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I have found that many people with yichus have a chip on their shoulder and a superiority complex, i myself have yichus but i see no reason to have hubris because of this, why should i feel superior about the accomplishments of my ancestor? it is nice to have pride in your family tree but that should not make one feel that they are superior. Thoughts?
Also, can someone clue us litvaks in what this yichus thing is, how close the connection needs to be, and what kind of ancestor makes good yichus.
I am probably descended from Rashi, along with an estimated 70% of ashekenazic jewry.
I have found that many people without yichus have a chip on their shoulder and an inferiority complex.
Do you know who MY zeidas were?
Biggest Tzaddikim of the generation:
Avraham Aveinu, Yitzchak Aveinu, Yaakov Aveinu.
The only way someone can be proud of their Yichus, is if they follow in their ancestors holy ways.
yup!
If god put you in such a family he had his reasons.
People have chips on their shoulder for many things. But the reason is irrelevant. A person who has gavah (or conversely low self-esteem) will manifest is through whatever mediums they have available to them. If it is not yichus it is the size of the chup they were able to grow.
The important thing to remember is that we all have our chesronos that we need to work on. These people with superiority complexes that you do not suffer from may be able to learn b’hasmadah for hours on end, or are mekayem kibud av v’em in a way you can’t even dream of.
All that aside, taking pride in ones family on principle is a very nice thing and is certainly a way to be mekayem kibud av. Knowing your parents brought zchusim into your family from helping the entire klal I imagine would be almost as much of a source of pride as watching your five year old helping his little cousin.
You’re right, what else can anyone say?
I have yichus, but don’t know what it is.
Im lo neviim, bnei neviim heim… we are all either prophets or the children of prophets.
Yichus obligates us even more to ask ourselves ??? ???? ???? ????? ?????.
In some cases yichus does make a difference.
However, there are frei people who are descended from great people.
Anyone that is using their yichus for gaava is missing the point. The only reason to tell the kids about yichus is to set a standard. And yes, we are all b’nei avrom yitzchak v’yakov, etc – and that should be enough to set the standard, but it does help to tell a child that a grandson of so and so should aspire to higher criterion..
Torahis1 says:
‘Also, can someone clue us litvaks in what this yichus thing is, how close the connection needs to be, and what kind of ancestor makes good yichus.’
What do you mean?Litvaks have yichus, Chassidim, sefardim etc….what do you mean ‘us litvakcs’??
The Goq,and others…
Do you think people with yichus are more arrogant than people who have accumulated an abundance of wealth?
speaking of yichus…would anyone make a shidduch for the following ppl
There’s Avraham Avinu: He seems to be frum but he’s really a BT and his father made idols. not out type?next
Yitzchak Avinu : Well his grandfather made idols, and there was all that nastiness with Lot and his half brother is an arab.
Yakov Avinu: His great grandfather made idols, his brother went of the derech, his mother comes from a very treyfe family, and he wasn’t shomer negiah with rachel imenu before they were married and he spent a lot of time with his uncle who’s mamash a rasha.
Yosef Hatzadik: His mother had an idol once and she died early, plus he’s a slave and his brother didn’t like him, must be something in that and with all the issues with Avraham Avinu and Yitzchak and Yaakov Avinu?better not to.
Moshe Rabbeinu: Oy, what a Maaseh!!!! His parents separated, then they got back together, his parents abandoned them, put him in a basket, he was raised by goyim?.not our type for sure. He may be close to Hashem but his background is so problematic?We wouldn?t want him in our family.
Dovid HaMelech: Descendants from a geyoret, not our kind of people. Sure a few generations have gone but all things being equal shouldn’t we look for someone with a more jewish backround.
Shlomo HaMelech: See above.. And his mother’s marriage was very dubious, he is rich though but the yichus and family backround is very tricky.
Not only do I have yichus, I am yichus!!!
People should realize that while it’s nice chashuv ancestors, and thus have yichus that you came FROM,
it is infinitely MORE important that YOUR great grandchildren will be able to look back and consider that they have yichus because they came from YOU!
Remember YOU will be judged NOT by the greatness of your grandPARENTS, but by the greatness of your grandCHILDREN.
As the common saying goes… yichus is a bunch of zero’s but you need the one before it to make it mean something.
A person benefits from the zechusim of his ancestors going 9 (?) generations back [and suffers from the aveiros of 3 (?) generations back.]
