Hatach is a Persian loan word probably meaning "verily." As in, "Verily verily I say to you, this cat is bonkers." Read on for 5 things you didn't know about him (unless you've already been to our house).

1. He was a rescue.

We had just moved into an apartment where we could have pets. Super exciting, but we were in no hurry to get one until we were settled in and the paint was dry. But lo and behold, my sister and mother find this cat on the side of the road, abandoned in an old cemetery with a dish of food and a t-shirt to sleep on. They were driving home late one night and the dumb cat would not get out of the road. (He's very stubborn like that). So they picked him up and brought him to our house where he stayed in the garage for a couple nights, until I asked if we could bring him inside for a few minutes. Oops. I was hooked.

2. He's completely white. 

He is actually very rare and looks like a purebred Turkish Angora. I think something like 5% of the cat population is completely white. [I want to know what crazy cat lady scientist has spent the time coming up with these statistics.]

3. He has different color eyes. 

One is gold and one blue. This is also very rare. It's one of my favorite things about him. 

4. He's deaf as a doorknob. 

This is actually very common with all white cats that have two different colored eyes. Who knew? We didn't, until he came back from his first vet appointment. We just thought he was a very deep sleeper! Most people feel sorry for him, but it's actually great having a deaf cat. Well, at least in this case. Most deaf cats are very nervous and aggressive, but he isn't at all. He's very calm, sleeps all the time, and is so great with Hadassah. 

5. His namesake was Hadassah's namesake's messenger. 

Okay, that was hard to follow. Our daughter's name is Hadassah, which was Queen Esther's Hebrew name. If you know the story of Esther, you know that this bad guy is trying to kill all the Jews, but he doesn't realize his queen is Jewish. Esther has to step up, break protocol, and risk her own life in order to save her people. During all of this, she has a servant who relays messages to her uncle Mordechai and acts as her informant in the courts - that servant's name is Hatach (who is also a eunuch... like our cat). When we went to pick out his name, we thought of  Esther's bodyguard from the movie "One Night With the King," Hegai. He has these really cool eyes and we thought it was fitting. But instead of doing our research on what his name was in the movie, we found Hatach in the Bible, but didn't read the context. Bahaha. So we accidentally named our deaf cat after a messenger. Oh, the irony.

Bonus Fact:

I called him Hatachi and didn't know it was the name of a TV manufacturer until we bought one.  

Double Bonus Fact:

"Hatach" was Hadassah's first word. Hebrew guttural sound and all.