From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

One fine August night, after I got home from evening minyan, I picked up the phone and called my sister Beth, who lives in Los Angeles, just to check in.  Beth shared that one of her summer projects was to feng shui their house that she and her family had lived in for 50 years.  Just that afternoon she was working on the closet in her bedroom, one bag for goodwill, one bag for garbage, when she came upon a box in the bottom of her closet that she had not seen in years.  She did not even remember that it existed.  She opened the box, and it contained old birthday cards.  Determined to clear her home of clutter once and for all, she was preparing herself to throw out even these sentimental relics when she noticed that one of the birthday cards was in our father’s unmistakable handwriting. Our father died in 1981.  This card was very old.  When she opened it up, it said simply:  Dearest Beth, you are my rock. Happy Birthday, Love Dad. So much for the feng shui.  Beth took out her black marker and wrote on the w