Acknowledgements
I especially thank my holy wife, Galit, may she be blessed with great nachas. She is the one who really deserves all of the credit. Her diligently taking care of the family is what allowed for the tremendous amount of time dedicated to writing this book.
I thank Galit for the endless hours of taking care of the physical needs of children, and I especially thank her for teaching our children emuna [faith]. As Rebbe Shlomo Carlebach taught:
“According to Chassidus, the mother teaches the baby belief and the father teaches the baby truth. How do I know the truth? Unless I believe, I’ll never get to the truth. Rebbe Nachman says that the whole world is operating on the basis of belief. A child goes to school and the teacher teaches him the ABC, and the child completely believes the teacher. Imagine if the child would be an intellectual. “How do you know this A is an A and this B is a B?” Thank G-d we teach kids the alphabet while they still believe. The whole world is based on alphabets. The mother teaches the alphabet, which is the utmost of belief and the utmost of truth: this is really an alef, this really is a beit.”
“Rebbe Nachman says, the woman has more emuna [faith] in the world than man does. Can you imagine how deep this is? Do you know how much faith you need in a baby, in order to bring it down to the world? You mamash have to believe in him, that he’s going to make it, that this baby is going to bring the Mashiach. Because if you don’t have faith that this baby will do it, then you have no right to bring it down to the world…. The way you believe in G-d is how much you believe in children….
Why is Sarah called ‘our mother Sarah?’ Because from the moment she married Abraham, she was in training to be a mother to Yitzchak.
You know, to bring down a baby like Yitzchak, you need training. That is why it took her 90 years of training every second, to bring down Yitzchak. Mamash, G-d was testing her for ninety years. Sarah believed in G-d so much, and just as much, that’s how much she believed in Yitzchak.”
The merit of the strong emuna that Galit has, and her heartfelt prayers, brings blessing to our house and to the success of this publication. Eshet chayil, a woman of valor mi yimtza.
Zivi Ritchie
