A father once told me that his young son came to him and said, “Pa, I have a date Saturday night.” “Good,” says the father. “Who’s going to stand in the way? A young man has a date, he has a date.”
“But I have problems,” says the son. “I ran out of my allowance. Maybe you could kind of, you know, advance me a little bit of next week’s allowance?”
“How much?”
“Well Pa, today you take out a girl, you need $200.”
Anyway, the father advances the son on his allowance. But it’s not enough. “Pa,” says the son, “today you can’t take a girl on the bus or the subway, and you can’t walk on the street... so can I borrow the car?”
“Sure. Take the car,” says the father.
“Pa, just one more thing. That new sports jacket you bought,” he says, “I spotted it and it’s a real beauty. Dad, I’ll look like a smash. Can I wear it?”
“Sure, sure take the sports jacket, take the car. Here’s $200.” And as the son is leaving, the father says to him, “Have a good time, son.”
And the kid turns around and says, “Pa, don’t tell me what to do.”
Often, we encounter a “generation gap”—parents and children in conflict with each other because they hold different worldviews and measure their lives against different value systems; or because they have emotional issues with each other.
At times, the mistrust is reciprocal. If you will talk to the son or daughter, he or she is embarrassed with their father. Nor can the father gaze at his son’s behavior and take pride in the fact that he is his son.
In its less severe forms, it might be one-sided: the parents might be proud of their children’s achievements, while the children scorn the “primitiveness” and “backwardness” of their parents. Mark Twain quipped: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
Alternatively, the children might revere their parents, while their parents are disappointed in their children’s behavior.
Sometimes, a son or daughter may take deep pride in a father, but the father is pained by the lifestyle of his kin. Or conversely, a child is embarrassed by his old man; but the father is so proud of his child!
So the Torah in this week portion Toldot is telling us that, in the case of the first two generations of Jews, there was no “gap”: Isaac had no reservations about being “the son of Abraham,” while Abraham no less readily identified himself as the father of Isaac. Despite the fact that they embodied two very different approaches to life, Isaac sensed that everything he is and has derived from Abraham, while Abraham saw in Isaac the fulfillment and realization of his deepest self.
Isaac was super proud to walk around and say: look who my father is. He loved “showing off” that he is Yitzchak he is Abraham’s son. He could not be prouder of the fact of who is the father is.
And Abraham? He could not stop kvelling from the fact that a boy like Isaac was his son. “Abraham fathered Isaac.” He was so deeply proud that say that he is the father of Isaac!
You know the story:
A woman once entered a deli and asked to see the kashrut certificate.
"Don't worry about it!" said the man behind the counter.
"But how do I know if it's kosher?" she asked.
The man pointed to a black-and-white photo hanging on the wall. "You see that?" he said, gesturing to the angelic face of an old man, with a long white beard, a big yarmulke on his head, engrossed in Talmud study. "That was my father!"
"Look," said the woman, "If it was the other way around - if he was behind the counter and your picture was on the wall - I wouldn't ask for the kashrut certificate."
Film critic, author and radio host Michael Medved, published this article in the New York Post:
A few weeks ago, my six-year-old daughter did something that greatly upset one of my professional colleagues. At the same time, it made her father enormously proud.
It happened when I took her to a television taping. While I answered questions, my daughter chatted with the show's associate producer, a bright, capable TV veteran I've known for nearly a decade. This producer seemed especially delighted; she fussed and cooed over Sarah's hair, ribbons, and frilly dress, then brought her colored pens, blank paper, and glasses of orange juice.
When I finished my interview, I saw that my daughter had also received a large imported chocolate bar in a gold foil wrapping. "Daddy, look what Cindy gave to me!" she said proudly. "But I didn't open it because maybe I think it's not kosher. Will you look and see and check if it's okay?"
Our children have lived all their lives in a kosher home and they know that unfamiliar products should be checked for the recognized insignia that certifies that all ingredients conform to Jewish dietary law.
My daughter was hoping against hope that I'd detect some excuse in the fine print on the wrapper that she hadn't been able to find, but the absence of any visible certification created a problem. "I'm sorry, Sarah," I said, handing it back to her after a careful search. "I just don't see any kosher mark."
