Psachya Yitzchok

While the decision to write up our thinking about the name Yochanan Meir was inspired by the extraordinary circumstances surrounding our choice of that name, it does not seem just to have a post for one son without making a similar attempt for our equally beloved bechor. As such, on the occasion of his second birthday (a tashlumin, properly Adar I), an attempt to recall and recapitulate:

As noted, Psachya Yitzchok's birth was, for us, a time of gilui panim, revelation and miracles. True, there were attendant tzaros, but all precisely calibrated to highlight the tremendous chasadim. The labor was long, painful, and dangerous; could we fail to see the hand of Hashem when it ended suddenly, at the break of dawn, narrowly avoiding serious complications? We were discharged Friday afternoon, and sent back to the hospital Sunday morning; could there be a clearer reminder that our ability to have our first Shabbos as a family together in our own home was a pure gift from shomayim? Days before the bris our mohel was convinced we would need to postpone; when we welcomed Psachya into the covenant of Avraham Avinu on the eighth day, could we take it for granted as the natural course? Psachya means "God opened," and that is certainly how we felt.

Of course, our intention is that the name Psachya should refer not just to that opening, but to the complete relationship with Hashem characterized thereby, including our reception and acceptance thereof. Megillas Esther 9:27 begins with the words, "kiyemu vekiblu", they upheld and they received; Chazal teach that Purim was the time that the revelation and covenant of Sinai -- initially accepted through force majeure in the wake of awesome and irresistible miracles -- was finally ratified through love. Psachya was born in the period extending from Purim Koton to Purim, and so we sought to connect to the koach of that time by naming him after Mordechai HaTzadik, who is identified in the Gemara (Menachos 65a) with Psachya al hakinnim. Why, asks the Gemara, was he called Psachya? Because he was "poseach dvorim vedorshan," he would open matters and investigate them. In plain context, this relates to his role "al hakinnim," handling the transactions when those in need came to have a bird brought as a sacrifice on their behalf: that he was exceptional in having the care, patience, and discernment to fully understand each person's need and intent, ensuring that their sacrifice was brought correctly. This particular context brings together two general qualities central to Mordechai that are hinted at in those three words: 'avodah on behalf of klal Yisroel, and Talmud Torah. Mordechai is constantly described as sitting at the gate of the king, and stam "king" can be read as Hashem throughout the megillah, and the pesicha, opening, of the gates (of heaven, of prayer, of repentance, of mercy, etc. etc.) is one of the central images of 'avodah throughout our liturgy; the final verse of the megillah describes him as doresh tov le'amo, seeking good for his people. Talmud Torah is even more explicitly referenced, as pesicha, opening with a verse, and drasha, the following investigation and interpretation, characterize the classical form of commentary. We wish for Psachya Yitzchok that he, like this namesake, should always find and bring out the good, from the heights of heaven to the simple words of a humble soul to the depths of the most profund and difficult sugyos.

Yitzchok, too, continues these themes in reference to Yitzchok Avinu. Yitzchok actively accepted all the Torah of Avraham Avinu, rebuilding it according to his own middah without distorting it in any way. Like the kiyemu vekiblu of Purim, this gave a permanence and power of renewal that had been lacking until then. As the Torah puts it, Yitzchok re-dug the wells of Avraham and gave them the same names; Avraham's wells were stopped up, Yitzchok's endured. Yitzchok also symbolizes both Torah and 'avodah on behalf of Klal Yisroel. The Tur connects Yitzchok to chag haShavuos, zman Matan Toraseinu. The Maharal on Avos connects Yitzchok to 'amud ha'avodah, as the 'olah temimah who was makriv himself at the 'akeidah, and the Gemara in Shabbos 89b teaches that this allowed him to seek clemency for Klal Yisroel where the other Avos could not or would not. The particular symbolism of Torah and 'avodah associated with Yitzchok Avinu also furthers the theme of pesicha and derisha: his Torah, as noted, is strongly associated with the image of the well; and his makom 'avodah is the sadeh, the field. Both wells and fields share the quality that their true value is hidden beneath the surface, requiring labor in pesicha and derisha in bringing it forth. We wish for Psachya Yitzchok that he, like this namesake, should put his whole soul into his Torah and 'avodah, so that he can accept all that the tradition has to offer him and make it entirely his own.

