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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Baby Naming

Baby Naming - A Welcoming Ceremony

Rabbi Sherwin Wine
The humanistic Jewish baby naming is a welcoming ceremony where children receive Hebrew names to mark their membership in the Jewish community. Rabbi Sherwin Wine provides examples of the celebration of introducing a baby into the community.
Sherwin T. Wine, Celebration, Prometheus Books, 2003, pp 317-329.

Welcome

We affirm the power of life.
We affirm the power of life in every human being.
We affirm the power of life in every newborn child.

Conferring of a Hebrew Name

I. Life needs hope. It needs anticipation. It needs striving. It needs the future. So often our days are filled with the past, with regret for things not done, with the thought of events we cannot change. But when a new child is born, the direction of life turns forward. We become aware of our power to mold the shape of the world to come. We become aware of our power to create, to share, to teach, to train. A child is the gift of the future in the present. It is a potential waiting to be fulfilled. If we extend to him/her the gift of our live, s/he will share with us, in return, the gift of hope.

May your new son/daughter fill your life with new excitement and new anticipation. May s/he give you a new sense of positive power. May s/he bring forth from you all your capacity to love and to nurture. May the name s/he bears,_________, be a sign of the strength of your commitment to him/her and of his/her commitment to life.

II. Love is an expression of our strength. To nurture another human being with the gift of our time and our talents is to affirm our own power to create. True love is never self-sacrifice. It is the overflow of vitality which allows the force of life to pass from one to another.

To love a child is to love life. To nurture an infant is to express hope. Children do not steal our strength. They allow us to go beyond ourselves to discover the power of our own creative talents in their success. To be a father or a mother is more than a profession. It is more than a social calling. It is the fulfillment of one of our deepest needs - our need to touch the future and to make it live.

You have touched the future with your own creative power. You have brought a new child into the world. You are parents by choice and desire. May your newborn son/daughter bring you more life through his/her life. May s/he always enable you to reach out beyond yourselves to love and to nurture. May the name you have given him/her, ______, always be an affirmation of life.

Cup of Celebration

This cup of wine is the cup of life. It is the symbol of family life and the sign of continuity from generation to generation. ___________ is more than an individual. S/he is part of the chain of the life which stretches from the past into the future.

Let us raise this cup to life. L'-HIE-YEEM

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