With sunset each Friday evening, Orthodox Jews abandon their weekly endeavors and redirect their thoughts from the secular to the sublime. We enjoy festive meals with family and friends, engage in joyful discussion and debate of a variety of topics, partake of deep, untroubled sleep and awaken rested and content. And yet, during synagogue services the next day, we are confronted by a seemingly pointless ritual that is the centerpiece of the services – the readings from the Pentateuch and Prophets– with their tales of ancient figures and events. Why, we ask ourselves, must we read these tales yet again? It takes a few portions of kugel smothered in chulent before our resentment at this seeming waste of time is finally sedated.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik expounded upon the proper relationship that modern Jews should have with their ancestors. To Rabbi Soloveitchik, our ancestors are to be viewed as our contemporaries. Biblical figures, he believed, were not relics of the past. Rather, they should be seen as if living yet among us, their tears still warm to the touch and their passions still pulsating within:
For Jewish boys and girls, Abraham is not a mythical figure but an ever-present inspiration. They live through his tribulations and wanderings. They travel with him from Syria to Palestine. They feel the fear and trembling of Isaac on the Akeida. They escape with Jacob to Haran. They are imprisoned with Joseph in the pit. They rejoice in his ascendancy to high office and fame. They lead the Jews with Moses in the desert of Sinai. They sing with David. They are exalted with the prophets. They laugh with Rabbi Akiva. They meditate with Rambam. These figures are not dead or historical "have-been’s” for the children of the heder or the adults of the halakha, but dynamic, living heroes who visit the Jew from time to time, bringing him comfort, inspiration, and hope.[1]
This concept can be understood in two distinct ways. First, our history could be viewed as defining our nationhood and, indeed, our very identity. A Jew who fails to understand, study and actually savor the history of his people is not truly embodying the Jewish experience. Ancestors are not to be remembered – they are to be internalized. Rabbi Soloveitchik mentions this idea in a different context when he writes that “history becomes part of our present time-awareness. Memory is more than a storehouse; it can become a present-day experience, a part of the “I” awareness.[2]” Understood this way, our ancestors are, in a sense, our contemporaries because our history is a continuum of theirs and our lives are but extensions of theirs.
Ironically, the medieval Catholic Church understood this concept very well and it represented the philosophical foundation for its condemnation of contemporary Jews as “Christ-killers.” The powerful historical bonds between Jews throughout the ages, the identification of contemporary Jews with their ancestors, were sufficient to attribute to them responsibility – indeed, culpability – for the historic crime of deicide.
A similar idea underscores the play Six Characters in Search of An Author by Luigi Pirandello. The play revolves around the contrast between actors and the characters they seek to portray in the play. The humans live entirely within the present, viewing it as their sole reality. They therefore have little relationship with their past and, indeed, seek to disassociate themselves from it. As one of the characters says “your own reality, the one you breathe and feel today within yourself… like that of yesterday…is destined to reveal itself as an illusion tomorrow.[3]” Characters, in contrast, are essentially drawn and recreated from their pasts; it is the past that defines and motivates them. Like the characters in the play, the contemporary Jew must also view himself as a recreation and embodiment of his ancestral history.
However, there is also another approach with which we can better relate to our ancestors. Rather than viewing our ancestors as our contemporaries who live within us, we can instead view them as partners in the quest for a common goal, a quest that transcends time. As noted by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel “…through my ownership of space, I am a rival of all other beings; through my living in time, I am a contemporary of all other beings.[4]” Time, to Heschel, did not necessarily operate as a linear continuum. Rather, if time is equated with the steps taken in pursuit of a common goal, then all participants in the quest exist within a shared time. In this sense, our ancestors exist as our contemporaries and partners in the quest to achieve God's will for the betterment of the world.
A similar idea appears in the book The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. The protagonist, Santiago, seeks to achieve the betterment of the world, realizing that each soul must contribute to that end, regardless of the time in which he lived[5]. It is only through efforts united through time that this noble goal can be achieved.
Thus, the next time we find ourselves listening to the weekly reading of the Pentateuch and Prophets, we should feel a unique bond rather than a distance between us and our ancestors. Our faces should burn with embarrassment at Adam’s nudity, and our hands should rise alongside Abraham’s at the binding of Isaac. Our hearts should race at Isaac’s first sight of Rebecca, and our blood should boil with anger at our ancient enemies. With this in mind, chulent and kugel will be forgotten as we excitedly flip to the next week’s reading, breathless with anticipation.
I thought this would be appropriate for the upcoming holiday of Purim. Instead of celebrating an event, we should experience it first hand.
[1] from "Sacred and Profane," page 23 (also found in Shiurei HaRav, page 165)
[2] Reflections of the Rav, Abraham Besdin, p. 200-201
[3] p. 55
[4] The Sabbath, p. 99
[5] As Santiago says “it is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse." The “Soul of the World” in the book means “the purpose of the world.” pp. 150-151
