Chayyei Sarah -- 5776

Abraham decides it’s time for his son to marry.   Abraham, “well advanced in years,” sends his servant to his native land, his birthplace, to “get a wife for [his] son Isaac” (Genesis 24:4).  He can’t abide his son marrying a local, nor may his son return to live in their ancestral home.

What a complex suite of ideas.  Abraham exists somewhere between the past and the present.  Only the “Old Country” will do – but as a touchstone, a source for imported information, not as the context for life.

We can understand this as a metaphor for Jewish life in our times.

The native land represents tradition -- the way things used to be, the meanings we used to ascribe.  It’s the power of standing under the chuppah, the bar mitzvah because-my-father-had-one, the taste of pastrami on rye, the blessings of Shabbat.  Whether we grew up with it or embrace it later in life, tradition is our upbringing and our vocabulary, the common culture and universe of meanings we share as a people.  The Old Country – whether it be Russia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Yemen, Turkey or elsewhere – represents the accumulated wisdom of centuries of lived Jewish experience.  It matters to us, yet it exists in a foreign language that doesn’t fully suit our contemporary existence.   

“That’s the way we’ve always done it” rings hollow.  Our lives have changed too much for that – and generally for the better.  Like Abraham, we can’t live there anymore.  For Judaism to be worth our time, effort and expense, it must be relevant.

But neither can we give it up.  Just as Abraham doesn’t want his son to marry a Canaanite, neither can we fold into mainstream society and ignore the wisdom of Judaism.  Abraham wants his son to access the wisdom, the beauty, and the truth of Tradition.  He knows that Isaac’s life will be richer thereby; these enhance our lives, too.  At our peril do we turn our back on our unique experience.

Tradition for tradition’s sake alone is tepid at best.  When it flavors our lives, it brings depth, color, and meaning.

What Jewish traditions have meaning to you?  How might the meaning you ascribe be different from that of generations past?