Using the mother’s name when sick – Ask the Rabbi
Q. Usually a person’s Hebrew name is given as the son or daughter of their father. Why do we us the mother’s name when praying for a sick person?
A. Obviously both parents are concerned for the well-being of their child. But we use the mother’s name because it is she who normally has the greater emotional bond with the child she carried within her, brought into the world and tended and cared for with such love. Her child’s pain is her pain.
An interesting Biblical precedent is found in Jeremiah 31:15: “Thus says the Lord, ‘A voice is heard on high (literally, in Ramah), lamentation and bitter weeping – Rachel weeping for her children’.”
