From Generation to Generation... and Exciting Baby News from Kavana!
[Yes, you'll find exciting baby news at the bottom of this message!]
This week's Torah portion, Parashat Bo, tells the story of the Israelites preparing to leave Egypt. It chronicles the final three plagues, commands the paschal sacrifice (a lamb per household), and details how blood is to be smeared on the Israelites' doorposts.
In between these familiar narrative points, the Torah returns over and over again to the theme of generational continuity, to a concern about how future generations -- the descendants of the generation of the Exodus -- will understand that moment. It is a given to the author of the text that future generations will desire to know their history, inquiring about it, and that it will always be obligatory upon parents to offer them answers about the meaning of the tradition. Here are several examples:
“You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants. And when you enter the land that Adonai will give you, as promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’" (Exodus 12:24-27)
"And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I went free from Egypt.’" (Exodus 13:8)
"And when, in time to come, a child of yours asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall reply, ‘It was with a mighty hand that Adonai brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage." (Exodus 13:14)
I have written about these lines before. They are famous in that they give rise to the tradition of the Four Children at the seder, each of whom the parent is obligated to instruct differently, according to the child's own inclinations and ability to take in information.
This year, as I return to the text of Parashat Bo, the theme of generational continuity -- how we pass on what it means to be part of the Jewish people from parents to children, and how each subsequent generation has to seek and find its own answers to these essential identity questions -- is one that feels big and relevant in some new ways.
So many conversations with members of this community in the 100+ days since Oct 7th have revolved around what it means to be Jewish in this moment. How do we understand and contextualize the horrific events that have transpired and are still unfolding in Israel/Palestine? What are their implications for our perceptions and self-understanding about who we are as Jews? When a child comes to us, asking (in the words of the parasha) "What does all this mean?," how will we answer and help the next generation to make sense of this moment?
Ezra Klein began one episode of his podcast with a summary of something I've been thinking lots about over these months, and that I'm sure many of us feel and understand intuitively: that generational patterns necessarily inform how we see the world, which in turn leads us to make sense of our present moment in Jewish history in very different ways. Here's a transcript of this part of his conversation, which feels like helpful context to me (and if you prefer to hear it in his own voice, I invite you to click here and listen to the first 7 minutes or so of this episode).
"Something we're seeing in the politics in America around Israel right now, I think it reflects three generations with very different lived experiences of what Israel is.
You've got older Americans - say, Joe Biden - who saw Israel as the haven for the Jews, and who also saw Israel when it was weak and small, when it really could've been wiped off the map by its neighbors. They have a lived sense of Israel's impossibility and its vulnerability, and the dangers of the neighborhood which it's in. Their views of Israel formed around the Israel of the Six Day War in 1967, when its neighbors massed to try to strangle Israel when it was young, or the Yom Kippur War in 1973, where they surprise-attacked Israel fifty years ago.
Then there's the next generation -- my generation, I think -- and I think of us as this straddle generation. We only ever knew a strong Israel, an Israel that was undoubtedly the strongest country in the region, a nuclear Israel, an Israel backed by America's unwavering military and political support. That wasn't always true, at least not to the extent now. In his great book, The Much Too Promised Land, Aaron David Miller points out that before the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel ranked 24th in Foreign Aid from the US. Within a few years of that war, it ranked 1st, as it typically has since. We also knew an Israel that was an occupying force, a country that could and did impose its will on Palestinians. And I don't want to be euphemistic about this: an Israel in which Palestinians were an oppressed class, where their lives and security and freedom were worth less. But we also knew an Israel that had a strong peace movement, where the moral horror of that occupation was widely recognized, we knew an Israel where the leaders were trying, imperfectly, but seriously and continuously, to become something better, to become something different, to become, in the eyes of the world, what Israel was in its own eyes: a Jewish state, but a humane and moral one. And then, as Yossi Klein Halevi described on the show recently, that peace movement collapsed. The why of this is no mystery: the second intifada, the endless suicide bombings were a trauma Israel still has not recovered from. And they posed a horrible question, to which the left, both in Israel and in America, had no real answer then or now.
If your story of all this is simplistic, if it is just that Israel wanted this, it is wrong. But, what happened then is Israel moved right, and further right, and further right. Extremists, once on the margin of Israeli politics and society, became cabinet ministers and coalition members; the settlers in the West Bank ran wild, functionally annexing more and more territory, sometimes violently, territory that was meant to be returned to Palestinians, and doing so with the backing of the Israeli state, doing so in a way that made a two state solution look less and less possible. Israel withdrew from Gaza, and when Hamas took control, they blockaded Gaza, leaving Gazans to misery, to poverty. Israel stopped trying to become something other than an occupier nation, it became deeply illiberal, it settled into a strategy of security through subjugation, and many in its government openly desired expansion through expulsion.