Re- Dovid Hamelech,
There was actually a joke made by a shadchan who wanted to red a shidduch from a simple family to well known people who stemmed from a famous , illustrious Rav of the 19th century .That rav had a yichus briev which traced back to Dovid Hamelech.
When the shadchan suggested the idea, the matriarch of the famous family snubbed it by saying that they would never take such commoners when their famous ancestor can trace back to King David.
The shadchan replied, ‘ Dovid Hamelech was a self made Yichus, he stemmed from Geirim, which means you do to!’
My father alwys says “it doesn’t matter how many zeros you have. you have to have that 1 in the front.” meaning, Ok to have yichus but need to make the yichus count!
Not I,and Dunno
That saying implies, that someone without yichus can never be more than a 1.
AC: There is nothing wrong with a 1.
Hashem is 1.
TMB,
Your right!;)) But in the context of what the point is with regard to that saying, it alludes that someone without Yichus will always be less, no matter what the yichus atzmo is.
yeah…for example you can have yossel poshut who comes from a long line of yossel pushutehs or you can be descendants of teh abarbanel and be from the foremost messianics…nothing against the abarbanel, but yichus means almost nothing.
Yichus means greatness:
It can mean a continuation of greatness
Or the end of greatness.
I believe I heard it from Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski MD
Did yichus get anyones street plowed any faster?
TMB: Once again, these are psukim. One is punished for 3-4 generations for sins of the ancestors and rewarded for thousands for their mitzvos (it’s the aseres hadibros.)
Regarding yichus, the Satmar rov once said “the only place we find that yichus helps is for dogs.”
I knew a woman (and she definitely had yichus) who used to say, “Yichus is like potatoes; the best part is underground”.
Ami magazine ran an article as follows:
A young girl of rebbishe yichus was separated from her family during the war. She made it to a DP camp in Italy, the rest of her surviving family made it to DP camps elsewhere (but neither knew of each other).
Thinking that she was the only survivor, she married a “fine, simple, erlich man, but no yichus” (I forgot her exact words, but this was the jist of it).
Fast forward to her arrival in the USA, and lo and behold!; much of her family survived!
So, what to do about Mr. Simple, Erlich (but no yichus) Husband? Being the mentch that she was, she stayed with him, despite the uncomfortable circumstances.
She then proceeds to live for the next 60+ years, never really being happy about her lot, all because of the “yichus” she allowed to slip away from her.
Its not until her husband is dying, that she realizes how silly she was, and how good a person he was, despite not having numerous titles before and after his name. Talk about a sad story
I have no yichus to brag about. But there are things in my family’s past I am VERY proud about. Things that they accomplished on their own, despite the challenges they faced.
And looking back (when I hit the elter zeidi years) the things I will be most proud of, will be the things my family has yet to achieve.
mchemtob; I like your piece. It’s good for introspection. It shows how far we’ve come. (really in an inverted way.)When there are other qualities in a person, Yichus is a good addition. But by itself it counts for nothing. In my book, a person who comes from a background that is not very strong in Torah and turns out to be a Ehrlicher Yid and Talmid Chacham, is much more noteworthy than someone who comes from a family of Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivos and just continues in their tradition.
BP Totty
Well said. Although I do have yichus, I am looking forward to being proud of what and iy”h my descendants accomplish.
unfortunately I know a few sons of Roshei yeshiva with major yichus who were bsically neglected as children due to their fathers askanus and being overly busy who are really messed up but their shidduchim came easy due to their so called “yichus” I”ll do without thank you!
If anyone doubts the claim that Mom of a Few just made, please read the article in last week’s Ami, about the young girl who turned in her parents.
Yichus only takes you so far.
And dunno – try to do a shidduch or two with some “regular” ballei batim. We may not have the pedegree, but we sure spice thing up!
I was told by R Shraga Neuberger (he said this in shiur, not just to me) that everyone that’s frum nowadays is b/c of some ancestor that was a gadol
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m rather happy that I don’t have any impressive yichus that I’m aware of. I don’t have the temptation to “name drop” or play “my dad is better than your dad” games with anyone. I can simply be myself.
Of course, in the eyes of some, that just makes me “gutter trash” or the like, but I don’t care. If people are willing to judge me as less than they are because I don’t have the right ancestors, then that reflects far more on them than on me.
