When people praise my children to me ( I don’t handle nachas well) I tell them it is zchus avos. Indeed, when one considers the privations and tzoros that earlier generations endured, do they not deserve some descendants with some ta’am v’reiach? And about the concept of gaps in the lineage, there is a medrash that explains the “legacy of mesiras nefesh for a mitzva.” The example given is Yisro, and Yael, several generations apart, and not necessarily a blood relative.
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