METICULOUS AVOIDANCE OF NEGATIVE TALK

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is well

Wishing a refuah shleimah to Yechezkiel ben Ester.

Mazal Tov to Shira Nechama on her birthday next week. Wishing you a happy year Shirah, and you should continue to give much nachas to your parents!

Mazal Tov to Freida on the growth of her 'Mommy and Me' Group in Longbeach. Attached see the article which appeared in The Chronicle Magazine this month highlighting this Project - well done Freida! https://issuu.com/jewishlongbeachajcc/docs/chronicle_november_december_2025/ s/131194738

Another interesting piece of work that came up this last week was an extensive Family Tree of the Stein Family made by Kevin Ossey (Different from the Family Tree created by Kevin Marks - funny how the Kevins have both created Family Trees!) - See attached

Kevin Ossey is married to Isanne Heiman, part of the Stein Family, and they are currently living in the US.

I have copied Kevin into this email, with many thanks for this amazing work, and lots of love!

It is interesting that we have received this Family Tree in the week of Parshas Toldos, Toldos meaning 'Generations' ie 'These are the generations of Yitzchak..' BH

In connection with this Parshah, I heard an interesting Dvar Torah from Rabbi Yehoshua Gordon on the verse mentioning that Yizchak was aging and his eyesight was failing (27:1)

One of the reasons given for this by Rashi, was that Yitzchak had to be blind so that Yaakov could receive Yitzchak's blessings instead of Esav.

The Rebbe asks a very interesting question about this - If Hashem wanted Yaakov to get the blessings instead of Esav, could he not just have clarified to Yitzchak that his son Esav was evil and that Yaakov was righteous?! Did he have to make Yitzchak blind to achieve this?

And the answer is that it was more important not to make a negative statement about Esov , than the blindness of Yitzchok

Esov was an evil person, and Yitzchak was a Tzadik. Nevertheless, Hashem still balanced not to make a negative statement about Esov, at the expense of making Yitzchak blind!

How much more so must we be meticulously careful not to speak NEGATIVE TALK about anyone (and not even about ourselves)

Gut Shabbos and Gut Chodesh to all.