Tricking the Angel of Death

Prior to my going into surgery, one of my Jewish colleagues came to me to ask me if I had considered changing my Hebrew name. When I asked what he was referring to, he informed me that when Jews are faced with severe medical issues like I was, there were 3 things that can be done:

1) Pray
2) Give to Charity
3) Change/Augment Your Hebrew Name

So, I’ve been fairly good at numbers 1 & 2 (although I continue to work on those), but I had never heard about the name change/augmentation. Apparently, this tradition is based in the belief that if you change your name, then the angel of death or the spirits who have determined your bad fate will be confused and will not bring this bad fate to the person who is ill. So I’ve decided to trick the spirits and add to my Hebrew Name.

I have spoken with our Rabbi at Temple Beth Abraham and we have arranged for me to be called to the Torah under my new Hebrew name this Thursday, December 24th. The Rabbi has asked me to be at our synagogue no later than 8:30 am, since the Torah service lasts from 8-9 am. I want to invite anyone who wants to come to do so and bear witness to my new name. The synagogue is located at 327 Macarthur Blvd in Oakland. You should arrive between 8 :15 and 8:30 am.

If you were wondering, my new Hebrew name will be Chava Raphaela Rivka. The "Raphaela" is the name that I’m adding. Its derivative is the word rafuah which means healing. Raphael is the Angel of Healing and my new name basically means “God heals.” I think that’s exactly the message that I want to send to the universe – since I am planning to heal - quickly.

As a quick update on me, Stanford released me yesterday to go home and so I now am being taken care of by some amazing 6 year old nurses (plus my mom and husband – but they really can’t compare to the love being showered upon me by the girls). Ellie created a call system for me so that I don’t have to yell – it’s composed of a frying pan and a large kitchen spoon. When I tested it out this morning I heard both girls bounding up the stairs yelling “Ellie and Ari to the rescue!”

On January 12th, I will be meeting with Dr. Fisher to go over his recommendation for my chemo protocol. I spoke with him on Friday and it doesn’t sound like Round 2 will be as tough as Round 1. However, I told him, let’s do whatever we need to do to ensure that I won’t be seeing a Round 3.

I want to thank Wendy Spander, Jill Lindenbaum and Stacia Levenfeld for working on getting a food program up and running and for keeping you all abreast on my progress. I understand there were a few technical difficulties with the food plan. Wendy told me that the best way to navigate the system is for you to send her an e-mail at wspander@yahoo.com and then she’ll go ahead and “invite” you for the mealbaby program which will give you access to the site.

Thank you all for your beautiful notes, e-mail messages and phone calls. I am so blessed to have such an amazing support system. I will write more soon about the last few days, but I wanted to send a quick e-mail out right away to let you know about Thursday’s ceremony. I hope to see you there.