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Spinoff - being descended from important people
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amother
Seagreen


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 8:56 am
Raisin wrote:
I think mine might too. Pretty sure most Jews are. (Not descended from any rebbeim but from people who were well off enough to keep family trees..). LOL Ashkenazi Jews are descended from such a tiny goup of people we all probably have a lot of common ancestors like Rashi and the Maharal.


An older relative said that back in the day, wealthy people would hire genealogists to draw up their family trees. Since the genealogists were paid for the task, they didn't want to disappoint, and they found a way to come up with a claim to yichus.

Then, those family trees were passed down to the next generation...and so on. Iow, probably most of the yichus people nowadays claim, is actually not real.
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amother
Denim


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 9:36 am
I'm from recent yichus, my grandfather is someone who most of you heard of, and if not you, definitely your parents. He was a wonderful, amazing, tzadik. But I feel like our yichus crippled some of my cousins. We grew up hearing so much about how special we are because he was our grandfather, and some of my cousins as adults still believe that they are special because he was our grandfather. They don't understand that you're only special if YOU are special, not because of your grandfather.
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amother
Orange


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 11:01 am
Im also directly descended from the baal Shem tov, even named after his daughter.
We have other major yichus too. My father is so proud of it.
Does it makes a difference? Did it make him any less abusive? Do u think he ever stopped in any of his crazy rants to think hmmm maybe my helige Zeide won't want me to threaten to kill my wife? Nope.
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NTR150153




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 11:34 am
I'm also from the bal Shem tov. From one child the 10th generation and from another the 11th. My father's sibling still has unmarried children and they are the 10th generation
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amother
Olive


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 11:40 am
I'm a direct descendant of peasants in Belarus. And peasants in Austria. And peasants in Russia. And probably peasants elsewhere, before that.

But on my mother's side, I'm also a direct descendant of Levi, through Aharon on my mother's side, and otherwise on my father's. Good enough for me.
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amother
Brunette


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 12:18 pm
I think it was the chassam sofer who said
Yichus is like six zereos. Only when a person himself conducts himself like a ehrlich yid then he can add a 1 and it becomes 1000000 (a million)
My father always tells us this, we have rabbonish and rebbish yichus too but he reminds us this vort to keep us grounded (some of my cousins /and siblings/ think yichus is their ticket to special treatment)...
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amother
Beige


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 2:02 pm
My daughter got engaged last week and at the L'chaim, someone was recounting the chassan's family's yichus.
I replied that, in our family we don't look backwards for yichus, we look for forward yichus.
(I did leave out that the only famous relative we had was Trotsky.)
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amother
Mint


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 2:08 pm
amother wrote:
We're direct descendants from Baal hatanya. Whoopee. Says nothing about anyone in the family. Def not amazing people.

Hi cousin Smile we are also descended from the Baal hatanya and the Baal Shem tov and I think my family is amazing! But there are lots of amazing families out there, and many of them are not descended from anyone famous, so I still don't think there's any correlation.
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 2:32 pm
My mother's family were yeshuvniks from Russia, they ate off wooden plates and didn't have running water or glass windows until they came to the US. Zacs grandfather could have stayed at their way station.

My father's family fled Poland for all the usual reasons, they lived in a shtetl, and had no particular skills or aspirations except to save themselves. (Genetically there is a bit of variance.)


Last edited by MagentaYenta on Wed, Apr 26 2017, 3:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
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amother
Cobalt


 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 2:51 pm
amother wrote:
I think it was the chassam sofer who said
Yichus is like six zereos. Only when a person himself conducts himself like a ehrlich yid then he can add a 1 and it becomes 1000000 (a million)
My father always tells us this, we have rabbonish and rebbish yichus too but he reminds us this vort to keep us grounded (some of my cousins /and siblings/ think yichus is their ticket to special treatment)...


I always heard this, and I strongly disagree with this.

If you have two amazing people, they are both amazing. The fact that one also has a whole impressive lineage is a nice bonus, but it doesn't change his or value from the hypothetical $1 to a million dollars.

Even if someone is an amazing person, they're not "worth" more or are more special because of who their grandparents ten generations ago were. They're amazing because they themselves are amazing and because of the work they put into themselves.

Your family history is interesting and meaningful. But it does not determine, increase or decrease your value in any which way.
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Cmon be nice




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 3:41 pm
The quote I heard was that yichus is like a zero, its not what (or who) comes after it its what comes before it, meaning you have to make your own yichus
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chocolate fondue




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 8:15 pm
ectomorph wrote:
My parents are BTs. Now that is impressive yichus. My parents raised children committed to Torah with no family support.

I can only aspire to improve on my parents the amount they improved on their parents


This.

I'm descended from the Maharal on my mother's side. Its nice to know you have Yichus. But the only time I really mention it is when idiots on Facebooks say myths like 'all Ashkenazi Jews come from the Khazars and have no claim to Israel.' Then I can say 'I can trace my ansectry back to King David. How far back can you trace yours?'

