Tuesday 8 March 2016
My Fathers Yortzeit
In honor of my fathers yortzeit, Rabbi Yossi Goldstein
By, Toby lieder (Goldstein)
I immediately thought of my father!
There is so much to say
It would take a whole day
To begin to describe my dad
I'm feeling so sad
Sad that's he's not here
To chat and chuckle and share
He always found the humor in everything
He used to laugh and sing
Especially dance his own dance
One foot in front and a high bounce
My father made us aware of healthy eating
Always reminding us to have an apple before noshing
Positive reinforcement was his second nature
Always a good word to even a stranger
Who remembers?
Friday night after candle-lighting in our home
Machon chana girls and women would come
My father's Tanya lessons would be their weekly inspiration
Together with the smell of my mothers Just baked challahs what a sensation
My father taught me to always say a good to word to anyone
He was friendly to everyone
MY FATHER taught me words like ducks back
(do you know what that means?)
Just like a ducks back is slippery when someone annoys you let it slide right off like a ducks back !
MY FATHER Taught me
Never loose your temper always stay calm and stay cool
That went a long way with me raising 14 kids! I stood by that rule!
MY FATHER taught me
To talk to 'all types ' of people in the same respectable way
In invited them in to our home any given day
MY FATHER taught me
To say amen as many times as we can (he'd say a Brocha loud on purpose for us to say
He explained that angels are created with our amens each day
MY FATHER taught me
Gam Zu ltova this too is for good
He never criticised or said a bad word
Whenever in his presence you felt really good
MY FATHER taught me
About nature,planets,the oceans and the ski
Inspired us with Hashems creations through my fathers eyes
MY FATHER taught us
To have fun and enjoy life to its fullest glory
He loved classicAl music, played the piano and told awesome stories
MY FATHER taught us
To appreciate nostalgia,
old movies from the Rebbe entertained us all
Each moitzay shabbos he'd take out his old movie projector and we'd have a ball!
MY FATHER taught us
To laugh and play and be happy and be a kid
He always had a joke for us ready on his lip
MY FATHER tAught us
The appreciation of the Rebbe
He ingrained in us the love and respect for the Rebbe from early on
Him being a true role model of a real chosid and Yiras shomayim
MY FATHER taught us
Through his stories of tzadikim and lessons for life
We'd live by those lessons today they all all still alive!
MY FATHER taught me
To laugh and find the humor in everything we hear and see
He just knew how to turn sad into happy ,dark into light, incredible was he!
MY FATHER taught me
To be confident
He always said "chin up" shoulders back walk like a king smile to the world the world would smile back!
My father always complimented me on 'anything' he can
He made me feel I can draw I can lead I can be I can have I can do anything I want to
He made me believe I was awesome! Imagine your kids saying that about you! Do you make your kids believe that they are awesome!??
People felt good in his presence
They were drawn to him
He made you feel good
He brought out the good in you
Not just me
But every person he met
Every of the 1300 students he was principal in Bais Yaakov Boro park will tell you they each felt special
From my father I learn to
Treat every person equally
Love life
Laugh a whole lot
Share jokes
Look for the good in people
And a whole lot more
Do you know my dad!???????
Do you have something nice to add?
Please share
Toby Lieder
By, Toby lieder (Goldstein)
I immediately thought of my father!
There is so much to say
It would take a whole day
To begin to describe my dad
I'm feeling so sad
Sad that's he's not here
To chat and chuckle and share
He always found the humor in everything
He used to laugh and sing
Especially dance his own dance
One foot in front and a high bounce
My father made us aware of healthy eating
Always reminding us to have an apple before noshing
Positive reinforcement was his second nature
Always a good word to even a stranger
Who remembers?
Friday night after candle-lighting in our home
Machon chana girls and women would come
My father's Tanya lessons would be their weekly inspiration
Together with the smell of my mothers Just baked challahs what a sensation
My father taught me to always say a good to word to anyone
He was friendly to everyone
MY FATHER taught me words like ducks back
(do you know what that means?)
Just like a ducks back is slippery when someone annoys you let it slide right off like a ducks back !
MY FATHER Taught me
Never loose your temper always stay calm and stay cool
That went a long way with me raising 14 kids! I stood by that rule!
MY FATHER taught me
To talk to 'all types ' of people in the same respectable way
In invited them in to our home any given day
MY FATHER taught me
To say amen as many times as we can (he'd say a Brocha loud on purpose for us to say
He explained that angels are created with our amens each day
MY FATHER taught me
Gam Zu ltova this too is for good
He never criticised or said a bad word
Whenever in his presence you felt really good
MY FATHER taught me
About nature,planets,the oceans and the ski
Inspired us with Hashems creations through my fathers eyes
MY FATHER taught us
To have fun and enjoy life to its fullest glory
He loved classicAl music, played the piano and told awesome stories
MY FATHER taught us
To appreciate nostalgia,
old movies from the Rebbe entertained us all
Each moitzay shabbos he'd take out his old movie projector and we'd have a ball!
