Story on Parshas Featured Lech Lecha
המול לכם כל זכר (לך יז:י)
In this week’s Parsha, Hashem commanded Avraham with the Mitzvah of Bris Milah.
Reb Yissachar Dov of Belz zt’’l took refuge in Hungary during WWI, and after the war, before returning to Belz, Galicia, the Belzer Rebbe spent two years in the town of Holochitz. Hundreds of people came to Reb Yissachar Dov zt’’l for Brachos, including a Yid from Belarus, Russia, who asked the Rav for a Bracha that his son should have חשק – a desire to learn Torah.
Reb Yissachar Dov zt’’l asked the yid: “Did you make a bris seudah for your son?”
The Yid reminded himself that he didn’t make a bris seudah for his son for lack of money – he just served a little schnapps, and they drank a ‘l’chaim’ after the bris.
The Frierdige Rav replied: “The singing and prayers during a Seudas Bris seeps into the newborn boy on who the mitzvah of Milah was just performed; which infuses in the child a desire to learn Torah.”
“Go home,” the Rebbe advised. “Prepare a seudah for ten people – where singing should take place, instead of the Bris Seudah, and you will merit that your child will connect to Hashem and His Torah.”