By Tzemach Feller – COLlive Magazine
Rabbi Mendel Groner, one of the Rebbe’s Shluchim to Eretz Yisroel who teaches in the Chabad Yeshiva in Kiryat Gat, was in a quandary. His eldest daughter had met a wonderful young man named Menachem Mendel, a name he shared.
The issue was that Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid famously instructed that one should not marry a woman whose father shares the same name as himself. If they wished to marry, one of them needed to change their name.
Rabbi Groner turned to Rabbi Yitzchok Yehuda Yaroslavsky, Rav of Chabad in the neighboring Kiryat Malachi.
“He told us to add a name,” said Rabbi Groner, a change that would be done by either himself or his prospective son-in-law.
Rabbi Groner decided he would change his own name, so that “I’ll be able to take more sons-in-law who are named Menachem Mendel.”
At first, he wanted to take the added name “Tzemach” which has the same gematria as “Menachem,” but he could not, because that was the name of his grandfather, who had passed away, but who was alive during his lifetime.
He decided on the name “Yisroel”, and when the pair decided to get engaged, Rabbi Groner was called up for an aliyah with the new name, Yisroel Menachem Mendel ben Yehuda Leib (his father, the Rebbe’s Mazkir, Rabbi Leibel Groner OBM).
A “Mi Shebeirach” was made for him with the new name following the aliyah as well. “Since then, I am Yisroel Menachem Mendel,” he said.
The fact that Lubavitch men under the age of 30 are named Menachem Mendel is known and obvious. But how are there generations of Menachem Mendels in Lubavitch?
“Both Names”
When my grandparents Mrs. Mindel Feller, of blessed memory, and Rabbi Moshe Feller, had their first son in 1969, they had a conundrum. As chassidim, they wanted to name their son Yosef Yitzchak after the Rebbe Rayatz, but Rabbi Feller’s father was named Yosef Aryeh, so they couldn’t give the whole name.
Rabbi Feller called up the Rebbe’s secretariat and presented his query.
Unbeknownst to him, the Rebbe was on the line. Suddenly, the Rebbe’s voice came through on the call: “Zol zei geb’n di nom’n noch’n Tzemach Tzedek, vet er hob’n beide nemen.” — “Let them name him after the Tzemach Tzedek, and he will have both names.”
Both names: Menachem and Mendel. But also both the names: of the Tzemach Tzedek and of our Rebbe.
Indeed, on at least two separate occasions, the Rebbe announced at a farbrengen that those who need a bracha for children who will grow up to be chassidim should name them after the Rebbe Rayatz, and that if they can’t give that name, they should give the name Menachem Mendel, like the Tzemach Tzedek.
A Channel for Blessings
On 12 Shevat, 5714, the Rebbe said that we are now in need of miracles, and that with the strength (ko’ach) of being the Rebbe, “I am hereby announcing and saying: all those who are in need of a blessing for sons will be blessed this year with sons, and they will be chassidishe sons.…
“They should be given the name of the [Frierdiker] Rebbe. Those who can’t give this name because their parents have this name (as the minhag of Ashkenazim is not to give the name of the parents during their lifetime) — should give the name ‘Menachem Mendel,’ the name of the Tzemach Tzedek.”
Rabbi Groner was born—and named Menachem Mendel—following this sicha.
While some other fathers have resisted changing their name, insisting that their son-in-law does so, he is happy with his decision. “Since then, I have taken another two sons-in-law named Menachem Mendel,” he says.
Knowing how much the Rebbe cherished and valued this tribute, tens of thousands of chassidim have named their children Menachem Mendel in the thirty years since Gimmel Tammuz.
As these Menachem Mendels carry the Rebbe’s name, they certainly merit to give the Rebbe much satisfaction.
As the Rebbe told Rabbi Menachem Mendel Bruk, who named his son Levi Yitzchok, after the Rebbe’s saintly father, “Just as you have caused me great pleasure, so may Hashem cause you great pleasure, and may you have nachas from your family both physically and spiritually, and may you always report good news.”
The full article is published in the Tammuz 5784 edition of the COLlive Magazine
I beleive that the rebbes wording more than once was to give the name “of” the tzemach tzedek, not name “after” the tzemach tzedek.
Some interpreted that to mean that the rebbe was ok (not like the ashkenazim) that children be named with the Rebbe’s holy name
Not very high up on the list of actual issues people face on the daily.
This was our issue
Solvable=nonissue
Satmar had a similar problem years ago when everyone was naming their sons Yoel. I don’t recall what their outcome was
I believe they told the parents they had to add a name to every child if they named him Yoel. But i could be wrong.
Does anyone know why the rebbe said to name after the tzemach tzedeck and not Rashab
people wanted to name after the rebbe and the tzemach tzedek had the same name
My brother is a broche after the sicha and was named Yeisef Yitzchok. However, my mother was not sure that her father, Yitzchok Elchonon Shagalov was not alive somewhere in Russia, anywhere. He had been taken to jail years before, for doing the Rebbe’s Holy shlichus, and there was no news.
my parents recieved a mazel tov telegram from The Rebbe, as was costomary then. The Rebbe added that the name given to a newborn by his parents is known to be thru ruach haKodesh