The concept of a shem tov (literally “good name”) features twice in Pirkei Avot. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai praises the value of a good reputation at Avot 4:17 where he teaches:
“There are three crowns—the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and
the crown of sovereignty—but the crown of a good name surpasses them all”.
Hillel
agrees that a good reputation is a valuable asset, but points at Avot 2:8 to
its limitations:
“One who acquires a good name acquires it for himself; but one who
acquires words of Torah acquires life in the World to Come”.
So is a good
name, a good reputation, a sort of formal recognition of one’s personal
qualities and achievements, or is it merely a non-transferable label that
ultimately adds up to nothing of substance? Avot does not resolve this issue. There are
however two further teachings on which we should reflect before drawing any
conclusions.
Once I was walking along the road and a man came across me. He greeted
me and I returned his greeting. He said to me: "Rabbi, what place do you
come from?” I said to him: "I’m from a great city of sages and scholars”. He
said to me: "Rabbi, would you like to live with us in our place? I will
give you a million dinars of gold, precious stones and pearls". I said to
him: "If you were to give me all the silver, gold, precious stones and
pearls in the world, I wouldn’t live anywhere but in a place of Torah”….
The baraita
continues by affirming the point made by Hillel above, that it is through the
acquisition of Torah that one acquires one’s World to Come. The curious thing
about this baraita is that the stranger who encounters Rabbi Yose ben Kisma
asks where he comes from but does not ask his name. This would suggest that the
Rabbi’s worth has been assessed by reference to (possibly) his appearance,
(more likely) his behaviour and demeanour but not by reference to his name and reputation.
There is
another sense in which a name is taken to be “good” or “bad”, where it is not
so much the reputation as the name itself that is at stake. This theme is
developed by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel in volume 1 of his Eternal Ethics from
Sinai, where at Avot 1:3 he introduces a teaching by Antigonos Ish Socho
with a discussion of the name Antigonos and of the propriety or otherwise of
giving a child a non-Jewish name. He writes:
“If Antigonos of Socho, the saintly Tanna who received the Oral Tradition
from Shimon HaTzaddik, were alive today, he would no doubt be encouraged to
have his name changed, a practice that has gained considerable popularity in
our times. Antigonos is no more a Biblical name that Hurkenos, Sumchus or
Tarfon. These names, all from non-Jewish sources, were given long ago to
children who developed into some of our people’s greatest Torah sages. When
parents select a name for a child, the best choice is clearly a Jewish name,
because the name of a righteous, pious, and scholarly Jew will have a positive
influence on the child. But let us say that, for whatever reasons, a parent
chooses to name a daughter Zlata or Altun rather than Rivka or Rahel. That has
become this particular child’s name and it should not be tampered with”.
Following
further discussion of the correct spelling of names, divine inspiration in
choosing them and the mechanism for changing a name, Rabbi Hillel continues:
“…[C]urrent trends in name-changing have it that Rahel is a ‘very bad
name’, and absolutely no one should be named Rahel. … Our forefather Yaakov, a
very great Mekubal, was surely privy to whatever inside information
today’s practitioners would like to claim. If Rahel is a ‘bad name’, why did he
not feel impelled to change the name of his beloved wife? The same could be
said of Rabbi Akiva and countless other great Torah scholars throughout our
history whose wives bore the name of the Matriarch Rahel”.
I had no
idea that Rahel/Rachel was a ‘very bad name’ and wonder if any of my more kabbalistically
inclined readers might enlighten me. Be that as it may, my personal feeling,
for what it is worth, is that if the reputation that attaches to a person’s
name is indeed personal—as Hillel suggests at Avot 2:8—we should not assume
that the attributes associated with that person’s name are in any sense
transferable. Each person should be known by their name but valued in
accordance with their individual attributes. It also seems to me that giving a
child an auspicious name from Tanach or traditional Jewish sources may also be
a laudable practice. But it offers no guarantee that children will absorb or
display the qualities of the person after whom they are named, as the roll-call
of Jewish prisoners in Israel and the diaspora sadly indicates.
