In memory of my mother

HH

 

In memory of our dear mother: Chava Bracha - Elaine - bas - Shprintza

Ema passed away on the 4th of Eyar 5782, the day we made the Bracha on the 19th = Chava, of the Oamehr. There is more significance to this date, but it is beyond the scope of this paper.

 

On this day the daf yomi was studying page 58 of Tractate Yevumos - נח - Nach in Aramaic means to pass away. In the ensuing pages correlating to the days we sat shiva in mourning, the Talmud discusses the role of a woman to be an Aizehr Kinegdo and to bring children into the world, things Ema exemplified and were now standing up for her merit. Yevumos - יבמות is letters: י - בת - מ, the י equals the initials of Chava Bracha - ח”ב = י, daughter of בת, Moshe Menachem Mendel - מ. The extra letter ו - shows the other relationship, to her husband, Moshe.

There is a great deal more of depth to this, but it is beyond the scope of this paper. 

 

[It’s amazing that the infamous ruling of roe vs wade which made abortion a constitutional right, was passed on January 22, 1973, around the time I was conceived, because I was born 9 months later, in early October. And now, 2 months after Ema’s passing, the ruling was overturned BH]

Good Midos and practices of Ema

 

This is a brief list just to get started

1. Never waste time. Ema bragged to Aba and me (Simcha) how all her colleagues had a fancy breakfast every morning and socialized, and she never partook. She always kept extremely busy, except for some brief breaks. Which brings on point 34 - no laziness.
2. She strengthened herself with pesukim of Bituchon to overcome anxiety.
3. She asked mechila from her siblings, even though it was them that wrote her out etc.. And at least to their remarkable credit they forgave her completely.
4. All the lessons, tutorage, and special skills she gave us, swimming lessons, piano lessons, calligraphy lessons, - one summer I got computer lessons when it was just basic on a ‘64. 
5. Cleanliness and orderliness, even when she was a guest somewhere she inadvertently would be cleaning, even scrubbing for them. For a few years we had classy white tiles in the kitchen, they were grooved with each tile facing the alternate direction, with a house full of kids, this had her scrubbing them endlessly on her hands and knees. Constant laundry for everyone to have fresh clothing every single day, folding, and ironing. In the years before there was the strong bleaches and oxygen products we have nowadays, she would be scrubbing socks rigorously. 
6. Volunteer for Chevra Kadisha, dropping everything to organize the tahara teams - for tens of years. (Perhaps that had something to do with her meriting burial in Har Hazaism - Matisyahu)
7. Baking fancy deserts for other peoples occasions.
8. Iggeress Haramban - daily (?)
9. When Abba wasn’t home for Shabbos meal, she would sing all the zmiros.
10. At birthday parties she sometimes wanted everyone to say something good about the person.
11. Tznius - highest standard that the clothing should not be see through at all, and should cover all.
12. Third person faxes she used to write to grandaddy weekly or even more often.
13. One time when I was much younger maybe a teenager, she said she was fasting for me - to improve my behavior.
14. She got herself tutors to teach her how to use the computer, even though she was older and it was not something she was familiar with at all, she refused to be old like that.
15. Tehlilm list of sick people she prayed for daily.
16. Old people she spoke to often especially by telephone just be their friend, encouragement, and a reason for them  to want to keep going. She also had Aba visiting an old man every Friday, and from what I am now told (M.) Aba would bring him a Chala that Ema baked for him.
17. She exempted me from chores as long as it was because I was learning Torah.
18. Aba never had chores in the house, only to watch the kids and take out the garbage.
19. She insisted no one should eat before the servers. She also tried to promote other table etiquette like no elbows on the table.
20. She personally laminated the Sefarim Abba received upon their betrothal. 
21. When I was a very young and saw a toy sefer Torah - with real chumash just not on parchment by scribe - she gave in and I got it, it was I think $40 a lot of money in those days for a child’s whim. 
22. Shiurim she would review and give over. Also she gave lessons for converts.
23. She kept a calendar with all the birthdays of all her grandchildren and great children KYH to make sure not to miss them.
24. She organized collection of leftover baked goods to be distributed to the needy.
25. When Ema was newlywed, she was home alone with all the food right there with her, and she found herself eating all the time. She strengthened her self discipline until she trained herself to not eat even in such circumstances. Even when there was delicious food right in front of her, with no one around, she wouldn’t eat more than the little amount she would have eaten otherwise. 
26. She brought 12 children into this world….. (aside from the enormous impact this has on the world, fulfilling the purpose of filling the world with people who have daas, as explained in Likutay Moharan vol. 2 Torah 7. This also is the most precious gift one can give to a child, another brother or sister - as Uncle Noach says in his Five Levels of Pleasure. She also followed Uncle Noachs way to always tell the children that HY loves us the most). 
27. Enunciation - how she worked tirelessly to speak with perfect diction (this was from Grandaddy who also wanted me to work on this), she made her flash cards and read and reread them over and over again.
28. She would say thank the Almighty, because she had learned that it is better not to just say G-d.
29. It is brought down in halacha that after one says Birchas Hatorah one should say different pesukim, almost everyone says Birchas Kohanim - יברכך and the Braisa of אלה דברים שאין להם שיעור, but Ema had Aba select a few more pesukim which all the children said daily. ראשית חכמה יראת ה' שכל טוב לכל עושיהם תהלתו עומדת לעד. בשכמל"ו. תורה תהא אומנותי וא"ש בעזרתי. שמע בני מוסר אביך ואל תיטוש תורת אמך. ואתם הדבקים בה' אלקיכם חיים כולכם היום. לישועתך קויתי ה'. 
