply not call me anything and just begin the conversation by stating “Greenberg here…”
I miss being called by my first name; on the other hand I’m not sure I ever had one to begin with.
And although Dale Carnegie canonized the principle “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language ” this is the one “sweet” I have had to learn to live without.
The author of Shul with a View is the Man without a Name. (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 665)
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