This past summer, my vegetable garden at home truly came into its own! My husband Brian and I finally discovered the wonders of organic fertilizer as well as watering regularly. We harvested so many cucumbers that we learned about pickling! We had so many tomatoes that we were eating Caprese Salad as an appetizer for every meal. But most incredible was gardening with Caleb. I very much enjoyed watching my son harvest the veggies, get angered when the squirrels ate our strawberries, while weeding and watering. In so many ways, this is our Jewish story, planting seeds and tilling and tending our gardens.
It all began long ago, with Abraham! As a midrash teaches, Abraham foresaw the future. One day his family would travel down to Egypt, endure centuries of enslavement, and finally achieve redemption. His descendants would want to build a Mishkan, a tabernacle for God and they would need Acacia wood. To help fulfill this vision, Abraham planted seeds near his tent in Beersheva. It was Abraham’s grandson Jacob who carried forth after him. On his way down to Egypt, Jacob stopped at Beersheva, uprooted the small trees, and later replanted them in the wilderness. When the Israelite people, generations later, were ready to build their tabernacle for God, they had an abundant supply of Acacia wood, for their ancestors had planted the seeds.[i]
This story perfectly describes a phrase that many of you know! We call it l’dor va’dor. From generation to generation. We are part of a long line of tradition going all the way back to our spiritual ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. We stand upon their shoulders, and all of whom came before us. Our ancestors serve as the foundation, yet we stand on top. Unfortunately, sometimes we forget that we aren’t the last generation. There will be those who follow after us.
One person whose job is to focus on the future is Ari Wallach, a self-described Futurist. Ari believes that too often we are stuck in a short-term mindset. Instead, we should follow the principles of what he calls longpath. As he writes, “Longpath is a mindset, a way of being… taking a view from thirty thousand feet in the sky and thirty thousand years into the past and the future. Longpath reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and that while our own time is finite, we need to become the great ancestors our descendants need us to be.”[ii]
Ari is the son of a Polish refugee who escaped the ghetto, lost most of his family during the Holocaust, and went on to become a commander of the resistance. Ari’s work on longpath is deeply impacted by his Jewish identity, and by his father’s lived experience, including his father’s mantra, “The future really started yesterday.”[iii]
Our Jewish tradition links past to future, one long path, summed up by words we will hear later tonight, “Adonai, Adonai – God compassionate, gracious, endlessly patient, loving, and true; showing mercy to the thousandth generation...”[iv] Our Jewish community, spans millennia, a thousand generations! That is truly l’dor va’dor! As the latest generation, it’s our responsibility to shift our focus from today’s worries towards the longpath. As Ari Wallach reminds us, our descendants need us to plant trees that will bear fruit not just tomorrow, but for a thousand generations to come.
This
reminds me of a beautiful story about a group of travelers who were stranded in
the desert. For days, these travelers were
without any food or water before they suddenly came upon an oasis. They rested beneath a fruit tree, drank water
from a stream, and ate much of the fruit.
When it was time to leave, they wondered how to repay the many gifts
that the oasis had given them. They
decided to take some water in their canteens, pack some earth in their bags,
and grab some seeds from the fruit. As
they continued their journey, they paused now and then to take some of the rich
earth, plant some seeds, water the plantings, so that there would be new oases
for the travelers that followed.[v]
Those
wanderers were incredibly lucky to find that oasis. What a miracle to stumble upon this place to rest
and renew. What’s most remarkable is
that they decided to pay this gift forward; to share their blessings with
others. They became stewards of the
land, providing new places of refuge for future wanderers of the desert.
The
journalist and author Bina Venkataraman believes that it is a human need to
keep our name alive, perhaps on a plaque on a park bench or building. She argues that this object, a very worthy
gift, can end up becoming static, an isolated fixture in the world. Instead, she imagines each of us leaving
behind “an heirloom.” An heirloom is
something that can grow and can be stewarded by later generations.[vi]
Over the
last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about a steward in our community, Agi
Rado, who left us with an heirloom. Many
of you knew Agi, a fierce personality, who was born in Budapest and was the
only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. Agi later became a world-renowned concert
pianist and teacher of musicians. After
Agi’s passing, we learned that she had left our congregation a significant gift
to be used for Holocaust, Jewish, and Musical programming. Two weeks ago, we gathered for our inaugural
program, where we honored Agi’s legacy with an incredibly moving and
spiritually uplifting Selichot service led by Michelle Citrin. Our congregation would not have been able to
join together that evening without Agi’s gift.
Her heirloom enables us to gather far into the future for vibrant
Jewish, musical, and Holocaust related activities.
Not all
of us are able to leave behind such a gift.
But each one of us has talents, passions, and riches to share with
future generations. The desert wanders
didn’t have much, but they had their hearts and hands to steward future
sanctuaries in the wilderness. Agi
didn’t need her name on our building; she did want to better her
community. Each of us has an heirloom, a
gift to share today and in the future. What
is the heirloom you wish to leave behind?
How can you help steward our community and our world?
