Peter Kane

The opportunity to select a Hebrew name as part of conversion is a profound moment of introspection along the journey to becoming Jewish. It is a process of identity to define oneself in terms of both the person we are and want to become as a Jew, as well as in relation to millennia of Jewish history and its people.

My personal Hebrew naming journey has taken a few twists and turns, including the exploration of names that associate to the consonants of my secular first and middle names (Peter Tappin), the meaning behind them, as well other arbitrary paths (e.g., Peter → Simon → Shimon).

As far as the patronymic line is concerned, there was never any question: ben Avraham. While modern interpretations of conversion, even in the Conservative movement, allow for other names, the truth is that, for me, a Jew by choice, there is only one father in my line: Avraham.

As far as the rest of my Hebrew name, I decided to go back to basics. Secularly, as a given name, Peter reflects values of steadfastness and dependability, while Tappin is a centuries-old family name. They are deeply rooted in who I am as a person and where I come from, familially and geographically.

So, in choosing a Hebrew name, I had to ask myself: From a personality, values, and faith perspective, who am I and who do I want to become; and from a legacy perspective, who do I want to honor?

After much deep reflection, the answer became clear: Yitro Aryeh ben Avraham.

On Yitro

I feel a deep connection with both the man and the Parsha named for him. This was actually the Parsha the first time I came to Bonai Shalom for Shabbat services and it frankly hit me a lot harder than I ever expected. There was a long time in most of my 20s and 30s when I felt apart from God. While I had been opening myself back up to Him in the years prior, that particular Shabbat fully reconnected my faith.

In Yitro, I see someone who, as Rashi writes, “Was living amidst all the splendour that the world could provide, and nevertheless his heart prompted him to go forth into the desert, a waste place (Mekhilta), to hearken to the words of the Torah.” He was called to Devar Elohim much like I was: Unexpectedly, but powerfully.

After hearing Moshe recount the tale of their Exodus from Egypt, Yitro replies, “Blessed be the LORD who has rescued you from Egypt and Pharaoh and liberated the people from the Egyptians’ hands. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods – for HE brought upon them what they schemed against others.”

I found a reference to a passage in The Zohar I thought was interesting: “The Torah could not be given to Israel until Jethro, the great and supreme priest of the all pagan world, confessed his faith in the Holy One, saying, ‘Now I know that G‑d is greater than all the gods.’”

And, thus, we have Yitro, the convert.

Perhaps an understated story, and definitely overshadowed by the rest of the Parsha, but the importance of this moment shouldn’t be lost in terms of the story of Moshe, the story of Israel, and the story of Judaism.

Additionally, as Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks points out, Exodus 18:10 is one of three times that barukh Hashem is used in the Torah, in this instance by Yitro. “God is universal,” Rabbi Sacks writes, “Therefore humanity, created in His image, is universal…We need to find a way of combining our universal humanity with our cultural and religious particularity.”

And, while, he says, this last part is best demonstrated by Yitro, there’s something that I can’t quite put into words which also holds meaning based on additional commentary by Rashi: “AND HE WENT HIS WAY INTO HIS OWN LAND, for the purpose of making proselytes of the members of his family (Mekhilta).”

As Sforno points out, he was old and likely didn’t want to adjust to a new place to live out his days, but I also read those interpretations as Yitro bringing Torah back to his own people – those he was responsible for – similarly to how Moshe was responsible for the Israelites and leading them to Canaan. There’s something there that speaks to the convert in me. As I said, I can’t quite put it into words, but isn’t that partially what Judaism is all about: Working it over and over and over until it maybe eventually reveals itself?

Of course, the most well-known part of Yitro’s story is the wisdom, the hokhma, he provides to Moshe: That he delegates responsibility to, “Leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.” This, as Rabbi Sacks points out, brings, “Ordinary people – with no special prophetic or legal gifts into the seats of judgment. Precisely because they lacked Moshe’s intuitive knowledge of law and justice they were able to propose equitable solutions, and an equitable solution is one in which both sides feel they have been heard. Both gain; both believe the result is fair.”

Most interpretations of Yitro’s role may begin as simply advising Moshe to spread the burden, so as to protect the man responsible for leading the Chosen People to the Holy Land. “What you are doing is not good,” Yitro says. “You will be worn away, and these people along with you. It is too heavy a burden for you. You cannot carry it alone.”

But, as Rabbi Sacks explains, it also sows the seeds of a system of governance that would define a people…governance we can see to this day in our own democratic institutions, including juries of our peers and modern federalism.

And, then, of course, there is the interconnectedness of this Parsha with the man Yitro and the events at Sinai. Further learning from Rabbi Sacks: “Both episodes, Yitro and the revelation at Sinai, have one theme in common, namely the delegation, distribution, and democratization of human leadership. Only God can rule alone.”

“The starting point of political theory must lie in the rights, freedom, and dignity of the individual, not in those of in those of the state,” he writes. “It is this that forms the biblical basis of modern political theory, and an eternal protest against totalitarianism.”

