The Boy in His Grandfather’s Tallis
Excerpted from LEC’s Community Magazine,Tishrei Edition
Little Natanel Goldstein looks up in wonder as candy begins raining on his head. “It’s from malach Michoel,” he is told, in a tradition stretching back for generations. All around him, forty-four other post-upsherin boys are jubilantly catching candy with fingers sticky from the honey they just licked off the holy letters of the Alef Beis. They are celebrating their entry into formal Jewish education at Lubavitch Educational Center Preschool’s second annual Hachnasah L’Cheder Arainfirnesh on Yud Tes Elul, in Miami, Florida.
For Natanel and his family, this moment isn’t taken for granted. This will be his first time attending a Jewish school after a year in a secular daycare. “We’ve always planned on giving him a proper Jewish education,” his mother Shiffy says. “But we kept pushing it off due to convenience and the costs associated with it.” After her father’s passing a few months ago, the Goldsteins decided the time had come to transfer Natanel. “My father always wished for our son to receive a Jewish education,” says Shiffy. “Registration at LEC had already closed and classes were full, but they worked with us, and managed to get him in at the last minute.” When she and her husband, Shuey, brought Natanel to his arainfirnesh, they carried him snugly wrapped in his grandfather’s tallis. “It felt like an intimate connection between generations.”
Natanel and his fellow classmates, sitting on their fathers’ laps with colorful crowns on their heads, continue progressing through the minhagim: Tasting an egg with a possuk stamped on, finding the Alef in the sha’ar blatt of Tanya. Now the boys take a bite of honey cake engraved with another possuk, savoring the sweetness of Torah. The cherished practices of this momentous occasion all leave a profound imprint on the sensitive soul of a child just beginning to blossom.
As she watches her husband dancing with a beaming Natanel on his shoulders, Shiffy feels her father’s presence with them. “Bringing Natanel to his new school while honoring his saba’s legacy made this moment especially emotional. I truly hope my father was watching from above and is proud of the path we’re continuing in his memory.”
LEC sincerely thanks those who made this beautiful event possible including sponsors Mr. & Mrs. Shaul and Shaindy Dahan; Rabbi & Mrs. Yossi and Channy Itkin; Mr. & Mrs. Daniel Mael; and Rabbi & Mrs. Menachem and Mushka Rappoport. Special thanks to Preschool director Mrs. Bina Rosenblum, and staff members Mrs. Sara Bortunk and Ms. Shayna Bortunk for organizing this event; Rabbis Yaakov Roth and Mendy Weiss for leading the ceremony; Mrs. Rivkah Korf for the beautifully designed 12 Pesukim magnet memento; and Mrs. Chani Futerfas for the stamp for the honey cake.
Photos by Menachem Serraf
