“You know we decided on Jonathan,” she said with determination.
“I know, but it has been bothering me. It suggests David. Now I’m David, and it might give the young man the idea that we were pals, friends, contemporaries-David and Jonathan. I’m afraid the young man might presume.”
“Well, Isaac is out of the question,” she said again. “Your uncle is named Isaac, and your family would never agree to another Isaac Small while he is still living.”
“I suppose not. I’m inclined to believe the Christians are a little smarter than we in the matter of names. When they can’t decide what to call a child, they can always use Junior. And then Second and Third. David Small the Third. Now there’s a name for you!”
“It could be a girl, you know.”
The rabbi appeared to consider. Then he shook his head. “I’m afraid not. My mother is a strong-minded woman. She has decided that the first one will be a boy. I don’t think she’d countenance the change.”
“I’m kind of strong-minded myself, and recently I’ve been thinking that perhaps I’d prefer a girl. I think you’d like a girl, David. Girls are gentle and kind and-”
“Strong-minded.”
“Of course, if it were a girl,” she went on, “I’d have to name her after my Aunt Hetty. I’d have to. Uncle Zachary would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
“And I’d never forgive you if you did. It’s too big a handicap for a girl, and it’s asking too much of a new father. Perhaps if the fifth or sixth child should be a girl-By then I’d be an old hand as a parent and more able to take the name in stride.”
“But Aunt Hetty has been dead barely a year, and there’s no one else who can name a child for her. Certainly Dot is not likely to have any more children. Even if it’s a boy, and we name him Jonathan, I’ll have a hard time explaining to my uncle why we didn’t call him something like Harry or Henry or Herbert.”
“And how would that constitute naming him after your Aunt Hetty?”
“Well, it’s the same initial.”
“Talk about silly superstitions. When we name a child, the father is called up for the Reading of the Torah, and then a blessing is made in the Hebrew name of the child. The Hebrew name is always a combination of the given name and the name of the father. Your aunt’s name was what? Hepzibah? So she was Hepzibah bas Joshua. She was your father’s sister, wasn’t she?”
“His oldest sister.”
“Fine. Now if we named our boy after her, he would have to be something like Hillel-Hillel ben David. Now does Hillel ben David in any way match Hepzibah bas Joshua?”
She was troubled. “But if the baby should be a girl, we could name it after my aunt and call her Harriet or Helen-”
“Or we could call her Sally and say that we were matching the last letter of the name rather than the first.”
She glanced at him doubtfully. “Would that be quite the same?”
“It would certainly be just as sensible.” His face softened. “As you know, every Jewish child has two names: a Hebrew name which is used in the temple and is primarily for religious purposes, such as for naming or being called up to the Reading, or Bar Mitzvah, or marriage; and an English name which is normally the English equivalent, such as Moses for Mosheh. When we go beyond that simple rule, we are apt to do something silly, as when we give children the name Harold or Henry from Zevi because Zevi means deer and the Yiddish-German word for deer is Hirsh. Harold, however, means something entirely different. It means champion. So we call a child a champion when we intended to call him a deer because the Yiddish word for deer begins with an H. Or take this name, Ytschak. The normal English equivalent is Isaac, but a lot of Jews, feeling Isaac sounded too Jewish, used Isidore instead because it had the same initial, not realizing that the only Isidore of any historic significance was the Archbishop of Seville. That’s almost like naming a child Adolph instead of Aaron from the Hebrew Aharon.
“The English name is the one that the child will use for ninety-nine percent of his life. So the obviously intelligent thing to do is to select a name you like that will not be a burden to the child and will be fairly euphonious in conjunction with his surname. Then pick a Hebrew name on the same principle and don’t worry whether the two match or not. So if it’s a girl, you could call her Hepzibah, which is a very pretty name in Hebrew, and that would take care of your Aunt Hetty. And you could use precisely the same name for her English name, or you could call her Ruth or Naomi or any other name you happened to like.”
“Minna Robinson suggested we ought to use a Hebrew name for both-I mean, give the English name the Hebrew pronunciation instead of translating it. It’s rather fashionable now.”
“You mean call him Yonason instead of Jonathan? And how about the surname, Small? In Hebrew that’s koton. There’s an idea-Yonason Cotton, or even Jonathan Cotton. Now there’s a real New England name for you. Say, I wonder if Cotton Mather was originally Little Mather.”
“Look, if you don’t finish so we can get over to the Schwarzes, your name will be neither Small nor Cotton, but Mud. We were due there ten minutes ago.”
CHAPTER TEN
And now,” said Schwarz, “I want to show you two something.”
There had been a great crush of people when they arrived, but the crowd thinned out until around midnight just the two of them were left. Ethel Schwarz served tea and cookies as they sat around the dining-room table and held a general post-mortem on the High Holy Day services: on the rabbi’s sermons, on the cantor’s singing, on the faulty public-address system, on the disorder during the Reading. And through it all, much to the rabbi’s surprise, Schwarz had been pleasant and cordial; but now, he felt, they had come to the real reason the president insisted they remain after the others had gone.
“This is my study,” Schwarz called over his shoulder as he led them down a hall. “I do a lot of work here.” He stood aside to let his guests enter. The room had no books but against one wall there were a large tilt drafting table and a broad cabinet with drawers for storing blueprints. But what attracted their attention was the table in the center of the room-on which was a pasteboard replica of the temple done to scale. Even the landscaping had been reproduced, the grass made of green fuzzy material, the shrubbery of twigs and wrapped wire, the wall setting off the parking lot a piece of cardboard painted to represent rough fieldstone. There were even a few plaster of Paris manikins to give some idea of the size of the structure.
“It’s lovely,” exclaimed Miriam.
“Seventy hours of work,” said Schwarz. “But you haven’t seen the best part.” He led them around the table. Abutting the rear wall of the temple was a small structure which the rabbi guessed was the chapel Schwarz had mentioned. Slightly lower than the parent building, it had a parabolic dome suggesting the architecture in the Holy Land. A portico in front was supported by a row of columns-twin cylinders, obviously intended to represent Torah Scrolls.
“How do you like it?” asked Schwarz. And without waiting for an answer, he went on, “It’s rich; it’s classic. It’s simple and it’s elegant. How about using the Scrolls as supporting columns? Could anything be more natural, more right? You’ve seen Jewish temples and synagogues using Greek columns, and Byzantine temples and Colonial temples. And all the time we’ve had the Scroll, which couldn’t be more suitable-and beautiful. The cylinder, of course, gives the greatest support with the greatest economy of material. It is naturally graceful. So why do we have to borrow from the Greeks when we have in the Scroll a double cylinder, if you please-the greatest symbol of our religion?