what's my hebrew name?

by Rabbi Meyer Laniado

I was in YU at the time and was participating in the YUSSR program (Yeshiva and University Students for the Spiritual Revival of Soviet Jewry) to run community seders and Pesah programming in Belarus and Germany. I was sent with a group to Leipzig, Germany.

When we arrived at the city, the rabbi brought us to the Torah Zentrum known in English as the Torah Center. This is where we would run our three-day seminar and seders. As we passed the iron gates and the small garden, the rabbi stopped and pointed at a concrete valley with a stream flowing through it. He said on November 9, 1938, the night of Kristallnacht, the Jews of the town were gathered at this point to be taken to the camps.

The place where we were going to introduce Judaism to Jews with little exposure was on the exact spot where the community was destroyed 69 years prior.

What a response to Hitler. Right in front of where he sought to destroy Judaism we were working to rebuild it.

There is one participant that comes to mind.

I clearly remember her pink dyed hair. She must have been around 16 years old and barely said a word, besides for “cool.”

Our Seders were quite interactive and involved and continued through the night. We were finishing up around 2:00 am with hagadya, and she pulled me aside and asked if I could come up with a Hebrew name for her.

Just as the Jews in Egypt sought to remain connected to their past by maintaining their Hebrew names, she sought to reconnect, to engage, and be a part of our story, our history and our future redemption.

We need to realize the importance of this night and how impactful it can be.

But even more powerful is our response to Pharaoh and Hitler, and our message to all those who align with them:

Our children still ask us – “What’s my Hebrew name?”