My six-year-old looked crestfallen for just a moment, but quickly recovered and bravely passed the bar back to the lady who had given it to her. "Thank you," she said with a shy smile, "I'm sorry I can't eat it."
The episode might have ended here, except that Cindy felt it deserved further discussion. "I can't believe what I just saw!" she exploded and set on to berate me--and, by implication, my wife -- for destroying Sarah's sense of fun and spontaneity, encouraging compulsive behavior and contaminating our kid with fearful and superstitious ideas. She found it "scary" that the kid gave up a piece of candy she obviously relished "like some zombie follower of David Koresh."
Worst of all, Cindy believed that this sick, authoritarian emphasis on kosher minutiae would cripple my child's ability to reach decisions for herself and would make her grow up feeling different from other kids.
It's hard to believe that Cindy would have responded in the same emotional way had Sarah given up the chocolate bar for some other reason -- because it was too fattening, for example, or too high in cholesterol. It was precisely the religious basis for the sacrifice that made it seem so irrational and unwholesome.
This is one aspect of the so-called "culture war" that is seldom noted: in the same way that traditional believers are occasionally appalled by what they consider the heedless indulgence of secular America, secularists are often horrified by what they perceive as the pointless restraints and rituals of religion.
The practice of drawing distinctions -- which represents such an important focus of Jewish tradition -- seems arbitrary and threatening to many non-religious people.
I believe with all my heart that my daughter's childhood training in making such distinctions will stand her in good stead as she grows older. It seems to me a beautiful thing--not a neurotic distortion--that a little girl is able to cheerfully sacrifice the sweet taste of candy for the sake of a set of external standards.
I can think of no more valuable gift I can give my children than equipping them to resist the pressure of their peers and to fight the all-powerful adolescent instinct to go along with the crowd. A person who examines every bit of food she consumes may learn to evaluate more important aspects of behavior with similar care.
In short, I'm proud of my Sarah. There's an out-of-fashion, still useful word that can be applied to the trait she displayed.
They used to call it character.
In his diaries and talks, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880–1950), often describes the relationship and education he received from his father, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Schneersohn (1860–1920).
In one of his diaries, he shares this story. For me, it captures education.
It was the summer of 5656 [1896], and father and I were strolling in the fields of Balivka, a hamlet near Lubavitch. The grain was near to ripening, and the wheat and grass swayed gently in the breeze.
Said father to me: “See G-dliness! Every movement of each stalk and grass was included in G-d’s Primordial Thought of Creation, in G-d’s all-embracing vision of history, and is guided by divine providence toward a G-dly purpose.”
Walking, we entered the forest. Engrossed in what I had heard, excited by the softness and seriousness of Father’s words, I absentmindedly tore a leaf off a passing tree. Holding it a while in my hands, I continued my thoughtful walking, occasionally tearing small pieces of leaf and casting them to the winds.
“The Holy Ari,” said Father to me, “says that not only is every leaf on a tree a creation invested with divine life, created for a specific purpose within G‑d’s intent in creation, but also that within each and every leaf there is a spark of a soul that has descended to earth to find its correction and fulfillment.
“The Talmud,” Father continued, “rules that ‘A man is always responsible for his actions, whether awake or asleep.’ The difference between wakefulness and sleep is in the inner faculties of man, his intellect and emotions. The external faculties function equally well in sleep; only the inner faculties are confused. So, dreams present us with contradictory truths. A waking man sees the real world; a sleeping man does not. This is the deeper significance of wakefulness and sleep: when one is awake, one sees divinity; when asleep, one does not.
“Nevertheless, our sages maintain that man is always responsible for his actions, whether awake or asleep. Only this moment we have spoken of divine providence, and unthinkingly you tore off a leaf, played with it in your hands, twisting, squashing and tearing it to pieces, throwing it in all directions.
“How can one be so callous towards a creation of G‑d? This leaf was created by the Almighty towards a specific purpose and is imbued with a divine life-force. It has a body, and it has its life. In what way is the ‘I’ of this leaf inferior to yours?”
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Tom Peacock wrote...