Last Shabbos, the Block family, Chavie and her eight siblings along with their families, joined together for a family reunion in Lohn, Texas to celebrate Rabbi and Mrs. Block’s 40th wedding anniversary (with a slight two-year delay). It was a marvelous weekend and afterwards we took the kids to Palm Springs, California for four days of family time in the desert. While Chavie checked out the local Trader Joes, I took the kids next door to a fun zone where Zeesy and Menny drove the go-karts, and I did the bumper boats with Chana Laya.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, the last in the book of Genesis, we read about Jacob’s final words, last conversations, with his sons, the tribes of Israel, before his passing. Interestingly, it wasn’t all fluffy and sensitive, for some of them it was tough love, or at a minimum, a frank conversation about the realities of their attributes, the things that they needed to work on for their self-betterment. I can’t imagine that it was easy for Jacob to be so truthful and authentic, especially on his deathbed, but Jacob’s attribute was Emes, truth, and he valued the balance of being a loving parent while ensuring that his children don’t forget how he raised them and what’s expected of them. Kids are kids and aren’t perfect, they aren’t even meant to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we should withhold our values from them, especially when we see them stray.

Chana Laya wanted to get drenched on the bumper boats, so we did. We went right under the waterfall, something that I probably wouldn’t even do as a child. Parents should be fun, crazy, childish and even corny; we gotta put up with our kids’ shenanigans because they are kids and shouldn’t be “adulted”, but simultaneously we must be firm, an unbreakable rock, for the Jewish values, the home values, the couple values, the holy values that we carry. We owe it to them, we owe it to those who came before us and we owe it to Jacob, who lived with truth, died with truth and embedded truth in our DNA, so that we don’t sell ourselves short for convenience, but live with Emes, the Modus Operandi of Klal Yisroel.

Get drenched but hold on tight to that wheel!

May G-d guard our brethren in Israel and the world over from harm and send us Mashiach speedily. May G-d protect the armed forces of Israel and the United States wherever they may be!

We wrapped up Chanukah with an inspiring Menorah lighting in downtown Bozeman with 200+ in attendance along with Senator Tim Sheehy and his family, MSU President Brock Tessman and his family and Bozeman Police Chief Jim Veltkamp. The mood was one of resilience, warmth and Jewish pride. On Sunday-Monday we also ran our 36-hour annual year-end fundraiser (if you haven’t had a chance to donate, you still can, click here) with over 300 individual donors including from Ilene and Heshy, two unrelated Jews who always donate in gratitude to my mother of blessed memory. Ilene used to work in Bloomingdales and befriended my mom back in the late 90’s when she’d shop there. Heshy is a five-star event planner foodie and when he was very young, he met my mother and enjoyed her awesome chocolate chip cookies with a taste of her heart of gold.

They always memorialize her, and it means so much to me.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, we read about Joseph reuniting with his brothers and with his father Jacob. It’s a very emotional tale that spans multiple Torah portions, but when studying the Midrash, it becomes clear that Joseph’s bond with his mother, despite her passing when he was just a kid, was solid. He yearned for her; she remained vivid in his mind and even more so in his heart. The Sefer HaYashar teaches that when Joseph was being led to Egypt after being sold by his brothers, he passed Bethlehem where his mother Rachel was buried and “he ran to the grave, and he ‎fell upon it and wept. And Joseph cried out loudly upon his mother's grave, saying: Oh, my ‎mother, my mother, thou who gavest me birth, awake and arise now to see thy son sold into ‎slavery with no one to have compassion upon him….And Joseph heard a voice speaking unto him ‎from under the ground, answering him in bitterness of heart in a voice of weeping and prayer…”. She comforted him, guided him and encouraged him.

Tonight is my mother’s 15th Yahrtzait. Yesterday, my siblings and I visited her resting place in New York, along with her two NY-based siblings, Kraindy and Shmuly. Standing near her grave, my sister and I were chatting about how close she felt, yet how distant it all seemed. Fifteen years Is a long time; we miss her but perhaps not as much. We think about her but perhaps not as often. We feel her in our heart but with a little less pain. Joseph lived life, built a family, had a good work ethic, and eventually ran a country; he wasn’t numb or stuck. Yet, at his core he was a personification of his mother, and she remained etched in his heart, and, along with Jacob, guided his turbulent life.

I miss you my Yiddishe Mame; keep smiling at me from heaven!

Hope to make you proud and live in sync with your values.

May G-d guard our brethren in Israel and the world over from harm and send us Mashiach speedily. May G-d protect the armed forces of Israel and the United States wherever they may be!

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