From the COLlive inbox:
I am a Jewish woman who lives in Argentina. I have two boys, aged 16 and 12 years old, and I recently got divorced.
The divorce was a little bit hard on my children, so I decided to take a vacation with the two of them and travel to Ixtapa, Mexico and just enjoy the time together.
The unexpected has happened 2 days into our trip.
We were sitting outside at “white dinner night,” enjoying the beach and the surroundings, when out of nowhere, we hear Hebrew music blasting.
We walked towards the music, my kids being really shy, but I guess it looked interesting.
One of the gentlemen by the name of Rabbi Yossi Malka stopped me and asked if I was Jewish with a smile. I said, “yes and I love Hebrew music.”
As he went on to greet my boys, he started a conversation with them and then asked, “I guess the obvious question is were you Bar Mitzvah?”
Sadly, my son said no, as his father did not allow him to have one.
Yossi got up and mentioned to the group of people that he was with, “we are having a bar mitzvah here tomorrow!”
They all got up, dancing and singing in a way that touched our hearts like you can’t imagine.
And little did we know, the next day we were invited to one of their rooms in their backyard which was located on the beach.
Tefillin, Torah, food, l’chaims and dancing. My son became Bar Mitzvah at the age of 16 in Mexico – a dream bar mitzvah. We will never forget that day in our life. Thank you very much.
yossi what a true mentch! making the rebbe happy. lechaim
These boys will now grow up to raise Jewish children!
Amen
To this day I have many great memories and owe Yossi a lot for my Yiddishkeit!