| A Rose By Any Other Name |
|
| Written by Li Cornfeld | |||||
| Thursday, 22 December 2005 | |||||
|
On Families, Naming, and Inexplicable Choices All my life, people have attempted at pronouncing my name, and have guessed badly. Officially, it’s Lisa. I grew up as Lisy (“Lissy?” “Lizzy?” “Lucy?” “Lacey?” “Licey?”), briefly used Lisa, then inadvertently went back to Lisy but spelled it Lisi. When I started college, it occurred to me that I could scrap the confusing second syllable and just go by Li. Victory! My name is no longer a source of confusion. Yet with my English name finally squared away, I’ve come to a startling realization: my Hebrew name might be more problematic than my English name ever was. The name is not a source of confusion to others; how often does a twenty-two-year-old, relatively secularized Jewish girl even mention her Hebrew name? I’ve passed the Bat Mitzvah stage and marriage is nowhere on the horizon. Excepting a sudden, tragic death, I have arrived at a safe chronological distance from any life cycle ceremony requiring the utterance of Lea Shoshanna. Yet the name has been a point of contention at such ceremonies even from birth. The rabbi who officiated my naming ceremony, the story goes, retained a post-mortem grudge against my great-grandmother Lea, the first of many to leave the synagogue because she disliked his rabbinical leadership. Not one to disprove accusations of petty behavior, at my naming the rabbi failed to mention the woman for whom I am named. My sister, named after another great-grandmother, is Sarah. In Hebrew, her name means Princess. My parents swear they named her without thought to my mother’s Jewish name (in Yiddish, not Hebrew), which is Malka, meaning Queen. And in this glorious royal family, I am Lea: Weary One. My parents insist that when they gave us our Hebrew names, they paid attention to sound systems, not to symbolic meaning. They point out that Shoshana, which follows Lea, means Rose, although admittedly, they didn’t realize it at the time. Whatever. I am honored and delighted to be named for my great-grandmother, a remarkable woman, and, evidently, an excellent judge of rabbinical character. The practice of naming children after relatives they never knew strikes me as a rich, beautiful tradition. Growing up with an inconsistent English name, I have always view names as somewhat disconnected from the people they label, but that very disconnect leads me to want my Hebrew name to take on a special significance. I’d like to think that a Hebrew name captures a person’s essence, soul, whole entity in sacred letters. But do I really want to identify as a weary rose? Don’t misunderstand. I think the image of a weary rose is cool. It’s poetic, intriguing, vaguely romantic. But is it me? At a party, a weary rose does not giggle. She dresses in red chiffon, adorns herself in borrowed jewelry, and patiently poses at the top of a marble staircase, gazing distrustfully down the banister. She knows wilting is inevitable, feels it slowly approaching. As a result, she drinks excessively, from a clear crystal glass. She is lovely to see and prickly to touch, delicate and captivating. I never thought that I might be akin to a rose until I saw a photograph my grandmother took of me at her 62nd wedding anniversary. In the picture, I sit in a corner with my legs patiently crossed, gazing down at the camera from behind dark sunglasses. I wear a chiffon dress, a sting of pearls, and hold a crystal clear martini glass. In my hand, it looks something like a rose. The pearls I was wearing belonged to my mother; I know I was given pearls at some point in my life, but I’ve misplaced them. I never wear sunglasses because I can’t seem to hold onto them for more than a day or so; I’m fairly certain I lost the pair that I wear in the picture immediately after it was taken. We took the photo as a joke, and yet, the good college student that I am, I made it my picture on facebook.com. Apparently, it’s an image I want to project as iconic of me. I’ve always had trouble identifying with my English and Hebrew names. But along with my mother’s pearls and my grandmother’s picture, my great-grandmothers’ name is starting to grow on me. Lea Shoshana isn’t just a combination of pretty sounds—it’s an entire persona. While the rest of my family is royalty, I’m rabbinic defiance and sophisticated prickliness wrapped into one gorgeous flower. Li Cornfield, Lea Shoshana, the weary rose: I’m slowly growing into it.
Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.12 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved. |
|||||