I’ve always hated my Hebrew name.
Four ugly syllables long, arcanely Biblical, lending itself to an even uglier nickname—feh!—who needed it.
“It’s
too ungepatchket,” I kvetched to my parents, using the only Yiddish word I
knew, at five years of age.
Ungepatchket
means “overly over the top” and I had just heard my mother employ this
description after visiting the home of a wealthy woman near us in Queens, NY.
The
whole family rallied to my Hebrew name’s defense.
“Look,”
said my Pop Pop, when he came home from synagogue one snowy afternoon for
Sabbath lunch at our house. “You were mentioned in the Torah portion today.”
Yeah,
like that was me. Even at five, I wasn’t buying it.
And
then, that September, I was enrolled in first grade at the Yeshiva of Central
Queens.
Miss
Fuchs, my Hebrew teacher came up to what would now be my pupik, and wore what
they used to call Coke-Bottle glasses.
She
held the roll book up to her distorted eyes, blocking her entire face.
But
I heard her.
And
I didn’t answer.
She
called my Hebrew name again. And again.
And
then something clicked.
“That’s
not my name,” I called out in my best this is my very first real day of school
in my entire life and I am going to challenge the teacher even if she is short
of stature and basically blind, voice.
“My
Hebrew name is Chana.” I gave (clever, eh?) my middle name, safely used
already, by three or four girls.
“Oy,”
said Miss Fuchs, sweetly. “Chana. Tov me’od, very good, Chana.”
And
I was Chana—un-over the top, unvarnished, un-ungepatchket Chana for two months.
Until
Parent-Teacher’s night.
I
knew.
I
was hiding under the piano when my parents got back, knew.
“Lisa.”
(Not my Hebrew name.)
“Lisa.”
(I crawled out from under the piano.)
“Lisa.”
(I sat to face them in our living room, my feet sticking out and almost
touching the big brass-topped coffee table from Israel.)
“You
have a beautiful Hebrew name,” my mother said.
“We
really love it,” my usually more formal father said.
“And
it’s your name and we want you to use it,” they both said.
Of
course I didn’t want to go to school the next day, and, as my mother pulled on
my blue tights, dressing me while I lay like a princess in bed (she did the
same for my younger sister, and I, of course, do the same for little Charlie Re
(who LOVES BOTH her English AND Yiddish names, Mom and Dad!)) I realized I had
no plan.
And
of course, back then, before the age of self-esteem and sensitivity training,
my miniscule Miss Fuchs started class by glaring at me, in Coke-bottle
quadruplicate.
“You
are NOT Chana!” she thundered tiny-ly.
And
of course, back before the age of non-bully-training and pride of
individuality, the entire class turned around, to look at me.
And
so, as I remember this, forty-four years later, like yesterday, I realize that
my parents were right.
They
chose a name that they thought was beautiful, that they really loved—and from
the Bible, yet!
And
I realize that the old Hebrew adage “Kishmo Keyn Hu,” As his name is, so is he—
she, in this case—has come to pass.
I
am overly over the top. I am ungepatchket.
I
am Elisheva.