Psachya Yitzchok is also named for two later Yitzchoks whose writings have deeply influenced me: Don Yitzchok Abarbanel, whose commentary on the Chumash is a masterful guide in how to read, clearly highlighting a sample of the sort of questions that ought to stand out to a careful reader at any level, and walking through addressing them while integrating a reverence for tradition with confident application of reason and personal judgement. And Rav Yitzchok Hutner, whose Pachad Yitzchok gives me a taste of another layer of the depths of Torah, bringing profound concepts from a diyuk on a few words in the rabbinic corpus, the sort of questions I might not be able to ask (let alone attempt to answer) without a great deal more erudition. We hope for Psachya Yitzchok that he, like these namesakes, should share his wisdom and understanding with all those whose hearts are open to learn.

Psachya Yitzchok was born on the 22nd day of the twelfth month, in the week of parshas Vayakhel with the oft-paired parshas Pekudei in the week of his bris. Vayakhel-Pekudei, concluding Sefer Shemos with the account of the completion of the mishkan following Matan Torah, is the ultimate paradigm of the relationship that is active reception of Hashem's revelation. It also contains several noteworthy uses of the root of pesicha; the gate from the courtyard into the heikhal is also called pesach ha-ohel, the opening of the tent, from which we learn that the korban tamid and shelamim can only be brought when the entrance is open, extending the paradigm from the time of construction forward to all generations. There are three inscriptions on the garments of the kohein gadol: the names of the tribes on the shoham stones of the ephod on his shoulders, the names again on the avnei miluim of the choshen mishpat over his heart, and "Kodesh LaShem", sanctified to Hashem, on the tzitz on his forehead. In each case, the inscribing is described as "pituchei chosam", the openings of a seal. The Vilna Gaon teaches that chosam here is an abbreviation of chiya, techiyas ha-meisim, and matar -- birth, resurrection of the dead, and rain, the three keys that Hashem keeps. The month of Adar is associated in Sefer Yetzirah with tzchok, laughter, the root of Yitzchok. 22 naturally represents the 22 letters of the aleph-beis through which the Torah was given and the world created, corresponding to the revelation of Torah and our response echoing maaseh bereishis in the construction of the mishkan. Twelve naturally corresponds to the twelve tribes, and so to the extension of that response to echo maaseh merkava in the order of the camp around the mishkan. We hope for Psachya Yitzchok that he should build himself into a fit dwelling for the Shechina.

Yochanan Meir

 When our first son was born, at dawn on the cusp of Spring after a difficult labor, we felt strongly that we were seeing open miracles. That is one aspect of our relationship with Hashem, when he opens to us, and our avodah is to teach our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our hearts to receive that revelation. However, to have a true and intimate relationship, that cannot be the only aspect; we would be left passive, lacking agency. Thus, we must expect that there is an aspect where Hashem gives us the space to make the opening, to reveal ourselves to him. We have been granted such an opportunity with the birth of our second son, at nightfall as the yontif season gave way to Winter, which led us to choose his name: Yochanan Meir.

Often, this aspect of hester panim, the hidden face of Hashem, is associated with suffering, with exile, with darkness and bitterness. Our avodah, then, would simply be to cry out to Hashem with faith that he will see our distress, hear our cries, and remember the covenant. That has certainly been a part of Yochanan's life so far, born to pain and danger in the grip of a fearsome disease, and inspiring an incredible outpouring of tefillos from loved ones around the world. One word for this mode of tefillah is tachanunim, from the same shoresh as Yochanan.

But that is not all that hester panim represents, nor all the role that we hope to see it play in Yochanan's life. Another instance of the same dichotomy is Torah shebichsav, the written Torah, and Torah sheb'al peh, the oral Torah. The former is pure revelation, and all we can do is receive it to the limit of our capacity; the latter is also doubtlessly min hashomayim, but it is revealed through the mechanism of human action, the give and take of rav and talmid, of chavrusos. Several figures in Jewish history could plausibly claim to represent Torah sheb'al peh: perhaps Ezra haSofer, leader of the Great Assembly, or Rabbi Yehudah haNasi, who fixed the six Orders of the Mishnah. But the one that spoke to our hearts was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. In the mishnah in Avos, he is the last described explicitly as receiving the Torah from his rebbeim, Hillel and Shammai, and he is the only rabbi who is recorded in Avos explicitly in dialogue with his students. He shepherded us through the deepest hester panim, the destruction of the Beis haMikdosh and Yerushalayim, mass slaughter and enslavement, and the imposition of the Roman exile in which we still languish. Through him and his students, Torah sheb'al peh was preserved and restored. Like this namesake, may Yochanan Meir be saved from his tzaros, and may his salvation establish an unceasing wellspring of Torah for all future generations.

