dear granddaughter with your nine syllables

and that doesn’t include your family name,

I am looking forward to meeting you in person in January! Before that, I will be hopefully meeting two of your younger cousins on this end of the universe  (בשעה טובה ומוצלחת).

In the meantime, I am happy to have more connection with you than your ancestors would have had with their einiklach in all corners of the universe, with all of our Skyping and Facebooking and Googling.

Then again, many of them stayed in the same shtetl for ages, so it’s a balance.

Your siblings have been on great adventures already, living in Israel and travelling to Canada and the States and then off to South Australia.

Your parents can read you more about the song here, if they want.

And so your first experiences are so very different but so much the same, aren’t they?

Your wonderful parents have never had a third child before; that in and of itself makes everything different. And when you learn about literature, you’ll find out that the use of local color is only one literary device, often overplayed.

Settings of time perhaps are more important.

And how to fill out the character? That is prominent, in my book.

So who will you be?

I know you will be smart,

feisty, strong-willed, kind, sweet, stubborn, impulsive, thoughtful, curious, strong, creative, eager, loving, singing, funny.

(strong-willed

adjective resolute, firm, single-minded, purposeful, fixed, intent, persistent, stalwart, persevering, tenacious, steadfast, unwavering, immovable,headstrong, unflinching, strong-minded, self-willed He is a very determined and strong-willed person.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002)

You get that from every single side, generations back as far as the eye can imagine seeing.

I hope that you will be happy most of the time.

That you also get from everyone.

I hope you will channel your great ancestors and their love of Judaism and of Torah and of Jews and of G-d. I hope you will get their message loud and clear, how family means everything and being loyal is the best strategy for winning.

And love shows up and know that it’s there for you.

And if you noticed that I didn’t say “pretty”, I’ll say it now.

I’m sure you will be pretty spectacular.

And I’m looking forward to meeting you and letting you know that in person.

Love,

Savta