Shemot/Naming
When naming our two cats, our daughters chose from names they had picked out in anticipation, should the time come to adopt our next furry family. How were the names assigned? The girls watched the antics and nature of the kittens and picked from the list the names which best suited each individual.
In Judaism, the naming process depends upon whether you come from an Ashkenazi (European) or Sephardi background,( descendants of those who were forced out of Spain and Portugal) an Eidot ha Mizrach ( Asian and some African Jewish communities) or are becoming Jewish, in which case you are considered a child of Avraham v'Sarah.
Ashkenazim name their offspring after deceased relatives in order to keep the memory alive; Sepharadim name their children after a living relative (usually a grandparent) whom they wish to honor. In both cases, it is hoped that the GOOD traits will be the ones inherited.
Naming, we could then surmise, is a positive act; one which confers desirable traits (or at least the hope for desirable traits) upon the recipient. But what if taking on a name confers guilt by association? Or boxes a person into a preconceived identity? Unless it is a name one chooses, or has won at personal cost, such as when Jacob wrestled with the angel (his conscience?), naming very often leads to blaming and shaming. When people are the recipients of names, especially by bullies, name calling can lead to violence because it seems to put them in an entirely different realm from the one in which so-called “normal” people inhabit.
In Hebrew, alphabetical acrostics , such as the Ashrei prayer are sometimes employed as a mystical way of naming or at least, calling down the qualities, of God. Another kabbalistic naming method is to combine the first letter of the alef-bet with the last letter, the second with the next to last, and so forth. I have personally never tried to do this, but I imagine that it is a type of spiritual crochet, in which patterns emerge from one’s subconscious mind, giving voice (name?) to different aspects of godliness with each loop.
Another naming mantra, if you will, exists in our daily prayers. In Birkhot ha Shakhar, the Morning Blessings,we name different aspects of the Divine by acknowledging their presence in our lives. Merely by acknowledging these qualities, it is as if we are funneling them into our day, From Creation energy that we reference throughout the prayer, to the more actionable (by humans) ways of imitating God ( clothing the naked, freeing the bound, raising the downtrodden), we are giving ourselves permission to be what God intended us to be: little versions of the Shekhinah, imbued with God-like qualities, and hopefully, always winning our battle to emulate God in a positive, giving and supportive way.
Yet, all humans ( and perhaps all felines) are a mix of good and bad traits: the same potentialities which exist within our Divine Parent. Our names are not necessarily our destiny (Hear that, Nudnik-
kitty?)