As public
philosopher Roman Krznaric teaches, “We are inheritors of extraordinary
legacies from the past – from those who planted the first seeds, built the
cities where we now live, and made the medical discoveries we benefit
from. But alongside the good ancestors
are the ‘bad ancestors’, such as those who bequeathed us colonial and
slavery-era racism and prejudice that deeply permeate today’s criminal justice
systems. This raises the question of
what legacies we will leave to future generations: how do you want to be
remembered by posterity?”[vii]
One group
in our congregation that is already thinking about their legacy is our
teens. Our teens recognized that more
and more people in our community are gender non-conforming or non-binary. There are those who do not feel comfortable
using the restroom while in our spiritual home. It was our teens who took the initiative
and pushed us forward towards a vision of creating All Gender Restrooms.
As author
Bina Venkataraman teaches “most of us won’t act…unless we can vividly imagine
the future.”[viii] She calls this imaginative empathy. At a personal level, we can do this work by
writing letters to our future selves, our future descendants or by imagining
together what our world and our synagogue could become.
Our teens began to envision the future, we too need to follow their example as we reflect upon the type of ancestors we wish to become. Will we let racism and hatred fester, or will we prune back the weeds of intolerance? Will we standby as our planet is destroyed or will we plant seeds of climate activism? Will we watch as fascism continues to rise, or will we set down roots for a stronger democracy? Will we let our Tree of Life topple, or will we help water and sustain our Jewish community far into the future?
One
person who reflects upon her legacy is Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman, a writer,
rabbi, and climate activist in Boston.
Rabbi Friedman shares that from an early age the planet was her first
love. “I want to be an environmental
activist when I grow up,” she told her third grade class. After decades of false starts, she found her
momentum as a climate activist in her mid-30’s.
She spent four years juggling rabbinic jobs with risking arrest,
organizing campaigns, and leading songs at marches. But having a baby, stopped all of that
midstride. When her friends travelled to
Washington, DC a few months ago to join a climate protest in solidarity with
indigenous nations, Shoshana was heading to her son’s preschool for pick-up. As she shares, “Having a baby in the United
States was the most radically selfish thing I have ever done. Even though systemic emissions reduction is
what matters, it’s still true that having a child will be the single biggest
contribution I make to greenhouse gases and resource extraction, and it has put
another person in the way of climate disaster.”
As Shoshana
was picking up her son that day from preschool, she saw him with his purple
backpack and black curls bouncing. “He
runs to me and in the weight of his body against mine, I feel my roots sinking
into the Earth, coming home again.
Feeling an ultimate forgiveness, not for the sins of my species, but for
my mortality and limits. Knowing that,
like my son, I am worthy of love and belonging not because I will save this
beautiful world, but because I am a part of it.”[ix]
Long ago,
Abraham and Jacob planted seeds, trees they would never see grow tall. They had a vision of what was to come; an
obligation to plant for those that would follow. For generations, our people have uttered the
phrase, l’dor va’dor. We have
proudly stood upon our ancestors’ shoulders, but now it is our time to act. We must become the great ancestors our
descendants need us to be. It’s time to
grab some seeds, some dirt, and some water, to get a shovel, and to dig.
We must build
upon our past and dream of the world we hope to create. We must become stewards of this community and
the fragile earth that surrounds us. We
must build a legacy encompassing our values, our teachings, and our vision. Tonight is Yom Kippur, a time of reflection,
and a time to look into the mirror and see yourself and to see all who follow
after you. What seeds will you
plant? What roots will you set upon this
earth? What heirloom will you leave
behind? What will be your legacy?
[i]
Rashi on Exodus 26:15. See also commentary by Rabbi Amy Newman, https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/407235?lang=en
[ii] Ari
Wallach, “The Shift in Mindset All Parents Should Try” (August 24, 2022) https://www.fatherly.com/life/longpath-excerpt-ari-wallach
[iii]
Ari Wallach, “When Judaism Considers the Long Term it Looks to the Past”
(August 15, 2022) https://www.jta.org/2022/08/15/opinion/when-judaism-considers-the-long-term-it-looks-to-the-past
[iv] Exodus
34:6-7, translation from Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur, p. 100
[v] As
told by Rabbi Sam Gordon
[vi]
Bina Venkataraman “Why You Should Think About Being a Good Ancestor – and 3
Ways to Start Doing it” (August 27, 2019) https://ideas.ted.com/why-you-should-think-about-being-a-good-ancestor-and-3-ways-to-start-doing-it/
[vii]
Roman Krznaric “Six Ways to Think Long Term” (July 12, 2020) https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/six-ways-to-think-long-term-da373b3377a4
[viii]
Bina Venkataraman “Why You Should Think About Being a Good Ancestor – and 3
Ways to Start Doing it” (August 27, 2019) https://ideas.ted.com/why-you-should-think-about-being-a-good-ancestor-and-3-ways-to-start-doing-it/
[ix]
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman, “Becoming a Mom During the Climate Crisis”
(August 31, 2022) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/becoming-mom-climate-crisis
