Learning From Our Elders

Jacob comes down to Egypt, sees his grandsons, and asks, מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?

We spend so much time thinking about how older people should adjust to the needs of the younger generation - how they need to learn to communicate with younger people, to understand contemporary reality, to adjust to new realities.

Indeed Jacob needs to figure out מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?  Who are Ephraim and Menasseh, this new generation? 

But I’m going to turn the tables.  I think it behooves Ephraim and Manessah - all the men and women of the younger generations - to figure out who Jacob is, who Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah are.

In other words - rather than speak about how the older need to figure out the younger, I’m going to speak about why and how the younger need to figure out the older.

To turn to older generations and ask, mee eileh - who are these people?  

With an eye toward the patriarchs and matriarchs in the Torah, and with reference to contemporary matriarch and patriarchs, I want to suggest a few things that younger generations can learn from older generations.

The first is realism.  Idealism is a wonderful thing, imagining that the world wants you to succeed, that goodness is rewarded.  And sometimes the world wants us to succeed and sometimes goodness is rewarded.  But not always.

If you’ve lived more than a few decades, you understand that dark forces exist and that goodness is not always rewarded.

Those who lived through Nazi Germany are not shocked at the rise of anti-semitism in Europe from the right and the left.  Not shocked to see swastikas recently drawn on graves in a French cemetery, not shocked to note that rising numbers of European Jews feel unsafe on the streets.  Those who lived in Muslim countries are not shocked to see anti-semitism among Muslims.

Until recently, my rabbinic contemporaries and I, those ordained in the 1990’s, didn’t talk much about anti-semitism.  We wanted to emphasize the positive aspects of Judaism, rather than to use fear and guilt to motivate people to embrace our traditions.  And indeed we still need to teach and live and feel the beauty of Jewish life and we need to embrace more than ever the Jewish impulse to improve the world.  

But we cannot ignore reality.  Anti-semitism is growing steadily in Europe and it’s also growing in the United States.  

Related to this, the second thing younger generations can learn from older ones is perspective.

Democracy has always been challenged, Jews have always had to be mindful of anti-semitism, certain economic realities have always ebbed and flowed.  I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about social media - it has its benefits for sure, but one drawback is that it lacks perspective.  There is depth and perspective to ideas and trends that go far beyond the latest tweet or the latest Facebook argument.

Jewish tradition extends way beyond the current fad or the current crisis.  In a poignant moment in this week’s Torah reading, Jacob connects his grandsons, not only to himself, but to previous generations.  He is trying hard to instill perspective.  Sure we’re down in Egypt now, but that’s not the whole story.  Likewise Rebecca and Sarah took great pains in their respective generations to ensure continuity that would preserve perspective.

I worry that we lack depth of perspective.  It often feels that we respond to each situation as though it’s happening for the first time.  

It is helpful to be able to respond to current challenges in light of what previous generations have faced.  Not to duplicate their reactions, but at least to understand.  

We are not the first to face anti-semitism.  We are not the first to have crises of identity.  We are not the first to face personal challenges.

I remember when I was in middle school, my sisters and I were hanging out with our parents, and one of my sisters was saying that she felt a little anxious about something and my mother said to her Mazel tov and she of course asked, why are you wishing me Mazel tov on my anxiety?  And my mother said, because you’re starting to discover your yerusha, your inheritance.  And then my mom spoke, more seriously, about how her father had struggled with anxiety.  

Perspective.  We are not deposited as aliens from outer space.  There is a larger context for us as individuals, as families, as a people, as citizens of this country or that country.

I know I may sound old when I say this, but perspective matters.  History matters.  Jewish history, American history, the history of our own families.  It’s all part of perspective.

Jacob doesn’t want Ephraim and Menasheh to float untethered from their history.  When he says, לי הם lee hem - they are mine - he is connecting them to their history, he is hoping to give them perspective.

When I discuss current events with a number of our senior members on Tuesday mornings, I am enlightened by the perspective they bring.  Sometimes they will say, regarding a current challenge like anti-semitism, we’ve seen this before.  Or, more disturbingly, here is an aspect that we haven’t seen.

There’s one more thing I want to mention this morning that younger generations can learn from older generations and that is resilience.   

Maureen Nehedar, an Israel singer born in Iran, gave a beautiful concert here on Tuesday night.  Temple Israel cosponsored with SHAI.  She sang Israeli melodies, Persian melodies, all of them with her own arrangement and shared with her beautiful, soulful voice.  

During the concert, Maureen spoke about her grandfather and her grandmother.

She said that her grandfather used to sing Shira, liturgical poems changed with specific melodies, and his reflected the traditions of his native Isfahan.  She said that when he would sing these at family occasions, the rest of the family would sometimes not take him so seriously - oh, there he goes again.

But she gradually realized that these melodies were a crucial part of her heritage, a part of the way that the community gave themselves the spiritual support they needed to deal with life’s challenges and to face life optimistically.

She spoke in even greater depth about her grandmother, still alive, who has a beautiful voice, but who hardly ever sings, certainly not in public.   She recorded her grandmother’s voice and integrated into a recording of a song, a song she sang for us as part of the concert (without her grandmother’s voice, of course).  She gradually came to understand her grandmother’s talent and creativity and to honor her resilience, along with the resilience of many like her grandmother who were not able to realize their creativity and talent given the context and expectation of traditional gender family norms.

When we look at older generations and ask, Mee eileh - who are these people TRULY - and then take the opportunity to find out, gradually, over time, the many gifts they offer us in word and deed - we have the potential to transcend the immediacy of the latest news cycle, the latest personal challenge, and to achieve a broader understanding.

Our ancestors, ancient and modern, provide us with a dose of realism that offsets unbridled idealism; a sense of perspective that helps us face challenges communal and personal with the benefit of history; a model for resilience that helps us deal with life when it doesn’t fulfill our hopes and dreams.

So let’s continue to turn to one another, especially those who have lived more than we have, and ask, mee eileh?  Who are these people?  What animates them?  What can we learn from them?

If we are receptive, the answers to these questions have the potential to guide us profoundly.  

Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on December 22, 2018