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Baby boy is named Yaakov Yosef!

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

This morning was the bris of Yaakov Yosef Lejbovitz. Here is a quick list of the kibudim given and the speech I made at the meal. Pictures and possibly a video to follow. If you’re friends with us on Facebook, you may have already seen it all.

K’vaater – Presworsky
Kisay shel Eliyahu – Rabbi Mordechai Groner
Sandek Bris – Rabbi Zalman Deutscher
Brochos – Rabbi Shmuel Strickman
Amidah L’Brochos – Rabbi Michael Langsner
Krias HaShem – Rabbi Mayer Price
Amidah L’Krias HaShem – Mr. Moshe Scorscher.
Bentching – Moshe Price

My Speech:

It is very appropriate to be having this simcha at this time as we start a new sefer of the Torah. Parshas Vayikrah starts with enumerating the details of the korbanos. Whether you translate korbanos to be a ‘sacrifice’ or a means for a person to be closer to Hashem (loshon kirvah), there is something that a person invests in a korban. It may be emotional, or financial. But something is being given over from the person bringing the korban.

We also have this by bris milah – of which the Minchas Chinuch says that “Why did Hashem give us the mitzvah of bris milah? Its to show that just like a person has to take proper steps to achieve physical perfection, so too a person has take steps to achieve spiritual perfection. How does a person take these steps toward physical perfection? He has to go through the process of giving over a piece of himself – just like by the korbanos.

A proof to this (that milah is similar to korbanos) is found in a posuk that we say during the Krias haShem of the baby – ” V’amar Lach B’Damayich Chayii ” – Hashem tells klal yisroel that they can live by their blood. So why do we use this double loshon of “b’Damayich” Its to include two blood related mitzvos that are similar to each other. One mitzvah is korban Pesach and the other is bris milah. Both mitzvos require ‘blood’ from our part. By korban Pesach – there is the shechitah of the animal. By bris milah – it’s dom bris.
** it’s interesting to note that both are the only two mitzvos asei that if you don’t do them – you’re chayiv kares. The reason by Korban pesach is that yetzias mitzrayim is when we first entered into our relationship with Hashem. And bris milah – if you don’t enter the bris of Avraham Avinu (and the RBS”O , you get cut off. If you don’t enter this unique relationship with HK”BH, then you get cut off from it.

I did not have the opportunity to know my father in law as I came to the Price family years after he had already been niftar. But it’s possible to get an idea of a person’s measure by seeing the impression they make on a community and how many lives have been affected. People who knew my father in law have come over to me (out of the blue) and ask “Do you know who your father in law was?” and they begin to tell me stories of his warmth, his kindness, and involvement with the community. They tell me that he gave of himself to everyone around him.

We know that when naming a child after someone, it’s not just a ‘remembrance (Zeicher)’ of the niftar – but there is an element of the child inclining to a similar set of middos as the namesake.
I heard a little tidbit from Avraham Meir Farkowitz who said it beShem Reb Dovid Bender:
We say “Ze Hakatan, Godol Yihiyeh”. Poshut pshat is that this child will grow from his youth to become older.
We find in Parshas Bereishis when the RBS”O created the sun and the moon, the moon had a complaint that it’s not possible for two kings to reign with one crown. And so the sun was set to rule by day and the moon by night. Now we understand that the moon doesn’t have a light of its own. Its light is merely a reflection of the light coming from the sun. Ze Hakatan, Godol Yihiyeh. So too this child – he does not have a light of his own, but will reflect the light coming to him from his ancestors, grandparents, and parents.
We hope that by our son entering into the briso shel Avraham Avinu, it will be merutzeh like a korbon on the mizbeach and that the light he’ll be reflecting is that of my father-in-law OH, who was a person who gave of himself, sacrificed himself for the community, was warm, kind, and loved everyone. And we hope that the RBS”O will helps us as parents to be mechanech him in this derech.

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