On January 17th, our 3rd son was born. As we have done for each of our boys, my wife and I wrote a letter to him welcoming him to the world and explaining his name for his bris on the 8th day of his life. Even though Alon was unable to get a traditional bris due to a minor medical issue, we still held a baby naming for him. Since some have asked us about the meaning of his name and why we chose it, I am posting excerpts of the letter we wrote for him explaining our choice & because we hope that his name will be an honor and inspiration for us all.
Dear Alon Emet:
Just a little over one week ago on January 17th, 2016 at 3:30am, you came into this world and changed our lives forever. As soon as we recovered our sleep a bit from your desire to arrive in the middle of the night, we spent all of our waking hours getting to know you and watching closely as you grow, change, and develop your itty bitty personality. Even though this isn’t a traditional bris, we still felt it important to share this special occasion, giving you your name and telling its story, with our family and friends. After all, the people here today, physically and in spirit around the country and world, are among the most important people in our family’s lives, and we cannot wait for you to join this community...
The love for the Illini and Israel first brought your mother and me together. And these 2 things remain central in our lives, so much so, that they have influenced your name as they influenced your brothers’ names before you. Many people in this room know how much we struggled with finding your name. In our Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, babies are named after relatives or someone important that has died. And while your brothers are named after great grandparents who we know watch down on us to this day, we are blessed that our family has not experienced any recent losses to provide guidance for your name. So with freedom to literally name you anything, we struggled...for over 9 months. There’s a lot of pressure to pick a child’s name - it actually says in the spiritual Kabbalah that a person’s soul has a deep connection to their name, and like your brothers' names mean so much, we wanted to find a deep meaning and connection for you.
Not only did our name search involve a ton of time scouring the Internet, but we asked so many people for ideas and advice. Pretty soon we had a list of well over 30 ideas. One idea, that didn’t make the final cut was Katom or Tapuz (Meaning Orange). If trendy folks can name their kids Rain or River or Apple, why couldn’t we name you Katomi or Tapuzi? After all, Orange is Hot! Even though we decided not to go with these names, don’t be surprised if they end up being one of your nicknames!
A couple of months ago we asked Ami and Nadav, your brothers, for naming help. Some of their ideas were: Porkchop, Steak, Ben Ami, and Big Belly. We are sure you’ll be happy that we didn’t choose any of those. However, your oldest brother, Ami, told us one day that he liked the name Emet. We loved the idea of having your brother as part of the naming process, and it felt right to have Emet as your middle name. Emet means truth. The concept of truth has been explored and debated since the days of the earliest philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - and we hope that you embody the ideals of logic, wisdom, justice, and truth as you journey through life. So by choosing your meaningful middle name, Ami has ensured that you are deeply connected to our family tree.
And finally, we want to share with you the deep truth behind our choice for your first name - Alon.
The literal meaning of Alon in Hebrew is an oak tree. Oaks are big and strong, and so some associate those characteristics with the name Alon. Also, a tree represents life, and we hope you grow up to have deep roots in your community and family; we hope you grow to have strong branches to lend a helping hand and give of yourself; and we hope that you grow fruitful and provide for your own family one day.
All of those characteristics of Oak and Tree are important, and Alon was already on our possible name list, but the idea of the name, Alon, became even more meaningful to us in early January. As you will learn, Israel and Judaism are important to us and your family. Unfortunately, since this past summer, Israel has been facing an unprecedented string of months with near daily terror attacks. On January 1st, a terrorist opened fire in the streets of Tel-Aviv, where we were just this past summer as a family, taking the lives of two people. One of those young men, a former Golani Soldier, was 26 year-old Alon Bakal. But we didn’t choose the name Alon to dwell on the negative. Instead, we were inspired to choose the name after reading a piece in The Times of Israel by David Eastman who encouraged us to learn from this event that life is precious and life should be cherished every day. Borrowing Eastman’s idea in honor of Alon Bakal, we chose the name Alon for you to remind us, and hopefully inspire all those here that are celebrating with us and all those that get to know you, that every day we should:
- Appreciate all of the events in our lives
- Tell every member of our family how much we love and cherish them
- Relish every moment and opportunity we share with our friends
- Be kind to everyone, even the strangers we meet on the street
- Remember to never go to bed angry
- Love nature and its beauty
- Be willing to try new things
- Work towards a better world for all races, religions, and colors
And finally, we hope that you, Alon Emet, will live a beautiful life and remind us all to embrace and live the mantra inspired by Alon Bakal’s final text to his father: “I am having a good time. I love life.”
In all of these ways, through your name you are connected to your family, to our love of the Illini, to our love for Israel, and to our love for life. We hope that your name is inspirational to you and a light among our community.
Welcome to our world and family!
With love,
Welcome to our world and family!
With love,
Ema v’ Abba
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