
This beautiful baby, son of my nephew Yakov, gets his first name from the Old Testament’s Isaac, and his middle name from an ancient Chinese dynasty and his mother’s family.
Biblical Isaac was the confused son of Abraham, the original Jew. God convinced Abraham to sacrifice the teenager, as a loyalty demonstration.
Abraham: “Let’s take a walk, young man.”
Isaac: “Where to?”
Abraham: “I gotta see a guy about a thing.”
Isaac: “You’re bringing a shiv?”
Abraham: “Yeah, he’s um, got some packages to open, you know? Amazon.”
Four thousand years ago, teenagers obeyed their parents, and Isaac went along with his dad.
As to the middle name, Zhou (pronounced ZOW) was a Dynasty in China that lasted almost eight-hundred years, longer than any other, ending around 250 BC. Thus, the Zhou period in China and the rise of Judaism in the Levant overlapped. Confucianism also arose during this time. Did Confucius and Abraham consult with each other as their belief systems developed?
Confucius: “How’s it going, Abe?”
Abraham: “Oy, Connie, this crowd doesn’t make it easy, and there’s only twelve of us…”
Confucius: “Twelve followers? I opened my shop a month ago and I’ve got a million coming out for meditation and tea. Bring that monotheism over here and you’ll clean up.”
Abraham: “A million? I could run a hell of a fundraiser. But from here to there is such a schlep. And Sarah hates the packing.”
So, Abraham stayed in his tiny country on the Mediterranean, which gave him enough aggravation, anyway.
The Qin Dynasty replaced the Zhou. Enough already, Zhou, Let someone else be the dynasty. Zhou remains as a popular Chinese family name, including that of little Isaac’s mother. That group came to the US from Shanghai in the mid-twentieth century.
When you read this, the new Isaac of 2022 will have had his Jewish ritual circumcision, the bris, his first and hopefully only contact with a shiv. His father is an orthodox Jew from Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the largest orthodox communities in America. Isaac looks like him in this photo, taken at age six hours.
During the bris ceremony (but before the deed is done), the father gives the baby his name by reading a prayer. We couldn’t say “Isaac” until he did that. I don’t understand enough Hebrew to follow the prayer, but I recognized the naming moment as my nephew announced: “Yitzchak Zion ben Yakov Shmuel,” (Isaac Zion, son of Jacob Samuel).
“Did you say Zion?” I asked him after, “Why not Zhou?”
“There’s no Hebrew equivalent for it, so I used the Z for Zion, to go with what ‘Isaac’ means.”
“Oh?” was my last syllable before his short dissertation on what “Zion” means (an ideal place, where God has his office) and what “Isaac” means (one who rejoices).
“See,” I said, “I was listening, and listening in Hebrew yet. Aren’t you impressed?”
My nephew told me he was impressed.
And that’s how we got to Isaac Zion M________. You’ll agree that an Orthodox Jewish father and a Chinese mother is an uncommon combination among the general US population. It’s a pairing of two groups that often face hatred.
And if you’ve read my What’s Cantonese for Mazel Tov? you know the back story to this family.