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A tradition that follows a similar situation was called Marko Merkada. Whenever a child recovered from a very serious illness, he was symbolically sold to another family. In this way, the child became ‘sold’ or ‘merkada.’ It was thought that this symbolic process would change the child’s destiny. Yet another tradition was name altering (called ‘mesallayim’ in old Hebrew). According to this tradition, if a person survived an epidemic disease that would normally result in death, that person’s name was changed in the hopes that his destiny also would. The person was usually given a new name from the Torah.
Interview
Albert Arditi