You can tell by his smile! Mazal Tov!
What a High Holiday season! With 1000 people joining during Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur, High Holidays 5777 was our most exhilarating one yet. All the preparation. All the praying. All the logistics. All the spirituality. All the people. All the meals. All the sitting. All the hellos and goodbyes. All the standing.
While High Holidays 5777 is now a thing of the past, hopefully the inspiration is not. My personal inspiration grew, as 48 hours after breaking the fast, a packed Shul of friends, family and Shul-mates gathered to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of Gabe Katz.
The future is in our hands.
The Chabad of Naples family was honored to celebrate this shabbat together with Gabe and his family.
Gabe, who has been our Hebrew school student since he was six years old, has been preparing for his special day from the Kawaler family Sefer Torah along with me and his grandfather Rabbi Kawaler, who donated the Torah to Chabad of Naples on behalf of his family.
What a powerful link and as yesterday's celebration was shared by representatives of four generations welcoming Gabe into the realm of Jewish adulthood, it made for a moving and poignant expression of the ideal of “M’dor L’dor” – from generation to generation.
Moses our great leader said, and it was the last commandment, to write this song, which ideally means we should all write a torah scroll. But in essence what he was saying was to make sure that your children, the next generation, see Judaism like a song. Gabe and I go back a long way… In fact, it’s been one of the great joys of my rabbinical career to be able to share many teachings, concepts and ideas with this very bright and perceptive child over the years, and to watch him grow and blossom into the mature and deep-thinking young man he is today.
So I must say that this was far more than a Rabbi-congregant sitaution for me… As far as I’m concerned, this is “family” – this is “mishpocho” – for me, and I am so deeply gratified to be sharing in the pride and the “nachas” of this milestone in Gabe’s life.
I can say that Gabe has received this message and is making us all proud— you can tell by his smile!
Wishing you a Sookot of song and joy!
Rabbi Fishel & Ettie Zaklos