Thank you to everyone for joining us today to celebrate our daughter’s birth and naming.

      The Torah portions these past Shabbats and the ones that follow in the next weeks and months deal with the legacy Moshe strives to leave the Jewish people, knowing that they will pass into Canaan but he will not be leading them, and his efforts to ensure that they understand and follow the law he has set down. In other words, they deal with Moshe’s mortality, and the legacy that he leaves the Israelites and all of us in the form of the Torah. It is a process of loving but stern inculcation of Jewish law; it is both an exhortation and a farewell. At the end of the Torah, quite strikingly, Moshe is buried in an unknown grave, but his legacy lives on in the form of his remembered actions and his teachings, as the Israelites and we are left to muddle through to fulfill our covenant with God and be worthy of His promises to us.

      At a celebration of a baby’s birth and naming, it may seem incongruous to reflect on mortality and stern teachings. But Judaism is full of incongruous occasions of joy and remembered suffering, no more striking than when the chatan or groom breaks the glass on his wedding day, in remembrance of griefs past, and everyone shouts mazaltov. For me, that is the moment it became clear – it became necessary – that I would be leading a Jewishly committed life. Zahava insisted from the beginning that that was part of the bargain, and it is a bargain I’m eternally happy I struck. That is also the moment when Zahava and I began together to embrace the legacies of our ancestors in order to create a legacy for our children-to-be.

      At this celebration of our beautiful little girl, the first thing I want to say is how thrilled Zahava and I are to be part of this community and this shul. We are so excited to be raising Libby Jane in such an embracing and enriching Jewish environment, alongside so many children her age, a place where her daddy feels inspired to go to shul early and participate fully. Zahava and I had been planning and hoping to move to Silver Spring/Shepherd Park for some time, and literally the week we found out we were pregnant we looked into apartments up here. This was always the promised land for us, and I’m sure it will flow with milk and honey for our daughter in the years to come.

      There are many people I can speak about to set a context for Libby Jane or Liba Shifra’s birth and naming, so many wonderful aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and friends. But there are 4 people in particular, two of whom her middle English name honors, and two who are here today celebrating with us, whom I wish to speak about in particular.

      Shortly after Zahava and I were married, we learned how deeply intertwined our marriage would be with responsibility to our respective families, when each of our fathers experienced life-threatening emergencies without any warning, and each time one of us had to rush far away to a hospital and the other had to sit anxiously by the phone. In the days and weeks that followed, we each had to provide emotional and spiritual support in ways we never had before. These experiences would certainly be trying times for any newly married couples, and they were trying for us. Yet they forced us to realize, perhaps even more fittingly than our marriage ceremony, that marriage is about more than us, our comfort, our time, our vacations, our career objectives; it is about supporting each other, supporting our fathers, supporting our families, and accepting support from our community and from God through prayer. I want to say how absolutely grateful I am that little Libby Jane has both her Saba, my father-in-law Rabbi Marvin Goldman, and her grandpa, my dad Arnold Hurwitz here today in excellent health celebrating with us today. I look forward to seeing her Saba sit down with her and help her understand a passage of Torah that she is trying to make sense of for school, and her grandpa take her into his garden and teach her the names and attributes of every kind of tree he has planted. May you both live to 120, and may you both retire sooner rather than later!

      The next two people I want to tell you about are the two women Libby Jane’s middle named honors, my grandmother Jean Hurwitz, and my greatgrandmother Jenny Katcoff.

      My grandma Jean, my father’s mother, was a very sweet woman who was always delighted so see my brother and me when we would visit her and my Grandpa Hy on Sunday afternoons. She was born Genendel in Poland and came to America as a young girl. She had a tremendous heart, and she always valued shalom habayit, peace in the household. The thing I looked forward to most during these visits was hearing Grandma Jean play the piano for everyone. She played with such joy and talent that even her little dog would stand at attention and listen. I know that Libby Jane will have some part of my grandmother’s musical talent and kind spirit.

      I did not know my greatgrandmother Jenny Katcoff, although I was lucky enough to be very close to her husband, my greatgrandfather Nathan Katcoff, who lived to 101. From all accounts, Jenny, who was born Shana in the Ukraine and came to America as a teenager, was a woman of valor in every respect, who was cherished by all her relatives. During the Great Depression, when my great-grandfather was traveling around the midwest as a salesman to make ends meet, Jenny made sure that her children had the very best Jewish and secular educations that Chicago had to offer, and she was always eager to hear about the educational accomplishments of her grandchildren. I know that Libby Jane will honor this tradition, and she may even earn more degrees than her parents.

      Finally, the fifth person I want to tell you about is my wonderful wife Zahava. All I need to say about Zahava is that, when I found out we were going to have a daughter – and yes, we knew it was a girl -- all I wished for was that my little girl would grow up to be like my wife, the most wonderful companion and person I’ve ever known. Thank you Zahava for all you’ve done for me, for our families, and for our family. Thank you for letting me hear not only the wonderfully sweet and sad sound of glass breaking at our wedding, but the wonderfully sweet and sad sound of our daughter’s cry.