Perhaps, because this was our first girl, both Chaia and I took the opportunity to explain what this girl and her name meant to us. Eretz Be'erit

In Chaia's Eyes On this occasion of our Simchat Bat, the Joy of a Daughter, I would like to speak with you a little about mothers and daughters. My mother lost her mother when she was 13. She always said that she grew up without a mother, and because of that, doesn't know very well how to be a mother. As I grew up, the relations between me and my mother were always somehow undefined, incomplete. I grew up in America at a time when the image of a woman was up in the air. The traditional role was considered unfulfilling and unimportant. I was so influenced by this attitude that when I arrived in Israel, it was unclear to me as to whether I ultimately wanted to get married and give birth to children or not. It didn't take long before contact with families in Israel, and a deeper understanding of Judaism, clarified these ideas for me, and, as you know, I was married, and have given birth to children. In the early years of my marriage I took a professional course on the profession of Motherhood and Marital Relations. In a certain sense, I attempted to find solutions to the same question that my mother unsuccessfully attempted to answer. I have always thought that it was a blessing that my first two children were sons, because this gave me time to get used to the new role of mother, before I had to take on the additional comlexities of mother-daughter relations. I anxiously waited for this birth, hoping it would be a daughter, for I saw giving birth to a daughter as a chance to be born again myself, a chance to repair things in my life. The fact that she was born four days after my birthday, and during the same Tora portion that I was born, only strengthens the sense of identification with my daughter. Before her birth, Ncoom and I spoke at great length about faith. We felt that we were coming up short in our lives together, and we strove to strengthen our faith. We both grew up in America, a place where all problems are solved within thirty minutes, at least on TV. It's a place where you prepare anything in a minute. There's instant rice, instant putting, instant cereal. The French tell a joke about how an American prepares water: he takes instant water, and just adds water. But the American notion of instant gratification does not reflect reality accurately. Important things are not achieved easily. I think that a birth is an excellent parable for all manner of difficult things in life. We look at a situation, and decide that it is time for a change. A pregnant idea. A pregnant woman. The promise that the situation will improve is very exciting. Looking toward a future with both hope and fear. Only after going through nine months do you begin a birth. In the beginning the contractions are gentle, enjoyable. The pregnant woman is full of energy. As the contractions get stronger, more questions begin to arise. Sure, starting something is always difficult, but where is this going? The contractions become stronger still, and the questions even more so. Why did I get myself into this? Maybe this isn't for me? Maybe I'm not strong enough? At that point, you need faith. Faith that, despite the suffering, the contractions will eventually stop, God willing a baby will be born, new life, new hope, new meaning. The experience of Eretz's birth, a long night of contractions, demonstrated to me the importance of faith. During the strongest contractions I said to myself: Chaia'le, don't worry. Just a little longer and day will break, the sun will appear and you'll be inspired. The sky began to lighten, but it was overcast, and the sun didn't show. Then I understood that I was undergoing a test. I could no longer trust an external source. I would have to find strength from the well within me. The name Eretz Be'erti is the product of our discussions about will and faith. I wanted to call my daughter Eretz for two reasons. In Eretz Yisrael I discovered what it means to be a woman, and I have had the blessing, God willing, to pass on life. As it says in Psalms 85,12: The truth will grow forth from the Land (Emet M'Eretz titzmach). The second reason is that earth is a female presence. From the earth grows life. Be'erit, from be'er, well, is the source deep in the earth, the well of living water.

