Shabbat Shalom.
Many of you know that this past summer, my grandmother Kathy
passed away. I had a very special relationship with her. When she unfortunately
was diagnosed with lung cancer, we thought it would be a good thing to raise
money for lung cancer in her honor. I organized
a tag sale with her help and raised over 1900 dollars, on a cool March afternoon.
My grandmother and her doctors believed that the cancer was
caused by her smoking, even though she quit 30 years ago. One thing that my
grandmother taught me is how important it is to think about the consequences of
your actions down the road.
When I think about it, although it is very sad that she is not here, if she had not quit when she did, I might never have met her. And that brings me to my Parshah, Toldot!
My Parshah begins with Yitzhak and Rivkah who are barren, meaning
they can’t have any children. They pray to god for children and they have 2
children.
These two children were born from the same parents but they
took two different paths. The Torah tells us that one of the children was Esav,
who the torah says was good at trapping and hunting. It also says that he was very greedy and did
everything on impulse. He even traded
his birthright for a cup of lentil soup. Many commentaries say that Essav had little
faith in life, and did not care about the future. Unlike my Grandma.
The other child Yaakov, enjoyed studying torah. He understood the long term implications of
his actions and did not act on impulse.
This is similar to my Grandma because they were both concerned about the
future and how their actions affected themselves and others.
Now, I thought it would be interesting if I related Esav and
Yaakov to smoking.
Essav could easily have been a smoker. Again, he did everything on impulse and did
not think of the consequences. He would
have loved smoking because it feels good at the time but does not work out well
in the future.
Yaakov, would have stopped smoking or never started. He would think about how it could affect him
or the people around him. I know he
would have been like my grandmother and found a way to quit. Esav would not have found a way.
Because it is my mitzvah project and many of my friends and
family are here today, it’s important for me to talk a little about the dangers
of smoking:
Did you know that…?
Smoking is the most
preventable cause of death in the United States.
Smoking causes more than one in five deaths in
America.
90 percent of lung cancer in men is directly related to
smoking and 80 percent of lung cancer in women is caused by cigarettes.
According to the American Heart Association, most adult
smokers started when they were preteens or teenagers. Unfortunately, many young
people don’t fully understand the dangers of smoking and its potential affect
in the future.
What is most important to understand is that smoking becomes
a habit that is nearly impossible to break. It could turn any of us into Essav.
As painful and difficult as it may be to talk about this
subject, I know that my grandmother would be very proud of me for teaching this
to you.
Now as a Bar Mitzvah, I feel that Yaakov and my grandma
should be role models for everybody. We
should always think about how our actions affect the future for ourselves and
those around us. This will help us have
a more positive impact on the world.
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