While Exodus gives us the idea that “the person is prior to the collective,” this Parsha reminds us that “the individual is not self-sufficient.” The way I view the world, particularly as someone who still truly believes in the Great American Experiment, can be directly connected by a throughline to Parhsha Yitro. I just never realized it until now.

And, of course, this is the Parsha where we experience the Revelation. Could what comes next have happened without Yitro’s intervention? Could Moshe have borne the burden without delegation, could the Israelites have experienced the events of Sinai without an established social construct? And, even more importantly, would civilization look as it does now (for the better) without the gift of the 10 Commandments that have come to define Western values and culture?

I could go on and on.

For example, in Parsha Yitro, I find a deep connection with the concept of “A Kingdom of Priests” as represented by a “nation of universal literacy.” I am personally a genealogical descendant of the House of Elzevir – Dutch printers in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought their own religious freedom from the Catholic Church and who were best known for publishing Galileo’s Two New Sciences. As outlined in an article on EBSCO: “In 1638, agents of the Elzevir family secured a smuggled copy of Galileo’s final scientific treatise, called The Two New Sciences, written while the dying astronomer was under house arrest in Italy at the direction of the Vatican, which regarded his pioneering work on planetary movement as heresy. Elzevir published the book after publishing houses in the Catholic countries of France, Poland, and Germany had declined.”

Or, the fact that one of the many names given to Yitro was also Yeter, meaning, “he added.” And, while some interpretations of this do focus on the idea of adding a passage to the Torah, as The Kotzker explains, what Yitro truly adds is both a recognition of the problem statement as well as a solution to it: What Moshe was doing was not good, but the solution is to delegate. What better example is there of how we should consider the way we engage the world around us? Stating a problem without a solution or offering a solution without acknowledging a problem accomplishes little. And, personally, while Yeter is a transliteration, it was quite the interesting surprise for this Peter to find out that Yitro was also a Yeter.

In short, there is perhaps no other person in the bible I have yet found such a deeply personal connection with both as an individual and a convert, for what they represent in the history of Judaism, as well as the story and lessons of the Parsha named for them.

On Aryeh

When I first met my wife, we talked about our families and our stories a lot. Mine, a family that had come to the United States beginning before it had even become the country, and hers, a family that came to the United States in flight of the Nazification of Europe and in the aftermath of the Holocaust’s horrors.

Her father’s father, Grandpa Larry (Aryeh ben Dov), was someone I immediately felt a deep respect for, affinity with, and connection to.

Born in 1910, Grandpa Larry raised and trained dogs in what would become post-war Czechoslovakia. He served in the Czech Army in the late 1920s/early 1930s, and with Germany’s annexation of Sudetenland in 1938 and the occupation of the remaining Czech territories in 1939, Grandpa Larry decided it was time to flee to America. He luckily spoke fluent German and that, along with some chance advice from a taxi driver on the way to the train station, allowed him to talk his way off of the continent.

After arriving in the United States, getting married, and having his first child, Grandpa Larry was drafted into the United States Army early in the war. A medic, he would return to Europe, land in Normandy, and help defeat the Naziism that had driven him from his home and murdered over 6 million members of his family, community, and people.

Grandpa Larry was small in stature but massive in personality. He suffered rampant antisemitism from his fellow soldiers in multiple armies, including one commander who did his best to ensure he ended up KIA (he was short and kept his head down, though). Despite this, he would always find ways to stand up for himself, whether that was dipping one tormenter’s hand in warm water while asleep in the hopes he’d wet the bed, only to be discovered, attacked, and come out the victor (“Do you really think I did this?” a 5’2” Grandpa Larry posed to his commanding officer post-altercation, “Look at him; look at me!”), or by teasing his fellow soldiers afraid of needles with the largest ones available before their vaccinations. In one instance, upon seeing a, “No Dogs or Jews,” sign in one empty storefront window in Germany during the war, Grandpa Larry took his machine gun to it.

Grandpa Larry was also a highly religious man who practiced kashrut, prayed three times a day, wrapped tefillin every morning, kept the Sabbath, walked to Shul for the High Holidays, and all that was required of an Orthodox Jew in America.

If I’m being honest, Grandpa Larry and his Judaism – both in practice and essence – was one of the sparks that ignited my desire to convert.

Heather loved hearing his stories and loved seeing his eyes twinkle when he told them. I can only hope to follow in those footsteps.

To conclude, only us converts truly have the opportunity to intellectually pick our Hebrew names. After all, I’m picking a name 41 years, 2 months, and 27 days old as of this writing; 41 years, 2 months, and 19 days older than I would have been given one if born into Judaism. And, while that intellectual pursuit is important, what us converts can’t lose sight of is how we feel about that name – how we connect to it.

So, after much debate with myself, it’s settled because it truly feels right: Yitro Aryeh ben Avraham.