Humility is realizing that you have to ask for help and worse, you have to accept it.

Humility is having people ask for your Hebrew name and knowing you should give it.

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In Judaism, while we are alive, our name is a combination of our name and that of one of our parents. When a man is called to the Torah, he is called by his name and that of his father. When he stands before God and asks God to bless those he loves, again, they are blessed in the name of their father. And when a person dies, they are forever remembered by their name followed by their father’s name.

In life, however, our mother’s name is associated with us more than our father’s name. When someone is sick and you say a prayer for their well-being, you use their name and their mother’s name. When we pray for Israel’s missing soldiers, again, we use their names followed by their mother’s name.

There are many reasons for this but I wanted to write about the feeling more than the reason. I have been very blessed to be relatively healthy. I can’t think of a time when I ever asked for prayers or had people ask me for my Hebrew name so they could pray for me. And that in itself is a blessing.

Now, in the days and hours before my operation, many of my friends, even strangers that I meet, are asking me for my name and when the operation will be. It is so strange, so humbling to be on this end of the prayers.

My mother’s Hebrew name is Sarah, though she uses her English name. Apparently, I was not given a Hebrew name at birth. Though my grandfather told me I had one, my parents said that I didn’t and so before I married, I consulted a Rabbi, who told me to choose a name and then, he named me before the congregation. He was called to the Torah and gave me a blessing, which included the name that I would be called. I choose Penina because it was nearest to the name of the woman from whom my English name was chosen. Penina is the name that appears on my Ketubah, my wedding certificate. Penina is the name that would be used to bless my children with health and safety.

So, my Hebrew name is Penina bat Sarah. Penina, the daughter of Sarah.

The operation is tomorrow…using two kinds of anesthesia – general and regional. What the doctors will do is kind of cool…especially if it wasn’t me they were operating on!

What they will do, apparently, is insert pins to “pin” the torn tendon to the bone. I should be better informed, but I’m trusting the doctor. In the next six months, the tendon/bone will reattach itself over the pins in a natural healing process. They can’t do this now because they were torn from each other and the tear is too large to fix itself. (More below.)

My first thought when I heard this was of security. I asked if I would be ringing all the metal detectors every time I walked into buildings. Kind of funny that this was my first concern and I hated the idea of this happening. It’s silly the things we focus on, but somehow the idea of the metal detectors going off each time I walked through them was just more than I was willing to face. No, the doctor explained. The pins are not metal and will disintegrate in about 6 months and therefore won’t even have to be removed.

The upside to this whole thing is they expect a 100% recovery. The downside is that it will likely take months to get there. I’ll probably go radio-silent for 2 weeks…maybe less, knowing me…but then again, not knowing the operation results…it could even be longer. I do know that I’m not supposed to move the arm at all for the fist 2 weeks.

So – I’ll wish you all health and safety and happiness in the weeks to come. I’ll ask you to remember to bless our soldiers and our country and if you spare a kind thought or prayer for Penina bat Sarah, I’ll thank you for that as well.

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Paula R. Stern is CEO of WritePoint Ltd., a leading technical writing company in Israel. Her personal blog, A Soldier's Mother, has been running since 2007. She lives in Maale Adumim with her husband and children, a dog, too many birds, and a desire to write.