BREINA

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well and looking after themselves

BH lots of birthdays this coming week:

Mazal Tov Pesach on your birthday next week. Wishing you continued success in all areas of your life!

Mazal Tov Dovi (Pesach Dovid) on your birthday on Shabbos. You should continue growing into a Chassidishe all rounder with many talents and much potential.!

Mazal Tov to Yeshayah (Pesach Yeshayah) on his birthday next week. This is the special 3rd birthday, and your opsherin will be on Lag Baomer BEH. Looking forward to seeing you with your new kappel and tzitzis!

Mazal Tov to Shneur Zalman on his second birthday next week. Have a happy year and continue to give everyone much nachas!

And last but not least Mazal Tov to Adam on you birthday at the end of next week. Hope all is well Adam. Have a wonderful year!

Anyone notice anything about these birthdays?

So many Pesachs! And ALL THE BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ARE DESCENDANTS OF BREINA.

This past week Renee sent me the beautiful Family picture (see attached - IMG 2784) with some history, and I thought this would be interesting to share with the Family

I would also like to connect this to the Tanya that we have been learning for the past week.

Tanya has been discussing LOVE and Fear of G-d, and one of the aspects discussed was, that when one focuses one's mind intensely (Daas) on the greatness of G-d, this gives rise to both the feelings of Fear and Love within a person.

And then it says in Hayom Yom (78-12) from the Mezritcher Maggid 'HE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW JEW, LOVES G-D (because every Jew has a part of G-d in his inner Essence.

And so I saw in Breina and her Family, Love of one's Fellow, and in Tanya, Love of G-d

I don't know exact details, but the picture was taken probably a year or 2 before 1918.

In the picture is my (and Chanan and Reuven and Renee and Brian's) great grandfather ah.

Breina ah, is his daughter in law with her hand lovingly on her father- in- laws shoulder.

Her husband is missing from the picture as he may have died at this point together with another child called Reuven ah. This could have been from the Spanish flu pandemic?

Uncle Morris ah, the oldest of the brothers (our uncles) is also not in the picture, and I don't know the reason for this, but he was alive at this stage.

The children in the picture are Uncle Dave ah, the tallest (Renee and Brian's father), below him was uncle Meyer (Maker - because he was good with his hands) ah, and the youngest on the left is my father ah, after whom all the Pesachs were named.

It sounds like the next thing that happened was that uncle Morris and uncle Dave emigrated to Jhb SA.

And it sounds to me that BREINA WANTED TO STAY IN LITHUANIA TO LOOK AFTER HER FATHER IN LAW. She did not want to leave him alone.

Only when he also died from the Spanish flu in 1918, did she leave for SA with uncle Meyer and my father to join with Uncle Morris and Uncle Dave who were already there.

And there in SA you have a single mother with 4 boys to look after, in a totally foreign land, not knowing the language, and having to try and survive.

And the motto of this family was to love each other. These 4 brothers never fought with each other. And this is not an exaggeration. They built a large shoe factory together and shared everything between them, becoming wealthy BH

In Renee's words 'She (Breina)was an amazing woman. Strong and brave. She lived with us and I adored her. She died July 1949.'

And I was left with a feeling of loss that I never met her, because I was born in 1950!

Thank you for this story Renee!

So that is Love of one's Fellow Jew

And as an exercise to reflect on the greatness and Love of Hashem I am attaching a translation of Psalm 104

Gut Shabbos to all.