Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz

Okay, question number nine.

When dedicating a shiur or giving tzedakah as an ilu nishmas, is there added spiritual value in explicitly stating that

or writing the nifter's name, or is the act of tzedakah learning alone sufficient?

If stating the name helps, does it matter whether one uses a person's Hebrew name, Yitzhak Ben Avram, versus their English name, e.g.

Isaac Goldberg?

So the names are...

Look, you know, you do a mitzvah for the sake of an aliyas neshama, it definitely counts as something, whether you say the name or don't say the name, you know, HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows, and if that person, you know, who's nifter, motivated you to be better, to do more, to support Torah, so then the schar of that, of that mitzvah, certainly helps out that neshama.

Why is it that we're so focused on the names?

So the Balatani in the Kutei Amarim in Sharia Yichud V'Amunah writes that the Hebrew name of everything in the Bria defines that object and represents its Makara Chaim.

And the same is true for people.

Chaim Velazquez likewise writes in Ruach Chaim on Pirkei Avos,

in the very first Mishnah, that a name represents the nefesh, and that connects a person to his roots up in Shemayim.

So in Mavri Yablok, he also talks about how significant names are, and he says that the essence of life and death depends on a person's name, and that's why.

So we do believe that the names on some Kabbalistic level, whatever it means, are very, very much connected to something very, very lofty.

So obviously, yes, Hashem knows who you're talking about, but using the actual name is probably a fulfillment of Zecher Tzadik Levracha, and it must have some critical spiritual impact, and therefore it's appropriate.

to use the Hebrew name when it's at all possible to do so, because clearly it means something to use a Hebrew name.

I just realized when I started this year, I said this, We should use his Hebrew name.

Okay, question number 10.

Final question.

You mentioned that winter is a particularly good time to strengthen one's observance of Malav HaMalka.