Baruch

As Jeff posted earlier, tomorrow is Jonah's bris and baby naming. At the bris Jonah will be blessed by a Rabbi and will be given his formal Hebrew name. We have chosen the Hebrew name Baruch--which means blessed. We thought this was a perfect choice given that he was born in the caul. Apparently being born in the caul is quite rare. We have read many different estimates, but it seems to be somewhere between 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 80,000 babies that are born this way. More interesting are some of the legends around the caul. Here are a few things we found on Wikipedia:

In medieval times the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck. It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an heirloom. Some Early Modern European traditions linked being born with the caul to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.

Over the course of European history, a popular legend developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would give its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by sailors. Medieval women often sold these cauls to sailors for large sums of money; a caul was regarded as a valuable talisman.

So Baruch--or Blessed--seems like an appropriate Hebrew name. It also makes the name Jonah a bit more interesting as well.

Here are a few new pictures of our little one.