MRR 223-225

 

 NAMING A DYING INFANT

QUESTION:

An infant, just a few days old, was dying. The parents asked when, and with what ritual, the infant should be named. (By Rabbi Philip Bernstein, Rochester, New York.)

ANSWER:

THE STATUS of a dying infant a few days old is fairly clear in Jewish law. This can be inferred from the laws with regard to the burial of such an infant. Any child that lives to the age of thirty days is considered a person who must be given regular burial. Before that age no formal burial is required and, of course, no burial services.

As for mourning (shivah, etc.), that is a matter of disagreement among the authorities as to how old the child must be before the various mourning observances are to be followed. Some authorities say it has to be at least a year old, and some, even older. But if the child is as much as thirty days old, even though no mourning rituals are required, Kaddish and a funeral prayer (Tsiduk Hadin) must be recited at its burial. If the child is under thirty days old, it is considered stillborn (a nefel) and no burial or mourning rites at all are required. This is stated clearly in Evel Rabata, Chapter I, and is transmitted as a law by Asher ben Yechiel at the end of Moed Katan, # 94 , and is continued as such through all the legal codes.

If, then, no ceremonials of any kind are to be observed with a nefel, then it would stand to reason that there should not be even any formal naming of the infant. Perhaps the psychology behind the law (that there should be no burial or mourning ritual at all) is that the parents should not make any effort to keep this sorrowful episode permanently in their hearts. In the old-fashioned cemeteries there is usually no marker or any evidence that a still-born infant was buried in a certain grave. In our more modern cemeteries we are somewhat more sentimental. Perhaps this is because fewer children are born to a modern family than to the older families and perhaps, also, because in the older generations there was much more child mortality and they were more accustomed to the sorrow of a tiny infant dying. In modern times, then, where families are smaller and infant mortality less, we do find sometimes little gravestones for infants in our cemeteries; but even so there will generally be merely a stone with the word “baby.”

Of course,as I have indicated, feelings at such mis fortunes change from generation to generation, and perhaps this couple about whom the question is asked have or will have no other children and therefore might be eager to remember the infant and therefore wish to give it a name. As to that, there is an interesting appreciation in the law of the variation in sentiment and feeling with regard to the death of children. The Shulchan Aruch, in Yoreh Deah 344:4 (based upon the Talmud, Moed Katan 24b) asks at what age the child must be before we can have a funeral address (a hesped) and the answer, which sounds strange, is that with the children of the poor the child must be five years old, and for the children of the rich, the child must be six years old. Why this difference? The explanation is given that the poor have so many miseries and so little consolation that they should be consoled much more than people more comfortably situated. So the law is aware of the difference of degree of sorrow from group to group and so we might say, from family to family. Therefore in this spirit, we would say to this couple that if they wish to maintain the memory of this child, they may name it; but there is no ceremony provided. They can name it among themselves at home. Nevertheless they should also be told that the general mood of the law is that there should be no such ceremonial at all over this infant, that they should not make the attempt to keep this sorrow as a permanent memory in their hearts. And may God console them with happi-ness from their other children.