By: Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson,
Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies
at the University of Judaism

Shabbat Parashat Hayyei Sarah - 24 Heshvan 5769 - A New Generation November 22, 2008 / 24 Heshvan 5769 By: Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies    Torah Reading:  Genesis 23:1 - 25:18  Haftarah Reading:  I Kings 1:1 - 31 It is a truism of human nature that we often denigrate our own abilities while extolling those of the generations before us. Our grandparents appear to us as giants, perhaps a reflection of our size relative to them when we were infants, but also because we are able to look on the challenges of their age from the perspective of the passage of time. Events in the past look bigger, more romantic, and more heroic than the puny happenings of the present. It is no surprise, then, that ancestor worship is so common to the peoples of the earth, and that even secular America treats the generation of its "founding fathers" with a reverence bordering on the religious. That reverence is to be found in Judaism too. At the beginning of the Amidah, the standing, silent prayer that marks the liturgical pinnacle of every Jewish worship service, we speak to God as "God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.... You remember the pious deeds of our ancestors and will send a redeemer to their children's children because of Your loving nature." The greatness of each preceding generation only increases with the passage of time, as each new age imputes ever-more lofty levels of perfection on the ones who have come before us. The natural urge to see earlier generations as more wise, more good, or more sacred finds embodiment in the ruling of Mishnah Eduyot that "a Beit Din (court) has not got the power to nullify the opinion of another Beit Din unless it is greater than it in wisdom and in numbers", which some commentators have interpreted to mean that the rulings of earlier Battei Din is binding on later generations. That same impulse lies behind the practice of most Orthodox poskim (legal decisors) to treat the rulings of the Talmud as no longer open to refutation or reversal. That same temptation must have faced Isaac and his generation as well. Imagine just how they revered Abraham: the man who introduced the world to ethical monotheism; the one whom God consulted before acting in the world; the one who passed every test God posed to him. Abraham was a giant among men, a leader and a tzaddik. There had been no Judaism before him, was it possible for Judaism to survive after his death? The Torah reports the transmission of the mantle of leadership in the following words: "And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac." The sages of Midrash Bereshit Rabbah note that each time the Torah uses the phrase "And it came to pass" subsequent events reveal that "the world relapsed into its former state." Each great leader struggled valiantly to elevate the morality and godliness of the times, but as soon as the leader's efforts cease, the world returned to its troubling ways. It must have looked to Isaac and his contemporaries that, without the shining example of Abraham and Sarah, it would be impossible to maintain adherence to the lofty values and holiness of the newly-founded faith. How could the son possibly hope to fill his father's shoes? And could his wife possibly live up to the sterling example of the Matriarch Sarah? We have every right to doubt our own abilities and to recognize our own flaws. But to surrender to that sense of inadequacy is a form of atheism, a denial of God's ability to give us the strength, wisdom, and courage to carry on. Even as the world reverted to its former state, even then God "blessed his son Isaac," assuring a new generation of leadership to maintain and transmit the ways of Abraham and Sarah. As Rabbi Judan notes in the ancient Midrash: "Had not God set up others in their stead, the world would have relapsed into its former state." Whatever doubts we may have of our own ability, even in comparison with earlier generations, we are not allowed to give in to despair. Even if the leaders of our generation are as small as Jephtah and Samson, the Talmud instructs, we must treat them with the same reverence we would reserve for Moses. God gives each generation the wisdom and skill needed for the tasks at hand, but it is we who must supply the courage and the resolve. Yes, there is a tradition within Judaism of venerating earlier generations and deferring to them. But there is also a halakhic principle that hil'kheta ke-vatrai, the law follows the most recent ruling, and that later battei din do have the authority to overturn precedent when necessary. That is why most Conservative poskim claim the same level of authority as our talmudic forebears. We will never escape the tension between our childlike perception of earlier generations as greater than us and our adult assertion of the need to act with equal authority. But that tension can be a fruitful and a beneficial one if it creates a balance between reverence for tradition and for those who have come before us with a commitment to hear the still living voice of God and to treat the insights of each new age and the needs of our children no less reverentially. God does provide for a new generation of leaders. Are we willing to lead? Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

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