In Ncoom's Eyes If you could order a birth, this is what it would look like. Following the glamor of Yibaneh and Yacdav, most of our friends are in a state of higher anticipation as we get ready to name another child, than they were for the birth itself.. So when our third birth occurred during the Tora portion Shmot (Exodus), which means 'names,' we saw this as a good omen. For us a name is not something you take from one person or place and stick onto a new baby, but, like in biblical days, a name reflected either the reality (Reuven- literally, I see a son!), or the hopes (Levi- my husband will accompany me) that surround the new child. Perhaps during the long diaspora there was more justification for restrict ourselves to the names of our forefathers, to preserve and protect a way of life that connected us to something we had lost. But now that we have returned to our home, and we are trying at the same time to rebuild and to renew ourselves in our homeland, it seems to me appropriate to search for our true character, and after the future of our people, in the classic tradition of the Jews, which is to say, in our children. With the inspiration of their parents, of course. I said that the birth was made to order. For those of you who do not know my wife, she is, and perhaps all women are, by nature, more conservative than me. In the portion of Shmot, there are two threats to the lives of male infants. One to kill them the moment they are born, at the hands of the midwives, and the second time, to throw the male infants into the Yaor river by Pharoah's servants. (Some of you may remember what I said at Yibaneh's brit about Chaia and the connection to the life-giving nature {t'Chaia-e'na} of the midwives). Chaia does not like to take chances. Doesn't make a difference that this was thousands of years ago. She simply decided that a female child was the safer choice this time of year. In addition, Chaia was also born in the week of Shmot, and to give birth to another girl in her place, seems like the beginning of a 'tikun,' a repair, to her and my life. When we married, we worked on the invitation, which still adorns our front door. It says, Come create Life. The word 'Haim,' life, starts with the first letter of Chaia's name, and ends with the last letter of my name. In the middle are two letters 'yud.' One of the meanings of yud yud, the one we thought of when we wrote the invitation, is God's name. We were inviting God to join in our attempt to create a marriage, a life. Today we know that they also represent the first names of our two first children, Yibaneh and Yacdav. According to one version, having two children qualifies you for having fulfilled the commandment to 'be fruitful and multiply.' We had in fact, created, or continued, or completed 'Haim,' life. But a second opinion, that of Hillel, is that we were still lacking something necessary to fulfill the commandment. Something female. Our daughter Eretz Be'erit comes to complete what had appeared to be whole. And, as her name implies, she does that by way of the physical, the material, the connection to the land. Eretz, means land. If I may add a word on our daughters ability to force us to be less 'astronauts,' more realistic, with our feet more on the ground. In the beginning we called her Artza, with the idea of implying the ascension TO the Land of Israel, on movement, on aspirations. We overlooked one small detail, that a child who lives in Eretz Yisrael must also live day-to-day with friends and community, and the name 'Artza' just does not wash on the street. And so, just as God gave Avraham and Sarah the letter 'hey' to add to their names, as a sign of their getting closer to HaShem, to God, we removed the 'hey from Eretz's name, and it will be the work of her lifetime to regain it, to move closer to God, and to return the 'hey' to its proper place. Then Eretz. What does it mean? First of all, Rashi says it comes from 'ratzon,' desire, or will. May her desire match the Master of the Universe's. If one can say that the will of God is the highest achievement that a human can reach, than the material of earth is its opposite, the lowliest, the simplest thing there is. On the other hand, this 'lowly' material is what we have to work with, the tool with which we can serve God, and fulfill his will. Yocheved, Moshe (Moses)'s mother, used earth to seal the small ark she made for Moshe so he wouldn't sink into the Yaor. This earth made it possible for him to perform all that he accomplished in his life, and to get so close to God. Ark, 'taiva,' is related to the word 'bayit,' house, or home. Bat, daughter, is also related to the word house. Our home, like our daughter, is the Land, Eretz. Eretz Yisrael. We pray that she will find herself a person of the land (Am HaAretz) in the most positive sense of that phrase of a people that lives in its land, and that she will always have Derech Eretz, the way or an earthy manner. The root of Eretz is the letters 'tzadik' and 'resh.' Not just will, but 'yetzira,' creation. Creation means to take the material, the Eretz, and with the divine spirit, with will, to give the material shape or form. ('tzura,' again, from the same root). Tzura, form, is usually consdered a masculine attribute, and material, eretz, female. We are blessing our daughter with this namein the hope that she will have not just the material, but also the groundedness, the landedness, the form that is needed to create. Her middle name Be'erit also evolved. Be'er, a well, is the place from which one draws water. The water of Life. The Torah is compared to water. A well is also a grotto in the earth (Eretz), a place where one can discover the inner nature of the land (Eretz). In other words, it is the place where one can really meet, get in touch, with the nature of a place. Our forefathers went to the well to find themselves wives, because that is the place where you honestly encounter the nature of the land. It is by the well that Eliezer sees the charachter of Rivka, and chooses her as a potential wife for Isaac. And in this Tora portion, Shmot, Moshe sits by the well to observe the character of the local people, and there he meets Tzipora, his wife. In Hebrew, well, to clarify, to explain, all have a similar root, 'bet' 'resh'. The act of seeing something more clearly, to pull up from the depths, to bring to light. Be'erit is the female form God says: "I will go down to save them from the hand of Egypt and to bring them out of that land to a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3,8). We bless our daughter, and to all of Am Yisrael, that she will be by the well, that she will draw Tora and wisdom, and at the time of our trouble and need, at a time like this, she will be able to help us and save us anr return us to our Land. This is perhaps most appropriate now, as we prepare to leave Jerusalem, and make our home out of the city, in the heart of the Land. For many years I have said that this is an especially difficult generation to be a man, for the men must live with the women, and it is an especially difficult time to be a woman. It took us nine months to reach this name, with all its intricacies and complexities. It is our hope that our daughter will live up to her name, and be a woman, even in this difficult time.

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