Reply To: 40 challah bakers

This is something I wrote yesterday after his Levaya. I hope other people can gain from it, and have it be an aliyah for his neshama..

My Uncle, Pesach ben Leibig Zalman, (may his neshama have an aliyah) was a Tzadik. I want to share one thing that he taught his children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He taught that a family is a chain, connecting one link to another- a strong chain. But sometimes, one link is broken or weak and it needs the other links to give it strength. Sometimes one person in a family, a sister, brother, mother- is broken and needs the other links, their family, to help them get their strength again. This is what he taught, and this is what he lived every single day of his life. My mother added something to this today. When you walk into a shiva home, (Hashem should have rachmanus on us and bring the geula soon so that we never have to again) who do you see on the floor? The chain… the individual links of the family holding on to one another, forming that strong chain. When one person breaks, the other link gives him strength and comfort.

This is how it is for all of Klal Yisrael. We are all links making up one strong unbreakable chain. Why is that chain unbreakable? Because if one chain weakens, another will help build it up again. The chain can never be destroyed, because we work together giving strength in times of need. We share a little piece of ourselves, we give a little piece of our strength to another yid, that yid passes the new acquired strength to another, and it goes on and on. I relate this idea to a havdalah candle. A havdala candle has many wicks, that form into one. You can never loose that flame because if one wick goes out, it can be lit by another. A flame is like a neshama. A neshama can never die out. A neshama is always burning. When a neshama is weak, another will re ignite the flame, to help it burn bright and strong. That flame ignites another and another, and the “chain” goes on and on. Even when that flame, that neshama, is no longer clothed in a guf, a body, it is still burning, still giving strength, and will never die out. Take advantage of being a part of Klal Yisrael, and be that piece of wick, that one link, that will keep us strong and burning together. *This lesson is in the zechus of my Uncle, Pesach ben Leibig Zalman, may his neshama should rise straight to the kisei hakavod, and all of us should be reunited with our loved ones who returned their neshamos to the Ribono Shel Olam, dancing our way to the Beis Hamikdash, together, united with the greatest simcha, b’mehaira b’yameinu amen.