Good names, bad names

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.

The first is another teaching in the name of Hillel, at Avot 1:13: negid shema, avad shemei. There is some disagreement as to the precise meaning of this neat Aramaic soundbite, but it is generally rendered along the lines of “a name made great is a name destroyed”, suggesting that the cultivation of fame and a good reputation will be in vain if it is not done for the sake of Heaven. The second is a baraita at Avot 6:9, taught in the name of Rabbi Yose ben Kisma:

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.