There is another level, brought out by a dichotomy within Torah sheb'al peh itself. The gemara, Sanhedrin 24a, brings a number of teachings describing the superiority of the torah of eretz Yisroel over the torah of Bavel. The sages of E"Y are pleasant in discussion, while the sages in Bavel wound each other in the milchemta shel torah; the sages of E"Y are sweet as olive oil, the sages of Bavel bitter as olives; Bavel is a place of flattery and haughtiness, of confusion, of darkness. My rosh yeshiva at Darche Noam, Rav Yitzchak Hirshfeld, taught that this distinction symbolically describes two ends of a process, rather than a geographic fact. The nature of Torah sheb'al peh is that, through laboring in it, we transform it for ourselves from one to the other. In the framework I outlined above, the torah of Bavel would be our opening ourselves to Hashem, and the torah of E"Y would be the relationship that follows when Hashem receives and accepts us. This insight is most clear to me in the teaching of the olives. How do bitter olives become sweet? Through grinding and crushing, or through brining in bitter waters. It is not simply that we escape the bitter and have sweetness in its place at the end; through further tribulation, the bitterness itself becomes the sweetness. The olives were never bad, we just had not yet brought out their goodness. This lesson appears again in this week's sidra, when klal Yisroel encounter the bitter waters at Marah and Moshe is instructed to cast in an 'etz. Chazal teach that this was a bitter tree, and extrapolate that this is the way of Hashem, to make sweet the bitter through bitterness. The section concludes with a giving of undefined chok and mishpat, with an exhortation to listen -- Torah sheb'al peh. To drive that message home, the text flows directly into the camp at Eilim, representing the Torah sheb'al peh of E"Y, with seventy sweet trees for the seventy elders of the sanhedrin and twelve sweet springs for the torah of each tribe. To represent this aspect of Torah sheb'al peh, symbolized by the torah of E"Y vis-a-vis Bavel, none can rival Rabbi Yochanan, who taught most of the great Amoraim of E"Y for three generations in his long tenure leading the yeshiva he founded in Teveria. So strongly did he shape the torah world of E"Y that he is credited as the primary author of the Talmud Yerushalmi, though it was not redacted until well after his death. Like this namesake, may Yochanan Meir find favor with Hashem and be welcomed into the deepest and most intimate communion, transforming all his tzaros to sweetness and light.

The symbol of the olive tree is especially poignant given that Yochanan Meir's bris was held 'erev Tu BiShvat. Tu BiShvat is described in the mishnah as the Rosh Hashanah for trees, particularly fruit trees where the count of years has legal ramifications. As both human beings and the Torah are compared to fruit trees, this is understood to have great mystical significance. The fruits of the tree, which have their Yom HaDin on Shavuos, represent chiddushim in Torah, novel ideas and insights that come through human effort. It is also connected to the bris milah in particular, because fruit trees lose their status as 'orlah on their third Tu BiShvat, producing neta' reva'i, sanctified fruit, in place of fruit that must be discarded. So, too, a boy at his bris loses his 'orlah, the foreskin, and has in its place an os bris kodesh, a sign of the covenant. 

Yochanan Meir was born on the eighth day of the eighth month, and the number eight is connected to light. Rav Hirsch describes it, one more than the seven of creation, as a spiraling return to begin creation anew at a higher level, and creation begins with light. The Maharal similarly sees the essence of eight in being one more than the seven of creation, but draws from that a complete transcendence of the natural order, a symbol of miracles and the or haganuz, the hidden light, that is reserved for the righteous in the world to come, which is hinted at in Chanukah. Chanukah itself was important in Yochanan Meir's life, marking his coming to full term and being deemed healthy and stable enough to leave the intensive care unit: our own glimpse of light in the darkness. The great tanna, Rabbi Nehorai, is better known as Rabbi Meir, because he gave light through his teaching. We wish for Yochanan Meir to share that illuminating quality all his life.

The combination of the or, light, of Meir with the chein, favor, of Yochanan is intended continuously to invoke all the blessings alluded to in the verse, "Yaeir Hashem panav eilekha vichuneka", Bamidbar 6:25, the second verse of birkas Kohanim. Birkas Kohanim is taught to contain within it every blessing, and the second verse focuses on the spiritual. The or of the Shekhina and of Torah, the chein that it should be freely and lovingly granted. This verse, in our eyes, distills into five words the essence of our hope that our opening to Hashem should be received and transform hester panim into intimate revelation. That is why we named our son Yochanan Meir.