I remember when the grandfather from Texas attended my daughter's wedding,
complete with segregated dancing. (Men with men, women with women - none of
that lascivious mixing!) The hall was full of black-hatted young men with
sidelocks and beards wishing us well. My father-in-law took me aside and
whispered: "She's marrying into a cult!" She was. It's called Judaism.
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And now there would be no announcing the baby's name till the proper time
and place. "That's wonderful!" I said. That way the parents of the newborn
avoid a lot of stress just when they really don't need any more: the
needless negotiation, the general wheedling and pleading and usual family
dysfunction. Instead the naming is put on hold. What a sensible tradition.
The baby's grandmother - my late wife - would surely have approved. Carolyn
Levy Greenberg had developed a strong religious streak herself as a young
woman, perhaps to scandalize her parents, products of the
flappers-flivvers-and-Freud 1920s.
So whatever the kids wanted to name their little girl, listen, it was fine
with me. They're the parents. I wasn't going to say a word. Me, interfere?
Moi? Never. They could call their baby anything
they liked. (But me, I'm calling her Carolyn!)
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Thursday morning, I was in their synagogue here in Brookline for morning
prayers. Two shifts are required for all the worshippers - one at 6:20, the
next at 7:20 for the late-risers. (Toto, I don't think we're in Arkansas any
more, where Jews are a rare minority.)
The baby's father is called up for the reading of the Law in honor of the
occasion. After he finishes, the men in their phylacteries and prayer shawls
gather around the Torah scroll up front and break out singing "Mazeltov!"
Congratulations!
Oh, yes, the baby will be called Carolyn.
Her middle name? Sara, after my mother.
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And so it goes. Sometimes very well.
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