Besides that, though, I have a lot more respect for my in laws, who like your parents, are BT and raised a large family alone. Now that deserves respect! Their closest frum relatives are third cousins living in Israel and many members of both sides have married out.
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sourstix




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 8:31 pm
Ugh yichus is so nothing if your an idiot. It means absolutely nothing. I'm the 11 th generation of the Baal shemtov and means zero. Let's all be our own yichus.
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MitzadSheini




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 8:57 pm
So I once heard it like this.

The number of people who you are descended from in a particular generation is 2 to the power of n, where n is the number of generations back it is. So-


one generation back (your parents) you are descended from 2 to power of 1 = 2 people

two generations back (your grandparents) you are descended from 2 to the power of 2 = 4 people

Assuming about 3-4 generations per 100 years, and being a little approximate, we can say

Rashi lived about 1000 years ago. Let's say that is 36 generations. We can all say that each of us is descended from 2 to the power of 36 people from Rashi's generation.

Now 2 to the power of 36 =

68 719 476 736 people.

Now Wikipedia estimates the work population for the year 1200 CE was abou

450,000,000. This is less than 1% of the people we are meant to be descended from. And most of us are only descended from the Jews of that generation. How can this be? Because we descended from the same person multiple ways. Eg it's our mother's father's father's mother's father, AND our mother's mother's mother's mother's father.

So- this means that we can be reasonably confident we are descended from every Jew alive in Rashi's generation or any generation before it whose line did not die out.

Therefore- we are ALL descendants not only of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, but David Hamelech as well.
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MitzadSheini




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 26 2017, 10:05 pm
Double post
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 27 2017, 7:44 am
There's two weird school of thoughts
1) yichus is everything, the most important. It's obvious it's not the case, some sick people are yichusdik.
2) Yichus is bad, fake, made up... There's something to zechus avos, and to preservation of a family history. The Torah is all about that.
See the person first, but there's no need to bash yichus.
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Debbie




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 27 2017, 10:32 am
One of the best things I heard regarding yichus was the following,I'm not sure if really happened but the point is valid nonetheless:
A father was looking for a yeshiva to send his son to,he found a yeshiva that seemed to tick all the boxes and he applied; however he got a phone call telling him that they only take boys with a good yichus, the father responded "So, does that mean you would take Eisav but you wouldn't take Avraham?

Yichus is all well and good but it doesn't automatically make the descendants the best people, we all have to do our best to be good Jews whatever our ancestry.
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amother
Magenta


 

Post Sat, Apr 29 2017, 5:49 pm
Yichus is not everything but it certainly has significance. I'm a big believer in spiritual genes. I don't think I have much yichus although my dad a"h said that his family came from the balabatim of the Maharal. My husband, on the other hand, is a descendant of Reb Duvid'l MiLelov, who was very well known for his Ahavas Yisroel and Chesed. These qualities are very noticeable in my husband. Also, he is a very holy guy with a special neshama. So, it doesn't surprise me to know that he is descended from a great rebbe.
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Sat, Apr 29 2017, 10:21 pm
amother wrote:
Yichus is not everything but it certainly has significance. I'm a big believer in spiritual genes. I don't think I have much yichus although my dad a"h said that his family came from the balabatim of the Maharal. My husband, on the other hand, is a descendant of Reb Duvid'l MiLelov, who was very well known for his Ahavas Yisroel and Chesed. These qualities are very noticeable in my husband. Also, he is a very holy guy with a special neshama. So, it doesn't surprise me to know that he is descended from a great rebbe.


Meh. My ds is a wellspring of chessed with a very very special neshama and as far as I know neither dh or I have much in the way of strong lineal connection to anyone anyone ever heard of. OTOH my mother Rest In Peace davened long and hard for good grandchildren and this she got in spades. one doesn't have to be a famous rebbe to have tons of chessed and ahavas Yisroel .

I'm more interested in reverse yichus. If your parents were great people, that's no reflection on you IMO. And you for sure aren't entitled to credit for who your greatgreatgreatgreatgreat grandparents were. You can still be a stinker. But if your children are great people, you have to get some credit because at least some of that must come from the way you brought them up.
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mommy3b2c




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Apr 29 2017, 10:23 pm
amother wrote:
Yichus is not everything but it certainly has significance. I'm a big believer in spiritual genes. I don't think I have much yichus although my dad a"h said that his family came from the balabatim of the Maharal. My husband, on the other hand, is a descendant of Reb Duvid'l MiLelov, who was very well known for his Ahavas Yisroel and Chesed. These qualities are very noticeable in my husband. Also, he is a very holy guy with a special neshama. So, it doesn't surprise me to know that he is descended from a great rebbe.


Sorry. This is silly. Your husband is good because it's in his nature or because he worked on himself. Give him credit where it's due .
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