MY FATHER taught us
To laugh and play and be happy and be a kid
He always had a joke for us ready on his lip
MY FATHER tAught us
The appreciation of the Rebbe
He ingrained in us the love and respect for the Rebbe from early on
Him being a true role model of a real chosid and Yiras shomayim
MY FATHER taught us
Through his stories of tzadikim and lessons for life
We'd live by those lessons today they all all still alive!
MY FATHER taught me
To laugh and find the humor in everything we hear and see
He just knew how to turn sad into happy ,dark into light, incredible was he!
MY FATHER taught me
To be confident
He always said "chin up" shoulders back walk like a king smile to the world the world would smile back!
My father always complimented me on 'anything' he can
He made me feel I can draw I can lead I can be I can have I can do anything I want to
He made me believe I was awesome! Imagine your kids saying that about you! Do you make your kids believe that they are awesome!??
People felt good in his presence
They were drawn to him
He made you feel good
He brought out the good in you
Not just me
But every person he met
Every of the 1300 students he was principal in Bais Yaakov Boro park will tell you they each felt special
From my father I learn to
Treat every person equally
Love life
Laugh a whole lot
Share jokes
Look for the good in people
And a whole lot more
Do you know my dad!???????
Do you have something nice to add?
Please share
Toby Lieder
WHAT A WARM STORY
🌷 What a Warm Story
The phone rang in my New York hotel room. It was 1995, and I was saying Kaddish for my late father, of blessed memory, Joseph Jacobovici. I live in Toronto, but I'm a filmmaker so I move around.
During my eleven months of saying Kaddish, I ended up in various minyans from San Francisco to Halifax. Once, I extended a stopover in Detroit and rushed to the basement of an old synagogue, where I was greeted by nine octogenarians as if I were the Messiah himself. But the phone call in New York was the start of what turned out to be perhaps the most interesting Kaddish experience of them all.
Whenever I had to explain this, people never quite got itI had just finished a documentary film called "The Selling of Innocents." The film won an Emmy, attracting the attention of Oprah Winfrey, the American icon and celebrated TV host. The producer at the other end of the telephone line asked if I could fly to Chicago and appear with my fellow producers on the Oprah show the day after next.
I was taken aback. This was the Oprah show. The big time. Great publicity for the film, and a great promotional opportunity for me and my company.
"I'd love to do it," I said, "but I don't think I can."
"Why not?" the producer asked, her voice betraying her surprise. Nobody says "too busy" to the Oprah show.
"I have a problem," I answered.
The producer's voice, Lisa was her name, became steely-- all business. "What's the problem?" she asked.
"It's complicated."
"Try me," she said.
I began the process of explaining, to a non-Jewish television producer from Chicago, the Jewish ritual of Kaddish.
Whenever I had to explain this, people never quite got it. I would tell them that I need a minyan, and they would drive me to an empty synagogue... It never quite worked out. But this was Oprah.
So I gave it a try.
The rest unfolded like a military operation "I'm Jewish. My father passed away. In our religion it's incumbent upon me, three times a day, to say a certain prayer, a glorification of G‑d's Name, really. It's called Mourner's Kaddish. To do this, I need to be in a 'Jewish quorum.' It's called a minyan... So I can't miss this ritual. If I come to Chicago, I would have to attend morning services prior to being on Oprah."
"No problem," she said. "You need a minyan to say Kaddish. Ten Jewish men. For morning services. I'll arrange it."
"It's not so simple," I said. "You may find a synagogue, but it might not have a minyan in the morning. Or the Jewish community may send you to a synagogue that's open... which wouldn't do the trick for me."
Lisa tried to be patient. "I'll fax your flight information to your hotel. You will be met in Chicago by a limo. The driver will have the minyan information. You will say Kaddish for your father."
The rest unfolded like a military operation. The next day the ticket came. I arrived in Chicago. Then the limo came. The driver took me to a hotel and said, "I'll be here at 6:30 a.m. Your minyan begins at 7 a.m. I'll pick you up at 8 a.m. You'll be at the Oprah show by 8:30 a.m."
The hotel room was beautiful. I slept like a baby. At 6:30 in the morning, I came down and stepped into my limo. There was a newspaper on the seat.
I could get used to this, I thought.
