(Translation of speeches given at Shira Chadasha, Jerusalem, Shabbat Parshat Noach)

Ilana’s speech:

Last Shabbat morning my daughter came into our bedroom and asked me to read her from the children’s parsha book we read together every Shabbat. It was still early in the morning – Daniel had left for Hashkama, my mother-in-law was awake with Matan, and the other two girls were still asleep. At that point I had been having contractions since 2am, and so I decided to stand leaning on the edge of the bed so that I would be in the right position the next time a wave of pain came on. “Imma, why do you keep stopping in the middle,” my daughter asked me, as we went through the story of the creation of the world, the creation of life, the creation of humanity. Just when we got God’s words to Chava – בעצב תלדי בנים – in pain you shall birth children– I found myself unable to get through another line, and thankfully it was at that moment that Daniel walked in from shul and I told him it was time to go to the hospital to birth our child.

We generally think of God’s words to Chava as a curse, but as I have come to appreciate, they are in a sense also a blessing. God tells Chava that birth is going to take time, it is going to involve a long period known as pregnancy, הריון, and that pregnancy is not always going to go smoothly – it is going to involve עצבון. Rashi says that עצבון is the pain of raising children, but this has never really seemed like a satisfactory explanation to me, because the word Itzavon precedes Herayon in the biblical verse. And so I think of Itzavon as the disappointments that precede pregnancy, a reminder that a successful pregnancy often comes after pain and loss. By the time a healthy child is please God born, the parents are likely to have internalized the notion that every stage of bringing new life into the world is as miraculous as מעשה בראשית. In this sense God’s words to Chava very much parallel God’s words to Adam, who was told that he would have to eat bread by the sweat of his brow. Unlike in Eden, where food was readily available to be eaten right off the trees – according to one midrash, the fruit of Etz Hadaat was wheat – after the fall, mankind would have to work hard for his sustenance. Inevitably crops would fail, or be struck by blight, and a successful harvest – like a healthy baby – was something to be appreciated and valued.

I did not know if we would be blessed with another child, if our family would grow to seven. In Judaism the number seven has tremendous significance—from the seven days of creation to the seven words in the first verse of the Torah to the holiness of the seventh day and the seventh Shemitta year and the end of the seventh cycle at Yovel, as well as the seven branches of the Menora, the sheva brachot, the seven species of the land of Israel. Seven seemed to me like the perfect number, but as it seemed increasingly unlikely, I tried to remind myself of how blessed we already were. When I found out I was pregnant with this child at age 40, I immediately thought of Sarah Imeinu laughing in wonder and incredulity at the news that she and Avraham would have a child at their advanced age. Their son, Yitzchak, was the anticipated but unexpected bracha – they had held out the hope of they would have a child even as it seemed increasingly unlikely, even as they remained somewhat embarrassed about what others would think should their dream come true – כל השומע יצחק לי. But as we read on Rosh Hashanah and as we will read again in just two weeks, God remembered Sarah and Yitzchak was born, the laughter of incredulity became the laughter of joy, and what seemed wondrous became wonderful.

“Expand the space of your tents,” we read in the Haftarah this morning (Isaiah 54:4). We feel so blessed that our family has expanded – which brings me to Yitzchak’s middle name, Tzvi. The Talmud in Masechet Gittin compares Eretz Yisrael to a deer – just as the skin of a deer expands as its flesh expands, so too, the land of Israel expands when it is settled by more and more inhabitants. All too often it feels to Daniel and me like our hands and our hearts are full – how could we possibly handle another child, more responsibility, more Aruchot Eser to prepare every evening? Daniel’s father, for whom we have named our son, used to remind us that there was always more room at the table – and all the more so when we merit to set our table and raise our family in ארץ צבי. Miraculously, like the skin of a deer and like the land of Eretz Yisrael, our hearts have all expanded, and we are so thrilled to welcome this child into our family and into the world. May we all merit to experience the miracle of creation, the fruits of anticipation, the wonder and the wonderfulness of עשייה ובריאה. We pray that our son Yitchak Tzvi will continue to remind us that the laughter of our incredulity can become the laughter of our joy, and there is always more room for our hearts to grow. שבת שלום.

Daniel’s speech:

Our son Yitzchak Tzvi is named for his grandfather, Yitzchak Tzvi ben Yaakov v’Leah, Dr. Charles Feldman, may his memory be for a blessing. My father was an incredible person – an only child who grew up at the heart of a large, warm extended family in Elizabeth, New Jersey in a Jewish community his grandparents had founded. It was in this environment that my father learned to treat all people favorably and kindly. My father was a true Renaissance man: He was a devoted and dedicated doctor, a scholar who engaged in groundbreaking research in the fields of asthma and public health, a communal leader in his town of Teaneck, NJ, an advisor, study partner, and friend to many great rabbis, and above all, a beloved family man who always put his wife and children first. As a doctor who ministered to children suffering from asthma, my father was an old-fashioned physician in the best sense of the term: an important figure in the lives of his patients and their parents, who trusted him and sought his advice on various topics, not just medical. As a communal leader he was active in synagogues and Jewish educational institutions, including serving terms as president of Hovevei Tora and the Frisch High School. As his immediate family we were the beneficiaries of his kindness and pleasantness. He loved and treasured his wife, my mother Rella Feldman, may she live long, and he always had a smile and a kind word for his five children and ever-expanding circle of grandchildren. We have missed him deeply in the eight years since his passing.

Our Yitzchak Tzvi is the third grandchild to carry his grandfather’s name, following Charles Harold Feldman and Charles Shalom Hecht – and the threefold cord is not easily severed. But our Yitzchak Tzvi is the first of my father’s descendants to bear his name in the land of Israel. Given that our son merited to grow up in the promised land, we chose my father’s Hebrew name, which reflects the great blessing of having descendants who carry their forebear’s name. With the birth of our Yitzchak Tzvi, our dreams have come true – the dream of another boy, a fifth child and a little brother for Matan, Liav, Tagel and Shalvi, another Israeli grandchild for our wonderful parents, and a tenth Israeli grandchild for my mother, completing the minyan on this side of the ocean. Yitzchak Tzvi is a crown jewel for our family. This is the boy we prayed for but never expected. Our forefather Yitzchak was the first baby who entered into the covenant of Abraham, and the story of his birth is a reminder that every birth is miraculous. Likewise, each of Ilana’s births is wondrous and awe-inspiring. These are the foundational moments in our family’s life, where Ilana stands at the center. [Followed by Ilana’s speech]