Hello, my name is Rabbi Dovid Friedman.* Baruch Hashem, I’ve had the opportunity for several years now to do the very special mitzvah of bris milah for young couples. There have been many challenges and curveballs throughout the years, a child who woke up jaundiced the morning of the bris, a cab ride that had me arriving home from an out of town simcha 10 minutes before shabbos, the usual. But there is one bris that I know I will never forget: That’s the bris of the Blau baby.

Yaakov Yeshaya’s mother passed away last week  at only 22 years old, shortly after giving birth. I’ll never forget what it was like: A minyan of solemn men, there to do the mitzvah but weighed down by the heaviness of the occasion. The father, tears running down his face as he named his son without his wife. The baby, crying after the milah, with no mother to be handed to for comfort, because his mother is gone.

The passing of Esther Blau has shaken our community. 

The husband she left behind is struggling to raise a newborn without her, and unable to support his family off of his salary alone. Money is being raised to help provide for Esther’s children, and cover their most basic bills, during this tremendously painful time.

Click here to help 

*While the tragedy of Esther Blau’s passing is very true and the family’s need very urgent, the story of the mohel is for illustrative purposes only. Mrs. Blau was not present at the baby’s bris.