Our daughter Bassie’s 9th (Hebrew) Birthday was this week on the 2nd of Elul. One of the first books the Lubavitcher Rebbe published was “HaYom Yom” a calendar with short rich tidbits of daily inspiration. You can see HaYom Yom online in English on Chabad.org. We studied with Bassie the beautiful HaYom Yom message of her birthday, and together with some of her siblings they produced this 3-D canvas depicting its message. Below is what Bassie shared about it with the students at Shabbos Lunch. 

This is from the HaYom Yom for my birthday, Bais Elul. It has a very beautiful message.

SONY DSCThe Jewish People are called Eretz Chaifetz, a land of treasure (or more literally A Land of Desire). There are treasures deep in the ground that you can’t see by looking at the surface. The same thing is with Jewish People. Every Jew has many treasures inside that you need to dig beneath the surface to discover.

Sometimes the treasure is barely hidden, because it is very close to the surface. All you need to do is just uncover some dirt. But other treasures can be buried very deep, so it takes a lot of digging to get to it. It all depends on the digger. It depends on how patient and determined you are – to dig deeper.

We used blue, brown and a little green sand. The blue is the sky and the brown is the earth where all the Mitzvah treasures are hidden.

My brother and sisters helped me make the Mitzvos out of modeling clay. We made 9 Mitzvos for my 9th birthday.

The Mitzvos are buried at different levels in the earth. Look closely to find:

(1) two Challahs with a Challah Cover,

(2) two tall Shabbos candles,

(3) hamantachen for Purim,

(4) a big white Mezuzah and

(5) black Tefillin with straps,

(6) there’s a Shofar with an apple and honey on it

(7) a Lulav and Esrog set for Sukkos

(8) a big red heart for Ahavas Yisrael

(9) and a girl with a smiling face – for being happy, which is also a Mitzvah!

Thank you for coming to my birthday!