At Sam Usen’s Bar Mitzvah this past weekend, he made a point of thanking his grandparents, telling them he loved them, and then blaming them for his being there at all. This, of course, was done in jest, but brought a big smile to my face. For, even at a young age, Sam understood one of the underlying motivations for why we do anything – striving to make our grandparents happy. This has sustained Judaism over millennia and will continue to do so for millennia to come.
This week’s Torah portion, Bechukotai, the last in the book of Leviticus, is a perfect example. It is filled with a hearty list of blessings and curses for obeying or disobeying God’s laws. Some of the curses are truly outlandish, including eating the flesh of your children and having the ground turn to bronze to make it impossible to farm. Yikes! But these can never be as scary as letting down the generations that have come before us.
Each of us holds a baton that has been passed down l’dor l’dor, from generation to generation. We live in the shadow of what has come before, just as our grandparents did, and their grandparents did, and so on and so forth, through time, all the way back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. And, this is how this section of Torah ends, by us remembering this long ago made promise, and with God remembering it as well. I thank Sam for reminding us of this eternal truth, not to live in fear of disappointing these prior generations, but to look back in reverence and love for what has been handed down to us.