Grandfathers impacting grandchildren - Lessons from my Holocaust surviving Zaida - Yahrtzeit 24 Av

today is my grandfather's I'm sharing this information because it's relevant to all grandfathers past present and future the impact that my Z my grandfather had on me was tremendous my father may be well was working around the clock to make a livelihood of parosa for our family he worked two jobs in the beginning he worked very hard to put it mildly it would be equivalent to to a normal person's uh you know working uh four weeks he he worked in one week many many hours when I came home from from from Yesa fromer from theiva Mya bought me a special yish called Bas Yehuda this this was the the broken down the 1960s this was aish with a yish translation and my first language was yish our home was a a a holocaust home home A Home of of both sets of parents and grandparents survived the Holocaust and the natural tongue was Yiddish coming home from K coming home from Yeshiva who who who I my father wasn't home my mother was busy with with children and and cooking cleaning and it was my Zeda who took me I remember like like yesterday he took me on his lap he put me on his lap and he was so kind and so loving and he reviewed with me the Kish his natural Yiddish dialect was the the poish yish mine was both Yesa I knew the laich yish dialect the Mish dialect and from home I knew the poish dialect but I remember how he he exuded This Love This Ava and this went into my bones it crept into my bones later as I got a little older and I was already a young teenager there are days when you become you're not well you're sick you don't feel well so you come home from Yesa early or you don't go my Z and at the time live lived around the corner from us here in borrow Park and I remember either I went over to his house or he came to to to to me to my house and he would bring these fluffles we had melon's pizza still there around the corner but the original original Mr melon who was a Survivor from Poland and his thing was to give large pizzas slices of pizza and big full falafal and and he caught borrow park with this cuz people were you know the pizza stores the few pizza stores that we had most of them were very skimy in in in giving a large slice they G you gave small slices and MAA would go out and he would buy that and he would say here here I am here and it was so good to be able to here at home you know I'm not feeling that well and he brought this home I also remember when we lived in another few blocks away in here in borrow Park he would there was a store they they had corn beef sandwiches and he would come home with his corn beef sandwiches and he would say here the these kind of silly little things are not silly they're so important to for the the development of a child be it both from the spiritual Torah perspective of learning with your grandson and your granddaughter and also the camarad and the friendliness and the friendship I'll tell you one more thing these are all my grandfather liked wrestling he liked to to to watch wrestling I don't know where he picked that up whether he got it in Poland or later on he was in Costa ricao before he came to America so I don't know where he picked up this interest in wrestling get know interest so he he would sometimes say come come come you know watch with me wrestling I didn't know from wrestling from Adam wrestling today we need more grandfathers to reach out to their grandchildren we're going through a crisis which Children and Youth are not interested in learning in Yesa in a girl school at an early age at a young age a parent the parents struggle and they they they they they pay money and they they go for counseling and they do everything they can and it it doesn't work always you'll be surprised that a grandfather and a grandmother and I think especially a grandfather can have a very big impact on on on this situation so my message is to all grandfathers you have a great we not you we have a great responsibility to reach out to embrace your grandson your granddaughter take him out for a pizza take him out for a walk just sit on the couch and hang out with them sing a nigan with them say a story learn some to whatever you could do to get them to feel so good about you and you about them about him or her that this will develop and Blossom and only good things will come from it my grandfather went through the Holocaust I told you he lost his his first wife and two children he was a survivor in the true sense of the word and he never gave up his personality he was such a sensitive person such a a person a refined person I never heard him get upset and angry on his own once in a blue moon you know when someone really from the family drove him nuts he would react but generally he was so calm he was so you know TR Quil and soothing he just wanted to be around him he had good what they call today Good Vibes good energy he came Fromm he came from Alexander kidm and he had this black book that he brought with him from from from Poland which had a list and pictures of many Reb in Poland and I remember sitting him him sitting me down and going over and reading to me about this re about this sadic another thing that he excelled in he was a b fer in a Sho in his flat Bush a block from where we lived or so it it was known as I called we we knew it as Rabbi K shul this Rabbi K was one of the only experts in KH when the the leverite type of marriage when when God forbid if a woman passes her husband passes on he has a brother she's obligated to marry him unless he gives khit it's called with the shoe and the spitting in the shoe there's a whole process so very few Rabon rabbis in in in New York really were experts in it in it he was Rabbi K he was the rub of that Sho later he made Aliah was a big Sho with a woman's Gallery uh on top and it was nice and large my grandfather many many times D for the umad there and I remember going as a little boy although it wasn't a I went with my father to the local kab that they that they my father and a few of his friends made this is all during the 1960s but from time to time I went my grandfather to the big Sho RAB K Sho and his sweet voice his melodic voice was beautiful I remember one of the tunes he would sing is [Music] hi he sang this to k k [Music] and etc etc so he he also instilled uh a love of Nina of this type of music it was you could you could hear in his in his beautiful voice you can hear coming out of the pain coming out of the Holocaust survival and he loved us great Grand children four four four four children four it was it was the only thing had in his life I also remember him going the shm sh they had a plastic factory Somewhere in Brooklyn at the time and and they and through my father they gave him a job by trade he was a tailor in Europe he was a tailor and uh I think even a customer Ricky was a tailor so somehow they had him come and do some work for him just to give a ye the favor M told me that he learned from his father when it comes to helping a y with parosa with a livelihood you you get give him a job even if it's not the type of job that he knows you make it work somehow so you're able to pay him some money to to bring home so I remember him going on the G train at the time I think was somewhere in Queens so from B Park you took one train you transferred to the Jeep train at the time these are some of my memories he's buried out in Wellwood Cemetery in ex 35 on Long Island passed away over 40 years ago and uh it's definitely time that should rise together with everyone else the resurrection of dead the coming of Messiah and we should take from him these m messages and lessons in our own life and will have a tremendous impact on our grandchildren amen amen and amen