The driver pulled up in front of a downtown office building and told me that there was a Chabad Lubavitch minyan on one of the upper floors.
When I got there, the rabbi looked at me and said, "So you're the guy saying Kaddish. I was warned by the Oprah show that I'd better have a minyan."
We smiled at each other. I was really impressed with Lisa and Oprah. And I felt that my father was surely amused. After prayers, my driver took me to the Oprah show. I was met by Lisa, a black woman in her thirties. She got straight to the point.
"You had a minyan?"
"Yes, thank you," I said.
"Was it proper? Did you say Kaddish?"
"Absolutely. Couldn't be better," I answered.
She looked at me with that look that star surgeons have when they come out of the operating room. Or maybe it's the look that battle commanders have when coming back from a military operation. It's a look that says, "Nothing is too complicated."
I was on Oprah. She was very professional. I had my five minutes of fame. But all I can remember of that day is the Kaddish.
The phone rang in my New York hotel room. It was 1995, and I was saying Kaddish for my late father, of blessed memory, Joseph Jacobovici. I live in Toronto, but I'm a filmmaker so I move around.
During my eleven months of saying Kaddish, I ended up in various minyans from San Francisco to Halifax. Once, I extended a stopover in Detroit and rushed to the basement of an old synagogue, where I was greeted by nine octogenarians as if I were the Messiah himself. But the phone call in New York was the start of what turned out to be perhaps the most interesting Kaddish experience of them all.
Whenever I had to explain this, people never quite got itI had just finished a documentary film called "The Selling of Innocents." The film won an Emmy, attracting the attention of Oprah Winfrey, the American icon and celebrated TV host. The producer at the other end of the telephone line asked if I could fly to Chicago and appear with my fellow producers on the Oprah show the day after next.
I was taken aback. This was the Oprah show. The big time. Great publicity for the film, and a great promotional opportunity for me and my company.
"I'd love to do it," I said, "but I don't think I can."
"Why not?" the producer asked, her voice betraying her surprise. Nobody says "too busy" to the Oprah show.
"I have a problem," I answered.
The producer's voice, Lisa was her name, became steely-- all business. "What's the problem?" she asked.
"It's complicated."
"Try me," she said.
I began the process of explaining, to a non-Jewish television producer from Chicago, the Jewish ritual of Kaddish.
Whenever I had to explain this, people never quite got it. I would tell them that I need a minyan, and they would drive me to an empty synagogue... It never quite worked out. But this was Oprah.
So I gave it a try.
The rest unfolded like a military operation "I'm Jewish. My father passed away. In our religion it's incumbent upon me, three times a day, to say a certain prayer, a glorification of G‑d's Name, really. It's called Mourner's Kaddish. To do this, I need to be in a 'Jewish quorum.' It's called a minyan... So I can't miss this ritual. If I come to Chicago, I would have to attend morning services prior to being on Oprah."
"No problem," she said. "You need a minyan to say Kaddish. Ten Jewish men. For morning services. I'll arrange it."
"It's not so simple," I said. "You may find a synagogue, but it might not have a minyan in the morning. Or the Jewish community may send you to a synagogue that's open... which wouldn't do the trick for me."
Lisa tried to be patient. "I'll fax your flight information to your hotel. You will be met in Chicago by a limo. The driver will have the minyan information. You will say Kaddish for your father."
The rest unfolded like a military operation. The next day the ticket came. I arrived in Chicago. Then the limo came. The driver took me to a hotel and said, "I'll be here at 6:30 a.m. Your minyan begins at 7 a.m. I'll pick you up at 8 a.m. You'll be at the Oprah show by 8:30 a.m."
The hotel room was beautiful. I slept like a baby. At 6:30 in the morning, I came down and stepped into my limo. There was a newspaper on the seat.
I could get used to this, I thought.
The driver pulled up in front of a downtown office building and told me that there was a Chabad Lubavitch minyan on one of the upper floors.
When I got there, the rabbi looked at me and said, "So you're the guy saying Kaddish. I was warned by the Oprah show that I'd better have a minyan."
We smiled at each other. I was really impressed with Lisa and Oprah. And I felt that my father was surely amused. After prayers, my driver took me to the Oprah show. I was met by Lisa, a black woman in her thirties. She got straight to the point.
"You had a minyan?"
"Yes, thank you," I said.
"Was it proper? Did you say Kaddish?"
"Absolutely. Couldn't be better," I answered.
She looked at me with that look that star surgeons have when they come out of the operating room. Or maybe it's the look that battle commanders have when coming back from a military operation. It's a look that says, "Nothing is too complicated."
I was on Oprah. She was very professional. I had my five minutes of fame. But all I can remember of that day is the Kaddish.
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