The two brothers were a unit, dependent on each other. Now we can understand the names Rochel chose

“And it was, when [Rochel’s] soul left, because she died, that she named him Ben Oni [son of my pain]….” (Bereishis 35:18)

When parents name a child, they’re investing him with the powers embedded in that name. When the Imahos hakedoshos named their sons, they endowed each with the essence that would be incorporated into his shevet’s unique attributes.

The names Rochel Imeinu gave her sons seem enigmatic. Yosef was named based on her prophecy that “Hashem shall add another son for me.” How does this define his tafkid?

She named her second child “son of my pain.” Did she want him to constantly remember that he caused her painful death? (Rav Dovid Hofstedter, Dorash Dovid)

Our family loves to repeat the story in which my young niece chastises her brother, “You’re not allowed to say Mommy’s real name! Now repeat after me, Baruch shem k’vod malchuso…”

It’s laughable, but the joke has become less funny to me over the last few years, since I was zocheh to name my youngest after my father z”l. We merited having Rav Chaim Kanievsky ztz”l as his sandek, and watching my baby rest on Rav Chaim’s lap as this meaningful name was announced filled an aching void with gratitude and peace.

Rochel is the only wife of Yaakov who is called akeres habayis. The Midrash Rabbah says that in the desert, the tribes from Rochel camped to the west of the Mishkan, where the Shechinah rested. Additionally, the Zohar teaches that the Shechinah dwells among earthly beings in Rochel’s merit. The Maharal further says that the Shechinah came to dwell in Yaakov’s house because of Rochel’s avodah.

Rochel’s unique mission was to provide the foundation upon which the Shechinah would dwell among Yisrael. That’s why the Bais Hamikdash and Mishkan were in the portions of Rochel’s children.

However, when the simchah bubbles settled, I realized I was faced with a dilemma. All our lives, we’re taught not to say our parents’ names. Now, suddenly, I was supposed to coo my father’s name while wiping spit up, changing a diaper, or rocking a restless soul at midnight?

I confess. I couldn’t do it. I appreciated this baby’s direct connection to my father, but I couldn’t say his name.

So I did what comes naturally to me. I called him nicknames. “Buha” (the famous blessing — short for brachah v’hatzlachah — that his sandek, Rav Chaim, gave those seeking his brachah) and many versions of my father’s name in Yiddish, English, and yekkish German. Still, it niggled at me. I’d chosen this name; I wanted it, and I couldn’t even get it out of my mouth?

The two brothers were a unit, dependent on each other. Now we can understand the names Rochel chose. Yosef’s ability to host the Shechinah in the Mishkan was dependent on him having a brother who would host the Beis Hamikdash after it was built and the Mishkan was no longer in use.

In naming her son Ben Oni, Rochel teaches us that the ultimate cleaving to the Shechinah is when the neshamah concludes its sojourn in this world and sheds its physical body. She’s not memorializing her pain, but teaching us that pain and death are an elevation of the neshamah’s existence. This is her message to Klal Yisrael — to shed our worldly attachments to connect to the Shechinah.

Then my little boy started school. I filled out the form with his name and age — writing the name was no problem. But when I met his new morah, she innocently asked, “What do you call this little tzaddikel at home?

Uh oh. Buha was not going to cut it. Nor was Sigbert or Sol or Shleimke or any of the other monikers that seemed to come out of my mouth much more easily than the real thing. Plus, I doubt she was referring to the fact that I still called him my baby, since as the youngest, he’ll always be my baby, even when he’s pushing 90.

So I took a deep breath and said my father’s name out loud. And no lightning bolt struck me down. Instead, I felt a loosening of a tightness I hadn’t known I was harboring.

This child. My father. His neshamah. A connection and continuation.

These days when I call my son to supper, to bed, or to clean up the mess he made, his name rolls off my tongue with pride and a prayer: May this boy be zocheh to live up to his Opa’s ideals.

 (Originally featured in Family First, Issue 821)