My Neighbors’ Double Simcha
Last Shabbat my neighbor Shlomit Hazan gave birth to her 3rd and 4th children, boy and girl twins.
And this morning was the bris/kiddush for off-the-charts adorable Yinon Avraham and his sister Esther.
Esther was named, in accordance with the Sephardic tradition to honor living relatives, after Shlomit’s mother-in-law. Savta Esther and her family have been homeless since October 7th when they were evacuated from their home in Kiryat Shmonah. And it will probably be many months before they can return home again.
I told my incredibly wonderful neighbor Shlomit and her husband Avinadav that their double family simcha is exactly the kind of major simcha Am Yisrael NEEDS so desperately right now.
A blessed break from these weeks and months of funerals and shiva calls. And B”H finally some good news for Yinon Avraham and Esther’s homeless grandparents.
I wept when the mohel read the blessing after reading the baby’s name:
“May this father rejoice in his offspring, and this mother be glad with the fruit of her womb, as it is written: May your father and mother rejoice, and she who bore you be glad.
“As it is said: I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, and I said to you: You shall live through your blood; and I said to you: You shall live through your blood…”
The blood of our soldiers.
The blood of birth.
May life overpower death. Despair overpower hope.
May these babies be a comfort to their parents and grandparents and all of Am Yisrael at these difficult times. Amen!
I think you mean to say “hope overpower despair”
Amen!
Amen to your brochos. May the grandparents and parents live to see much true nachas from them!