My Dad, the Ultimate Optimist, In Loving Memory of Reb Leima ben Naftali Hertz. והחי יתן אל לבו

Dear family, friends, Jewish community, King Solomon tells us when someone passes away, it's better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of celebration because when you go to a house of mourning, the living could learn a very powerful lesson. So, I'd like to share with you a little bit my dad. Two weeks ago today, Thursday, I had the the merit to spend time in person with my father. It was the last time I met him in person and we had a beautiful conversation. Unfortunately, the Sunday after that, the 15th of of this month of Tevet, he passed away. He returned to Hashem. His soul turned returned to Hashem. And I spent a week of Shiva, family, friends, community. I came back to Fort Myers Sunday afternoon. Our community has been exceptional in the warmth and love by making sure my spiritual needs are theirs. I can respect my dad. We have a minion here every day 5:30 in the evening with a little uh learning in the morning as well. 7:00 in the morning and Barashem respect they show to my dad and to me that I can honor my dad in a beautiful way. I'm very very grateful to to our community. But I want to share one idea about my dad. My dad, I call him the ultimate optimist. Everything. He only saw the positive. He never wanted to get involved in any negative thoughts, talk, action. It was all about positive. And he would take from the most negative situations and find the positivity in there. In this this past summer in August when dad was in the hospital, I would call him up and he tells me, "Do you know which capitol tum which psalm is is mine?" And I said, 'I don't know because in order to know which psalm, you have to know the age. And we were always educated. It's not respectful to know how old your parents are. So I didn't know. I told him, "Dad, I don't know you. I don't know which psalm is yours." So he tells me, "I want you to know my psalm is psalm pave 86." And my dad was a smart man. He wanted me to remember it's pave. So he starts singing to me a verse in the psalms, that psalm. And he sings to me where King David turns to Hashem and Hashem says, "Hashem," he says, "Make my h my make my soul happy. I'm turning my whole soul to you. Please, Hashem, make me happy." And that's a song my father sang to me. I took notes of that song and it was etched in my heart ever since. And when my father passed there, I was thinking, why did he sing to me that song? Now, recently I posted another psalm, another verse in the Bible where it says, "We're obligated to serve Hashem with joy. Come to Hashem with celebration and happiness." So a colleague of mine rabbi in China says to me why does it say serve you should be what's his servant and he explained to me and he said something very powerful that when life is good okay you're happy when life is good you sure should be happy but there's times in life when you don't you know don't you're not feeling the happiness and ifd do you have to work on yourself to be happy. Ah, when you're happy despite the fact that things aren't going well and you have to work on your happiness, then then you can come to Hashem with real joy and celebration. That's the thought he shared with me. But then I realized my father was telling me something even deeper. There's times, yes, you're happy. Level one. There's times you're not happy, but you work on yourself to be happy. But then there's times where you can't even work on yourself to be happy. You don't have the tools. And then you have to turn to Hashem and you have to say to Hashem, "Hashem, I need you to make me happy cuz I can't do it." And I was thinking that's possibly my father was telling me there's going to be times in your life like now where it's not easy to work on the happiness. But don't give up. You can turn to Hashem and say, Make your servant happy and Hashem will make you happy. So I want to say as my father's the ultimate optimist. He gave me the tools when he was alive to be happy. And he gave me even bigger tools after he passed away that despite challenges, my father passed away, a huge void, I can still turn to Hashem and ask Hashem. What I learned from my father is always be happy. When it's easy, it's easy. When you have to work on it, you can still do it. But even when you can't do it, turn to Hashem and Hashem will make you happy. I want to thank everybody for your support. I hope you guys can continue our community to come and join us to pray. Pray with a with happiness every single day, God willing, 5:30 at night in the morning at 7:00 and together we will turn to Hashem. Hashem should give us the biggest gift in life and the gift of happiness. Thank you. Ali nephesh