One of the great debates during my engagement to a rabbi fifteen years ago was how I would be addressed by his congregation. I did not plan to change either my first or my last names after my wedding, but how would this decision be interpreted by my fiancé’s congregants?
The world seemed clearly divided between those who could not imagine why one-half of a couple would change one-half of her names upon entering into the holy bond of matrimony, and those who could not imagine not doing so. The members of my fiancé’s congregation fell into the latter category, and so after I agreed to wed both Moshe and his position, we debated how I should introduce myself without unduly violating their delicate sense of propriety.
“Viva Hammer, the Rebbetzin Bleich,” was one brilliant suggestion. It was in the fashion of the British royalty, a la, Sophie, the Duchess of Wessex. This was somewhat of a mouthful, though, and soon it deteriorated to, “Hello, this is Viva, ah, err, the rabbi’s wife.” There was always a hesitation after the “Viva,” as if I had to remember to delete my last name, in deference to the sensibilities of the congregant on the other end of the phone.
“My name has always been Viva Hammer and I could not see any good reason to change it.”
The members of the community, in their consummate wisdom, renamed me Mrs. Bleich. This particularly annoyed my husband, “If you’re here at all, it is purely in the capacity as my rebbetzin. You certainly would not have chosen this uplifting crowd as your community if you had been untitled!”
I never corrected anybody, though, whatever they chose to call me. Keeping my name is not a moral crusade for me. My name has always been Viva Hammer and I could not see any good reason to change it. To provoke an argument over my naming philosophy every time I introduced myself was futile. Either you understood the concept or you didn’t.
My in-laws were in disbelief that they had acquired themselves a daughter who would not take on their name. My father-in-law had written a well-publicized article denouncing the practice of keeping two names in a family. He argued that it detracted from the wholeness of the marital unity, and cited the biblical phrase: “l’mishpahotam l’vet avotam–by their families according to the houses of their fathers” (Numbers 1:2).
After Moshe and I read the article together, I became worried and thought Moshe might start getting cold feet about my decision. He laughed. “This is my guide: is it written in the Shulhan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law? If there is an obligation to change your name under Jewish law, of course I couldn’t be an accomplice to your keeping your name. But family names are a gentile addendum to our own naming system, in which a person is the child of its father and mother from birth to death. I’m not going to forbid your keeping your last name based on some extra-legal mumbojumbo.”
What a relief! There were certain benefits of marrying a man who was a strict interpreter of the law…
Still, my husband’s family always addressed me in person and in writing as Mrs. Bleich, and I did not correct them. In fact, letters that were addressed to us as Rabbi Bleich and Viva Hammer were so rare that I created a special file for them, the Hammer-Bleich file.
Things became more complicated when I found I was pregnant. I had never made the children’s names an issue between us. Following my original philosophy, I was concerned to preserve the name I had used since birth, but did not feel strongly about how one acquired the birth name, since it was such an arbitrary process anyway. Either Offspring Bleich or Offspring Hammer would have been fine with me. But my husband felt differently. He had always wanted both of us to hyphenate our names, but knew that this would make him a laughing-stock with his congregation and the rest of the religious world. Moshe believed that if the children only had his name, it would belittle the enormous physical and emotional sacrifice I would make to have them. He wanted our partnership in their lives to be manifest wherever they went. Besides, if the children started out double-barreled, they and the world would be used to the concept when they became spiritual leaders of congregations, or whatever profession they pursued. I was so proud and grateful to have married a man who argued with me this way.
So we navigated the bumpy territory between Moshe’s world and mine, and sometimes I found myself Mrs. Bleich and sometimes Viva Hammer, and sometimes Viva HammerBleich. At work, I was the master of my title; I had started my career as Viva Hammer and never changed. It turned out, however, that my venerable consulting firm was just as old-fashioned as my husband’s congregation. One day, an invitation to a holiday party arrived, addressed by hand in florid calligraphy.
“Mr. and Mrs. Moshe Hammer,” it read.
“What’s this about?” Moshe asked, outraged at the error. I smiled. “Darling, now you know what it’s like to be retitled to appease one’s spouse’s employer’s sensibilities. I think it’s quite a good compromise, don’t you? And God created the human, man and woman He created them. A single, indivisible unit with your first name and my last…”
And I cut out the lovely lettering and added it to the Hammer-Bleich file.