30. She never used or would allow anyone to use crude expressions or any vulgar or foul language, even a word like “hell” was not to be used unless it was discussing hell itself (a topic which did fascinate her).
31. She often pushed herself to exhaustion preparing for Shabbos, holidays, or whatever was needed. [a few months ago i finally asked her what her trick was when we were kids she would inflate her cheek and challenge us to pop it, which we could not. She said no trick, we simply were not strong enough.]
32. Cleaning the dishes on Shabbos with cold water and no soap, her hands got cut up, eventually she used some type of ointment [cortigen question mark], and miraculously her hands were healed for life, she never had problems with this anymore.
33. When i was approximately 22 and i was feeling horribly weak so i was staying at home, and this was a big stress on her, the first - or one of the first - Shabbos i was home, she forgot to turn on the oven with the chicken for friday night, and Aba said he thinks that was the only time that happened in all the years of their marriage. [For most of our childhood our bikes never broke, the other kids’ bikes were always breaking and the chains detaching etc. not ours, i am not sure when exactly this phenomenon came to an end, but eventually it surely did.] at the table we had a guest, a hilarious guy who had a very severe complicated case of diabetes which compelled him to eat a lot even on yom kippur - which he described in graphic detail, all this food gave him blood sugar which kept his mind very agile and a little hyper. He was wearing a funny tie - maybe designed like a dollar, and he went on different tirades, like about his meals on yom kippur, how he surfed the pubescent web with two super computers simultaneously, and he explained how to promote and pitch something for sale, i think he took a piece of bubble gum and began to extol its many virtues one after another. The first course was fish, followed by chicken soup. Unabashedly, he asked for a full bowl of the actual chicken with the soup, proclaiming that he had heard from his rabbi that this world is like a wedding, grab what you can and eat [eruvin 54a], and then amazingly we found out how right he was - there was no other chicken to be had. A few months later i figured out that chicken was the primary root cause of my weakness.                                                                                                         Item 33 i just wrote on erev lag -33- baomer, a day we always looked forward to and celebrated at home and at the yeshiva with a huge bonfire cooking hotdogs on long twigs, and i remember ema once gave over a shiur from r. Milevsky about gal-aid and lag baomer. Once when i was very young ema took us to an uncle moshe concert at northbrook school on the corner of finch and bathurst - on lag baormer, while we were waiting in line to get in, i was thirsty and ran away, and everyone was looking for me, aba had to pass up on the annual baseball game with his students, i got into a lot of trouble for that. That was like the beginning of my career. shimon ben yochai = 553 gematria - nachman ben simcha = rabbainu nachman mayuman = ani na nach nachma nachman mayuman, with the inclusion. 
34. Ema did not accept any laziness, this often manifested in her expecting us to run up and down flights of steps at any given time to get something or to take care of something somewhere else in the house. She herself was constantly doing this as she attended to all her abundant chores around the house.
35. Every Purim she had a special theme for the Shaloch Manos. People actually anticipated and looked forward to seeing what it would be that year. 
36. Ema decorated the Succah lavishly, with outdoor carpet on the walls. She had Aba provide her with the picture icons of the flags of the Shvatim, and she drew them and laminated them and mounted them on one of the walls. For many years it was probably one of the most decorated Succa’s in the world. 
37. It took her many years and uncomfortable chidings until B”H she came through and instilled in me what now seems so basic and elementary - always clean the toilet. (She did not convince me of the need to clean the sink and bathtub). What a blessing to be one of the people who realize this, and not one of the people who don’t.
38. If you have nothing good to say, don’t say it - was something she insisted, I think this might be a common axiom of many mothers, and they all deserve credit for this.
39. Ema held herself to the standard of not free loading off of others or society. If she borrowed eggs or something from a neighbor, she made sure to repay them in full -  exactly (-not to overpay in violation of giving interest). When A. married into an extremely wealthy family, Ema still insisted on paying for the basic wedding expenses typically incurred by the bride’s family, even though for her it was a huge amount of money, whereas for the family of groom it was miniscule, and they had happily offered to pay it. For a bunch of years when the girls were in school they made custom barrettes for extra cash. 
40. A few years before her passing, she got a pacemaker. No one knew anything about this, no one knew a thing. She didn’t want to draw attention like that. It was a big surprise to all of us when we found out in the end.
41. No politics were ever brought up in the house, and it was a foreign concept to us. Once when I was much older, Ema was very excited about some sort of program a certain fringe synagogue was offering, it might have been a special preschool, and she couldn’t understand how everyone in the city wasn’t into it, and Aba had to explain to her that many were very wary of that community, and it was a little hard for her to grasp/accept.
42. Until my late teens or maybe even twenties I had no idea that there was such a thing as problems of shalom bayis in people’s homes.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MayUman