Though she’s almost twelve, I still get to read to my daughter before bed a few times a week. Yes, it’s not as frequent as when she was three (back then, she didn’t have evenings full of gymnastics practice, Little League, or homework), but the books we’re reading now are much more sophisticated. After finishing two fantastic baseball books by Joe Posnanski, in May, we started My Jewish Year, by Abigail Pogrebin.
If you haven’t read the book, Pogrebin, a journalist, writer, and interviewer, wanted to deepen her connection to Jewish practice, so she decided to live out the holidays across different Jewish communities, and reflect on what she did and what she learned. Though the book is now almost ten years old, the questions and challenges that arise are almost exactly the same as today, including a war in Gaza which elicited a wide range of reactions, and a rise in antisemitism with threats of violence. But at its core, she asked the same questions we’ve grappled with for centuries – as both individuals and a community: How do we preserve Jewish tradition, make it meaningful and relevant today, and pass those traditions on to the next generation?
We see that message in this week’s portion, Parashat Ha’azinu, a poem that Moses recites just as the Israelites are about to enter the land of Canaan. Early in the song, Moses says:
Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of ages past;
Ask your parent, who will inform you,
Your elders, who will tell you… (Deuteronomy 32:7)
The Hebrew phrase for “ages past” is dor vador, well-known in Jewish liturgy – “from generation to generation.” It isn’t enough to simply recall the past; we need to bring the past into the present, and ensure that it remains for the future. Towards the end of the song in verses 46-47, Moses says:
“Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children, that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching. For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is your very life…”
This isn’t simply “do as I say,” which any parent or teacher or adult can relay; rather, the next generation learns most from how we act. We can talk about text and values as much as we may like; how we act is truly the measure of who we are.
As Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson writes in The Bedside Torah:
We separate religion from life. Issues of personal identity and meaning, questions about human frailty or aggression, political conflicts and how to resolve them – these become questions for “experts.” All we ask of religion is to make us feel good and to provide our children with moral values…
The religion of the Torah and the rabbis, on the contrary, embraces every aspect of Jewish communal and individual life. What people eat (and how we prepare it); how we conduct our business affairs; how we care for our spouses, parents and children; the structure of our homes; the fabric of our clothing; the institutions in the community and the extent to which the community cares for the poor and the weak – all these are understood to be religious issues which require a religious response…
Judaism is the vehicle for reflecting those values in our deeds, our relationships, and our society. (349)
As I read Pogrebin’s book to my daughter, I think about how she received it – my mother gave it to my sister, my niece, my wife, and my daughter on Mother’s Day, linking the generations. And as I read Pogrebin’s book with my daughter and the observance of each holiday, we talk about how we do it as a family, how it reflects the wider world we live in, and the differences (and commonalities) across Jewish communities.
It’s particularly apt that we’re going to finish reading it later this week, just as we have transitioned from 5785 to 5786, and will soon complete the Torah reading-cycle, starting it back up again on Simchat Torah. It reminds me that there are truly no “beginnings” or “endings” in life; we simply take the next step on the journey. As we listen to the Torah taught by our elders, transmit our particular Torah for this moment, and ensure the link remains strong, we remember that Torah is not just a text to study – it is our very lives.