A well-known midrash teaches that before birth, God matches each soul with its future mate (B.T. Sotah 2A). We like to think that God has another task relating to those as yet unborn: matching those whose biological parents will be unable to raise them with their future families. The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 19b) states, “Whoever raises an orphan in his home, it is considered as though he gave birth to that child.” Biblical adoptive parents include Michal bat Shaul, Naomi, and Pharaoh’s daughter, who was given the name Batya, daughter of God. Because she adopted Moshe, a nonrelative and a child of another religion, it was as though God had adopted her.
The halakhot relating to adoption are complex. A scholarly article on this issue states: “Indeed, adoption as a formal legal institution does not exist in Jewish law. Nevertheless, as a social reality, adoption always existed in Jewish societies and was acclaimed.”1 Adoption is increasingly common today. In many yeshivot, day schools, and synagogues, it is no longer unusual to find Jewish children of color, children from the Far East, from Central and South America, from Africa and Europe. Welcoming them as new members of the community is important both to the newly constituted families and to the community as a whole. Yet although ceremonies welcoming biological children to the Jewish community are standard (shalom zakhar, brit, simhat bat), there are few established rituals welcoming those who are adopted.
A Personal Story
Both of Rivka’s daughters adopted boys from outside the United States. Both are named after their grandfather. Each family celebrated their new additions’ arrivals in a different way. One grandson was introduced to his new community at a Shabbat afternoon gathering of friends and neighbors in the family home. The baby was passed around, his story was told, and everyone present was invited to greet him with words of welcome. A rabbi friend of the family gave a d’var Torah, and the baby was blessed by all. It was a beautiful and meaningful welcome.
The other grandson was welcomed in his shul. His father received an aliyah, and his mother also received an aliyah in the shul’s women’s tefillah. The family sponsored a kiddush for the congregation. In both cases, the boys’ communities welcomed them with great joy.
Rivka conducted a personal ritual of welcome for each grandson. As each was given her late husband’s name, she gave each a gift of a sefer her husband held dear. For her first adopted grandson, Rivka took a Sefer Tehillim that belonged to her husband’s grandmother. It was quite old; its well-thumbed pages, yellowed by age, were amazingly well-preserved. Rivka’s husband had had it rebound, and it was in good condition. Rivka inscribed it for the baby, expressing the hope that the child would always feel linked, through his name, to his larger family and its beliefs and traditions, as symbolized by the cherished volume.
For her second adopted grandson, Rivka took an old volume of Talmud that her late husband had saved that belonged to his grandfather. He had treasured it and also had it rebound, and had studied from it himself. It too was about 150 years old and in very good condition. Rivka similarly inscribed this volume as well. This was her personal way of welcoming these boys into her family, of linking her late husband’s namesakes into our faith and heritage.
Creating a Welcoming Ceremony
As welcoming adopted children into their larger communities has not yet been ritualized in specific ways, creativity is the norm. Each family can choose a way of welcoming their child that is most comfortable for them. When we were editing our mini-siddur, Shaarei Simcha, Gates of Joy, we decided to offer a welcoming ceremony for adopted children in the section containing other life-cycle events. We included a welcoming ceremony appropriate for both boys and girls. The ceremony for girls follows the pattern of a simhat bat, with material inserted that is relevant for a female child who has been adopted. In the case of a boy, we felt it especially significant to include a welcoming ceremony that would take place after the male child had undergone both a brit and immersion, when necessary.
When children who were not born Jewish are adopted by observant families, they must undergo conversion, with the understanding that those below the age of bar or bat mitzvah will reaffirm their conversion upon the age of consent. After an adopted male child has been converted, through a brit milah (a circumcision), and immersion in a mikvah, and a female child through immersion in a mikvah, both in the presence of a beit din, it is fitting to have a festive ceremony. Just as simhat bat ceremonies can occur at any time after birth, so, too, can welcoming rituals for adopted children. Because boys must first heal from their brit before they can be immersed in a mikvah, for them, welcoming ceremonies are usually postponed for a few months after they have been adopted.
In the ritual we created for welcoming adopted children, as well as for our simhat bat festivities, we added words for other siblings, and for grandparents, in order to integrate them as active participants, welcoming their new family member.
A major part of the ceremony is the official naming of the baby. Baby boys are named at their brit milah, and girls in shul the first Monday, Thursday, or Shabbat after their birth. Often, having just given birth, many mothers do not attend the shul namings. Therefore, simhat bat ceremonies and those welcoming adopted children are ideal settings to explain the given name.
Adopted children pose special issues regarding their names—specifically, how to call them formally when giving them a Mi shebeirakh, or at their bar or bat mitzvah, or on being called up for an aliyah. Here, too, there are a variety of choices. There are three basic ways of dealing with this matter. If the child has been converted, parents may choose to call them son/ daughter of our ancestors Abraham and Sarah. Another choice is to call them by their adoptive parent/s’ name/s, adding the phrase “raised by… (ploni ben (bat) ploni hamegadlo/lah).” Yet another choice is to call them by their adoptive parent/s’ name/names, as any other child is called.
Most adoptive families today are choosing creative and festive ways of introducing their new addition to their families, as well as to the larger Jewish community, which has been enriched by their inclusion.