Shabbat Shalom! Shabbat Shalom! Together we count the omer.
BA-RUCH A-TAH ADO-NAI E-LO-HE-NU ME-LECH HA-OLAM ASHER
KID-E-SHA-NU BE-MITZ-VO-TAV VETZI-VA-NU AL SEFI-RAT HA-OMER.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe,
who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us concerning the
counting of the Omer.
Hayom chamishah ush’loshim yom, sheheim chamisha
shavuot la’omer.
Today is the 35th
day of the Omer. The mystical realm of this day is Malchut sheb’hod, which is majesty
within glory or the nobility of humility. The Biblical woman Rabbi Jill Hammer
associates with this day is Achsah, the daughter of Caleb. Caleb is one of the 12
spies that Moses sends to scout the Promised Land, and he and Joshua are the
only two to come back ready to conquer the land. Because of this, they become
leaders of the conquest. While Joshua is the commander-in-chief, Caleb remains
pretty important and in a position to divvy up land at his discretion, within
the confines of the tribes God assigns to specifics large territories of the
Promised Land. So when he marries off his daughter Achsah and she asks for a
dowry of land with plenty of water, he is able to accommodate her and her new
husband with property on the wellsprings of the Judean Hills. A midrash tells
us that Caleb was Miriam’s husband, and Achsah her daughter. When she asks for
water resources, she is really asking to security to be able to pass down to
her own children her mother’s legacy of providing water to her people. It is
important for Achsah’s children to know about their grandmother and have this
connection to her, even though she has passed away in the desert before the
land conquest. Achsah prioritizes her lineage and legacy over all other
concerns and shows us a great humble nobility in her dowry request.
This week’s Torah portion is
Parashat Emor. Many laws are given in this portion, including the basic
commandments to observe Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, but many are specific to
the Kohanim. One such kohein-specific law is to stay away from dead bodies and
cemeteries. The only exceptions the Torah names are for the parent, sibling, or
child of the Kohein. My second graders at Gesher asked this week, “Why not
grandparents?” I answered what I usually do, that grandparents are generally
excluded from traditional laws around mourning for immediate family members
because when these laws were written, people didn’t live as long so grandchildren
didn’t have as much time to form a strong bond they know to grieve over by the
time a grandparent passes away. But as I’ve thought more about it this week, I’m
not sure that’s right. People also had children younger, so it seems that grandchildren
and grandparents would have some time together even with lower life
expectancies.
So, I decided
to look more into it. There doesn’t seem to be a satisfying halakhic reason
that grandparents are not included in the list of immediate family members in
this week’s Torah portion or in the rules around traditional shiva practices. However,
there is precedent to believe that indeed, the bonds between grandchildren and
grandparents have been cherished and valued throughout Jewish history. On the
topic of mourning, there is a brief story in the Talmud, Moed Katan 20b, of a
man named Amemar who rent his garments and sat shiva for his grandson. The
story is used as reasoning for the halakha that mourners must stand when performing
kriyah, so the element of grandfather-grandson relationship is not dwealt upon.
It is significant though, if we as Reform Jews look at the Talmud as a source
of all traditions of the past and remember to look there when the time comes
for reconfiguring some tradition of the present.
Further, another
section of the Talmud, Kiddushin 30a, tells us that a grandparent has as much duty
to teach Judaism to their grandchildren as do parents to children. The rabbis
base this on a quote from Deuteronomy, not far from our V’Ahavta verses, that
says “You shall teach these words to your children and to your children’s
children.” The Talmud teaches, “The children of our children, we consider as our
children,” and the halakha around that is codified by both the Mishneh Torah and
the Shulchan Aruch. From this teaching, we have derived an understanding in
some Jewish circles that a marker of successful Jewish parenting is having a
Jewish grandchild.
Of course, the
relationships between grandparents and grandchildren is different that between parents
and children, but not any less important and valuable. We carry on our
grandparents’ legacies and learn so much from them. Although she never lived
there herself, my grandmother was a connection to an old world that was
destroyed and I longed to know more about. I loved when she would tell me the
stories of her own parents and their escape from Vilnius, how they spoke so
many languages and she regretted how much Yiddish she lost. When I took a
January Term Yiddish class my last semester in undergrad, I would call her
every day after class to tell her what we learned that day. Sometimes it would
jog her memories, other times she would say she didn’t remember anything from
that vocab list, and other times she would correct my pronunciation. When I
visited Vilnius the following fall, I thought of my grandmother at every turn,
the beautiful sights she would appreciate, the friendly people she would enjoy
socializing with, the pathetic excuses for memorials to our people she would
mourn over. She was not one for travel, and I know she had a lot of vicarious travel
anxiety for me while I was there, but I know when I came back she was so happy
I could bring her pictures and souvenirs of the place her parents came from. Throughout
the next year, I had dinner with her every Wednesday night and learned more
about her life, her childhood, and her years with my grandfather, who died
before I was born, than I had ever known. When I moved to NYC for rabbinical school,
it was harder to see her as much, but I would call her most Saturdays on my
walk home from shul. A half an hour was about as long as she could talk before
she tired out, and my shul was a mile from my house, so it was perfect for an
ambling walk conversation. When she died, the walk home became so lonely. I
started calling friends and using that time to catch up with others who lived
far away, but it wasn’t quite the same. She wasn’t a shul goer herself, and I don’t
think she ever quite understood my drive to be a rabbi, but she was a proud Jew
and a proud grandmother, and if she had lived to see me ordained, I think Ner Shalom
would have one more regular viewer on our livestream.
Grandchildren,
call your grandparents this Shabbat. Grandparents, call your grandchildren this
Shabbat, if they are old enough to come to the phone. If not, maybe FaceTime or
Skype your children so you can see your grandbabies and they can see you. The
time shared between grandparents and grandchildren is invaluable. May we
cherish the moments we have in these relationships, and pass on the legacies we
inherit from them. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.
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