And so now you have this generation, the one coming of age now, the one that has only known this Israel, Netanyahu's Israel, Ben Gvir's Israel. I've been thinking a lot about the panic in the Jewish community, what gets short-handed as antisemitism on campus -- and there is antisemitism on campus, and on the left, and on the right -- always has been. But to read only the most antisemitic signs in a rally, to hear only the antisemitic chants, can also obscure what else is happening there. If it's just antisemitism, then at least it is simple: they just hate the Jews, they hate us, they always have, they always will. But a lot of what is happening at these rallies is not just antisemitism. A lot of it is a generation that has only known Israel as a strong nation oppressing a weak people. They never knew a weak Israel. They never knew an Israel whose leaders sought peace, showed up to negotiate deals, who wanted something better. And I am not unsympathetic to the Israeli narrative here; I believe large parts of it...
There was this Pew study in 2022 that I find really telling. It found that 69% of Americans over age 65 had a favorable view of Israel. But among Americans between ages 18 and 29, young Americans, 56% had an unfavorable view. As it happens, American politics is dominated right now by people over 65. But it won't be forever..."
Parashat Bo reminds us that collectively, we have a role as a link in a generational chain of transmission of our sacred story of who we are and where we've been. And I find Klein's generational lens to be a very helpful one for understanding what our multi-generational Jewish community is seeing and feeling right now, in this moment. Today, we are equally wrestling to make sense of the messages we have received from previous generations, and our own life experiences, and the answers that we hope to convey to the next generation. This is true when we think about how we share our most foundational stories (like the story of the Exodus, and our ancient past), and also when we consider the context of current event from our recent past, the history of the Jewish people over the last century. It behooves us to reflect on all of this.
And, of course, this week's parasha is not the only place we learn of how seriously Judaism takes this notion of conveyance of values, story, and identity from one generation to the next. Every time we gather for prayer, we recite this in the words of Shema and V'ahavta (Deut. 6:6-7): "And these words which I command you on this day shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them to your children..." We also sing "L'dor va'Dor" - of our obligation to tell our sacred story and our relationship with God "from generation to generation."
The Talmud contains a baraita, a teaching (Kiddushin 29a:10), that deals with the question of parental obligations. It reads:
"A father is obligated with regard to his son to circumcise him, and to redeem him (if he is a firstborn), and to teach him Torah, and to marry him to a woman, and to teach him a trade. And some say: also to teach him to swim."
Admittedly, we might word a statement like this a little differently today (or at very least, our assumptions about gender and sexuality might change the framing here), but the basic ideas conveyed through this text still feels incredibly relevant to me. That is, that it's the obligation of Jewish parents to connect their children with Jewish identity through ritual and learning, to help them find love and learn practical life skills, and to them to swim... both physically (safety, first and foremost) and also metaphorically (how to survive and keep your head above water in this difficult world).
Perhaps this theme of generational transmission -- of parents and children, of the lessons that each of us imbibes and also conveys as we move through life -- has especially jumped out at me this week because, over the last few weeks, a number of Kavana partners have lost their parents. My heart especially goes out to Sharon, Craig, Sprout, and Sarah, for whom these losses are particularly fresh. I hope that as you think about the chain of transmission, naming the lessons you each inherited from your parents, will be a way of cementing their memories as a source of blessing in your lives!
And, with the same theme swirling as backdrop, I'm especially excited to be able to share the wonderful news that this week, our community welcomed a new baby into the world. Mazel tov to our beloved Rabbi Jay LeVine and Rabbi Laura Rumpf on the arrival of their new little one this week!! They write:
"We're delighted to welcome baby girl Nava Rae LeVine, born Tuesday, January 16th. Parents, baby and big brother are healthy and excited. We'll have a welcome ritual for her virtually on the evening of February 3rd, details and zoom link to come!"
Rabbi Jay and Laura are already wonderful parents to Ami, and now -- with the arrival of another child -- their capacity to give, to teach, to love, to instruct and to answer questions only grows.
I learned recently that babies born now -- as well as children born since 2010 -- are part of a new generation: Gen Alpha. Of course, that newest generation's identity is still being molded, and we will have to wait a few years to learn how they will make sense of the world, of their history and of contemporary realities, how they will come to view Israel and Judaism, what questions they will ask of their parents, and how the answers that we give them will land. Something to look forward to, for sure!
This Shabbat, as Jews everywhere read Parashat Bo, I invite you to spend some time reflecting on the ways in which you are a link in the chain of generational transmission. What Jewish identity did you inherit -- core beliefs and values, stories, answers to questions? How is your identity different from that of your parents' generation? What, if anything, is shifting for you in this particular moment? What do you want to be sure that the next generation will hear you convey and teach about "what all of this means"?
Wishing a mazel tov to Rabbis Jay and Laura; a life of Torah (learning), chuppah (love), and ma'asim tovim (good deeds) to their new little one; and a Shabbat shalom to each of you,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
