Cubby Markel's Got a Name! Or two... or three.

The following is the text of some remarks shared at today's "Brisening" for Baby Boy Markel.

Beloved family and friends, Rabbi Asa, thank you for joining us from far and near on this auspicious day! We extend to you our warmest greetings and heartfelt blessings.

Wow! We are so grateful and thrilled to share this moment with you. One week ago, our worlds were immeasurably enriched and at the same time turned upside down by the arrival of our beautiful son. Today, on the Eighth Day of his precious life, he has, just prior to this Baby Naming, entered into our people’s covenant with God, a covenant that began with our forebears, Abraham and Sarah.

We want to take this opportunity to say a little about the people whose memory we honor through the naming of our son. Our son’s name in English is Benjamin Amichai Markel. His Hebrew name is Lev Amichai Markel. Each of these three names is rich in significance and merits elaboration.

The Hebrew name Lev, means heart in Hebrew, and it honors the memory of Wendi’s beloved maternal grandmother Lorraine Jacobs, Donna Sue’s mom. Grandma Lorraine and Wendi had an exquisitely close relationship, and it was always a profound regret that Grandma passed away five years before Wendi and Danny began dating. There is so much to say about her that we could spend literally hours sharing stories. Suffice it to say, Grandma Lorraine occupies a magical and persistent presence in Wendi’s heart. And for that reason, and the unstinting love she showered upon her family, and especially Wendi, we have chosen to name our son with the Hebrew name, Lev. We know that if Grandma were here today in person, she would be beaming with pride and joy for all that her grand-daughter has done and become. We also know that right now, Grandma Lorraine is dancing with delight in the heavens above, and we take great comfort in sharing her sense of vitality and good humor with our son.

Lev’s middle name is Amichai, both in Hebrew and in English. The name in English is spelled A-m-i-c-h-a-i, and its Hebrew spelling is eiyin, mem, yud, khet, yud. The name is powerfully special to us for several reasons. First, as many of you may know, Danny’s Bubbie Helen, his grandmother, died just this past spring, after a rich and numinous life of 95 years. Bubbie Helen’s Yiddish name was Khashkie, which was a diminutive of her Hebrew name, Khasia. That name Khasia means “Protected by the Lord”, which is sometimes rendered as a sanctuary, a sacred place of calm and serenity. The name Amichai itself means “my people lives,” and, like the name Khasia, it also includes the letter Khet. Knowing the unwavering commitment Bubbie Helen had to the Jewish people and the Jewish tradition, we think she would take great sanctuary, that is, great calm and serenity in knowing that her people, that is, our people, live on in the name Amichai. Secondly, the English rendering of the name Amichai begins with the letter A, which we use to recall Wendi’s Papa Aaron, Harvey’s beloved father, who died while Wendi was just a sophomore in high school.

Next, we want to share some thoughts about our son’s first English name, Benjamin. The name Benjamin commemorates the grandmothers of both Wendi and Danny. Wendi’s grandmother, Betty Lacow Adelson, was her beloved father Harvey’s mother. Betty was a great mother to Harvey, her only child, and she cared for him with a loving and mighty heart.

Danny’s Bubbie, or grandmother, was Bella Schoenfeld Markel (the mother of his father, Phil). Bubbie Bella died when Danny was a sophomore in college, but he fondly thinks of the many times he spent time with his paternal grandparents in Montreal, and especially the happy times in Bubbie Bella and Zaidy Max’s kitchen, where he delighted himself with her yummy and distinctive chocolate chip cookies, her incomparable chicken soup, and most of all, her sweet and caring disposition. 

The name Benjamin also happens to be the name of Danny’s paternal great-uncle Benjamin, whose daughter Tzipi, and whose grandchildren, Shlomi, Zvika, and Elad, are cousins in Israel and the US to whom Danny maintains an extraordinary close relationship. Because Uncle Benjamin dies many years ago, Danny was deprived of a relationship with him. But in his recent trip to Jerusalem in May, Danny had the chance to hear Tzipi share many heartfelt recollections of her wonderful father, who by all accounts, was an extraordinarily gentle and kind person devoted to family and friends, the kind of person we hope our son Benjamin Amichai will emulate as he progresses toward a life of good thoughts and good deeds.[1]

Last, we want to return one last time to Cubby’s middle name, Amichai. As many of you know, the Hebrew name Amichai was the last name of the great Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, who died almost a decade ago. During the transformative year that Danny lived in Israel after college, Danny had the chance to meet with Yehuda several times informally, at parties, in Yemin Moshe, or on the bus, when they would serendipitously meet up en route to buy vegetables at the market. Amichai wrote poetry with an arch spareness, joyful affection for the human condition, and a deep and dry sense of humor. His poems and his personality are not only remembered but lived today, and with great fondness. We’d like to close by sharing a little bit from a poem called “Tourists,” which evokes both Wendi and Danny’s, and Amichai’s love of the present moment, a love that helps us escape the dangers of being too contained and constrained by the dark memories of our people’s often difficult and tragic past, a love that guides us toward the future with aspirations of connection and triumph.

Once again, the poem is called Tourists.

Tourists

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
…

They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead…
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head."

"But he's moving, he's moving!"I said to myself:
redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

Thank you again for joining us on this rousing and awe-inspiring day. We hope to share only continued future simchas and joyous occasions with you and our now burgeoning family that includes Lev Amichai, or Benjamin Amichai, Markel.

Feel free to call him any variation of these names, or alternatively, the nicknames we have so far deployed: Cubby (since he's joining a family of Bear and LadyBear), Bam-Bam (as his initials suggest), or Mr. Buggles, b/c he's a snuggle-buggle...there are a lot of choices, but we're pretty sure he's likely to ignore any one of these names for the foreseeable future!

Thanks again for being here. We love you.

Snapshot from today's earlier excitement.

[1] Tzipi’s mother died at an early age and Uncle Benjamin cared unceasingly to raise his daughter to become the warm and gracious matriarch who welcomed Wendi and Danny into her home during the trip to Israel in which Danny later proposed to Wendi . Danny and Wendi also have several close friends named Ben or Benjamin; their love for these fine persons is also connected to this choice of name. E.g., Ben Depoorter, who famously remarked upon taking the Markels around Belgium, You can take Wendi and Danny absolutely anywhere—but just once!

Cubby, earlier this morning, says: Ok, Rabbi Asa, bring it!