The Wolf
I was told by R Shraga Neuberger (he said this in shiur, not just to me) that everyone that’s frum nowadays is b/c of some ancestor that was a gadol
Are geirim not frum?
The Wolf
Are geirim not frum?
While “frum” is an elusive title, I see where you’re coming from.
My guess is, anyone who comes into the fold, must at some point or another had a “jewish element” in their past, in one form or another. I can’t name specific cases (cause I’m not G-D) but from the reading I’ve done, it could be an 18th generation child from someone who got swallowed up in a mixed marraige, or something like that.
So, despite having a title to wear on his (or her) lapel, they do come from a gadol of sorts. Maybe not the kind that bios are written about, but a gadol in their own way (again, not G-D, so I really can’t say for sure)
BP Totty
I have no problem with that. Talk to G-d about it.
About doing good shidduchim? I talk to Him about this (and lots of other things)every day
Pedigree does matter- for dogs and horses.
Pedigree does matter- for dogs and horses.
Well, even if pedigree does matter for me (wolves are canines, of course), I’m still perfectly fine having no well-known ancestors.
The Wolf
Gaiva of any sort, found in a person for any “reason” is nothing more than a deep insecurity. Someone who really knows themself knows their place, and that place is a small part of Hashem’s creation next to the Melech Ha Olam.
When some one is gaivadik they lack self esteem because they lack humility. This is because they lack a proper attitude of being a servant rather than a boss. THey will not feel anything of pride when putting on an expensive gorgeous outfit either, because in knowing that the Aibishter has trusted in their possesion this dress and that He can take it back and they can go to the grave at any moment they will not laud themselves over others.
Believe me – those who seem to have a thing about gaiva because of their Yichus do not really hold themselves high, or else they’d find higher reasons to associate their “highness” on , besides for some good things their dead fathers did once. Like things they have done good in their own life time. WHich by the way, if its a true mitzvah, only really leads to humility and gratitude that Abishter blessed them with the zechus to perform it in the first place.
I am really impressed by the posts on this subject here.
Re: Geirim having a gadol in their past: Their neshamas were at Har Sinai also…
Are geirim not frum?
The Wolf
you have to agree that could be an exception
yichus IS s/t to be proud of, at the same time you have a responsibility to live up to, so it is not always easy….s/t’s you wish you could b a plain person with a regular last name and know that not e/o is “looking at u” and “watching what you are doing”, at the same time, if you do manage to live up to your yichus then it IS s/t to b proud of. That does not mean you are a bal gayva, but there is s/t to knowing where you come from, and what you aspire to be, i know i am proud of it :), even when it is hard!
BIJKID says;
‘you wish you could b a plain person with a regular last name and know that not e…..
I have news for you (I’m an example) YOU COULD HAVE YICHUS WITH A ‘Regular’ last name (whatever that means, ugh!) because the yichus could come from your mother which means you dont carry the name!!
??? ??? ? ?????? ??? ???
Back to the OP- what constitutes Yichus? If I theoretically am a 4th cousin of some dynasty, does that count or what? How close? Just curious because I have seen such terms thrown around… someone who says “I am a relative of such and such a gadol” but when you look at it, they have just figured out the 7 degrees of separation between them and the gadol. (we can all trace back to Noach and non-gerim to Avraham Avinu so technically we are all related….)
And how do you react when you see the “people with yichus” behave worse than “the regulars”? Someone who taught at a yeshiva told me something they noticed- not all, but a good percentage in that class, of the trouble-makers were technically “with yichus”, at least locally. Like they were a rebbe/rav’s child ect. It makes me wonder if yichus really means all that much when looking for quality persons to marry.
Aishes Chayil, I said SOMETIMES i wish……and i know you could but if your name is not an indication of your yichus then not everyone knows……
you have to agree that could be an exception
Why do *I* have to agree to anything? I’m not the one who made the statement. Ask the one who made the statement if converts are an exception.
The Wolf
The Chofetz Chaim had non-Jewish grandchildren. So did R’ Akiva Eiger. Yichus is really nowhere near as important as people make it out to be.
Yichus is what we make of it. Moshe Rabbeinu is arguably the greatest Yichus anywhere, anytime, but his children were not notable. Avraham Avinu was the son of an idol maker, and Rivka, Leah, and Rachel Emainu were the daughters of reshaim. Rus was an idol worshipper herself. When we act in a way that makes our yichudig forebears proud, then we are yichusdig, also. Otherwise, we are nothing special.
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