Naming a Child When Circumcision Is Delayed

If owing to the child’s illness the circumcision is de layed, when should the child be named? The question raises a problem in the State of Louisiana, which re quires “an immediate registration of the name for the Office of Vital Statistics.” If it were not for this re quirement, the child could be named at the Brith, no matter how many days or weeks it was delayed.

Recently I formally named a child, with the bless ing, at the temple services, after immediately register ing the name as required by state law. Is this proper procedure? (From Rabbi Jerome Mark, Lake Charles,Louisiana)

The question of when and how to name a child when circumcision is delayed depends somewhat on the general laws involved in the naming of a child. In Biblical times, all the instances which we have of the naming of a child indicate that the child was named at birth, as one can see, for example, with the children of the matriarchs: “And Leah . . . bore a son and she called his name Reuben” (Genesis 29 : 32). This does not say expressly that it was at his birth that he was given his name, though it seems to imply it. Curiously enough, the first clear examples of naming a child at circumcision come, not from classic Jewish literature but from the New Testament. One is Luke 1: 59: “On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias after the name of his father.” The other is from Luke 2 : 21: “And when the eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus.”

But nowhere in the Mishnah or in the Talmud is there the slightest mention of any requirement, or custom, to name a child at the circumcision. The first mention of it is in the Midrashic literature of the Middle Ages in Pirkey d’Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 48, where it is said, speaking of Moses, that his parents at his circumcision named him Jekuthiel. In fact, the only attempt that I have seen to explain the reason for naming a child at the time of his circumcision is a homiletic explanation quoted from Chamudey Daniel in the book “Brith Olom” (Blum, p. 227). He suggests since Abram was not called Abraham until after his circumcision (which occurred in his adult years) therefore children should not be named until their circumcision. Clearly this is hardly a sound analogy.

In the Halachic literature the first reference is in the Tur, Even Hoezer 265, in which it is stated that the author of the “Ittur” (Isaac Abbe Mari in Provence, twelfth century) speaks of the blessing which we now use in concluding the naming of the child. This seems to be the very first reference in the Halachic literature; and from then on it was apparently taken for granted that the child was named at the circumcision, because the Shulchan Aruch mentions the naming formula incompletely, as something well known. It is important to note that the fixed custom of naming the child at circumcision begins only in the Middle Ages; unless, of course, the two references in the Gospel of Luke indicate that the custom originated earlier among Greek-speaking Jews, but if so, it is strange that there are no other references to it in the entire Talmudic literature. From which we can conclude that at least it is no violation of any law but merely a divergence from custom if the child is named at another time than at the circumcision.

What, then, is the best occasion for naming a child whose circumcision is delayed on account of illness? In some of our Reform congregations, in cities where the children are circumcised by obstetricians on the third or fourth day, the family will either have a naming party on the eighth day (a sort of a Brith Mila without the operation) or the boy is named when the father is called up to the Torah in the synagogue, just as girls are named. Similarly, if circumcision is delayed, as in this case, the boy can well be named in the temple.

There is no real objection to naming the child before the circumcision. In fact, there is a partial analogy. If, for example, the child belongs to a family which is excused from circumcision altogether (because it is a family of bleeders in which previous children have died because of circumcision) then this child must, of course, be named without circumcision. In such a case the custom is that the child is named when the father is called to the Torah before the eighth day (see “Brith Olom,” loc. cit.). If, when the child is circumcised at a later time, the family wishes to have a Brith Mila party, there is no objection to having the child named again, making reference to the fact that the name is already consecrated.

As for sending in the name to the Bureau of Vital Statistics immediately, this can always be done, and it is not relevant to the circumcision ceremony. After all, while the name is religiously given or announced at the circumcision, the name can well be chosen as soon as the child is born, as was done in Biblical times (when a child was apparently named at birth). Therefore, in Louisiana the child’s name can be registered on the first or second day, and the formal naming delayed either until the child is named in the temple or at the Brith Mila.