BS”D

 

Jewish name?

 

Shalom Matthew and thank you for your question! Actually, your name IS a Jewish name already. Matthew is an Anglicized version of the Hebrew name Mattityahu from the Chanukah story. Mattityahu the son of Yochanan the High Priest (Cohen Gadol in Hebrew,) led the Maccabees in a revolt against the Greek-Syrian army of Antiochus IV who ruled over Israel. The Maccabees succeeded in driving out the Greek-Syrian army and then were able to purify the Temple from the idol worship that had been done there, and they miraculously found a jug of pure oil with which to light the Menorah.

So thank G-d you DO have a Jewish name, and if you want it to sound more Jewish, you can ask people to call you Mattityahu, or Matty for short. (In the Ashkenazic pronounciation, which is used for reading the Torah and praying, it is pronounced Mattisyahu, and many Ashkenazic Jews pronounce their names that way too.)

 

It is very nice of you to be so concerned about your mother’s feelings. Perhaps she will feel better about it if you share the following explanation with her.

When G-d created the world, he created it using speech. For example, G-d said “Let there be light” and there was light. There were ten ‘sayings’ like that that brought the world into being. These sayings actually still exist, and are still keeping the world in existence.  The sayings are made up of Hebrew letters, since Hebrew, the Holy language, was the first and only language in the world till G-d created more languages to confuse the people who were trying to rebel against Him in the story of the tower of Babel. (Babel comes from the Hebrew word ‘levalbel’ – to confuse.)

The letters that make up the words with which G-d created and recreates the world constantly, are like a spiritual formula that makes up the world.

When Adam was created on the first Friday, G-d gave him a special insight so that he could name all the creations, also with names comprised of Hebrew letters. As explained above, the Hebrew letters make up the spiritual formula of each creation.

So too, each Jew is affected by his name, which makes up his spiritual essence. This is why, as you hinted at, a person who is G-d forbid very sick or has a near-death experience often has a name added on. The more Hebrew letters, the more  life. The letters are like a life source.

When parents name a child, indeed it is said that they receive from Heaven a spark of prophecy. In other words, the name that parents give a boy at his Brit Milah (circumcision,) or a girl when she is named in synagogue at a Torah reading after she is born, comes to the parents by Divine Providence, even though they may choose a certain name in advance after giving it a lot of thought, it is still possible that a different name will come to the father’s mind at the time of the official naming.

This in fact happened to a couple in America, where the father surprised himself by telling the Rabbi officiating at the Brit Milah of his son a different name than the one he and his wife had thought of. It turned out that this was the name of a young Israeli soldier who was the first one to have died in a recent Defence Operation by the Israeli army. Also, it turned out that the name was connected to someone in the family that the grandfather of the baby’s mother had wanted the young parents to name their baby for. The couple were amazed to see the Divine Providence.

 

When you live your life according to Torah and Mitzvot, this is the highest form of respecting your parents. So not only is it nice and important to behave in a respectful manner to them, but you are benefitting them spiritually when you keep G-d’s commandments and learn His Torah.

So we wish you, Matthew/Mattityahu/Mattisyahu, much success in everything you do!