Half of a King
When Rebbe Elimelech told his niece to name her newborn after him, her worry and her careful compromise shaped both the child's name and a sorrowful remark about his rank.
It is told that the mother of the future Bnei Yissaschar had lost children before him. In her grief she went to her uncle, Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, and asked for his blessing for a child who would live. The Rebbe promised her a son, and asked that the boy carry his own name, Elimelech.
She was afraid. Ashkenazi families do not name a child after a living person, and she may even have feared that the Rebbe's request hinted that his own end was near. Not wanting to refuse him, she found a middle path and added a second name, Tzvi, a word that also means a deer. The baby was called Tzvi Elimelech.
When the child was brought to Lizhensk for a blessing, the Rebbe was not pleased with how things had been arranged. He said that if the boy had carried his name fully, he would have been like him in every way, but now his greatness would be only half as much. The remark is also retold as a Yiddish play on words: a Hirsch is not a melech, for a deer is not the king of the beasts.
Whatever the exact words, the Rebbe's words did not weigh the child down. He grew into the Bnei Yissaschar, whose teachings are learned all over the world, and chassidim have long noted that half of a king can still be a very great man.
Source: Sefer Dynow (the Dynow memorial book, English on JewishGen); the 'half' remark also appears in Ma'asei Hashem, vol. II.
Most of us can think of a time we were handed a role, a name or an expectation that felt like less than we hoped for. Today, take one thing you have been treating as second-best, whether it is your job, your place at the table or your part in a project, and look for what is fully yours in it. Do that task with the care you would give to a larger one. Then say a quiet thank-you to Hashem for the portion He gave you. Greatness often grows in a part that looks small.