38 | NOVEMBER 4 • 2021 

B

eginnings are definitive 
moments. They set the 
tone, the foundation 
for what follows. The begin-
nings of the Jewish people are 
no exception. 
These portions of 
the Torah which 
we are reading 
at the moment, 
from the Book 
of Genesis, detail 
the origins of the 
Jewish nation, 
telling the events 
of our forefathers and fore-
mothers — Avraham, Yitzchak 
and Yaakov; Sarah, Rivka, 
Rachel and Leah. These are 
the formative moments of our 
faith; the lives they lived and the 
ideals they upheld brought the 
Jewish people into being, and 
the values they embodied are 
those we still live by today.
Avraham and Sarah were 
the first two to reach out and 
connect with God. In a world 
filled with paganism and idola-
try, they re-established the idea 
of monotheism, a belief in one 
God. They reached out to the 
people around them, spread 
these ideas, but, most impor-
tantly, handed them on to their 
children and grandchildren so 
that our ancestors became the 
custodians of faith in God. God 
established His covenant with 
them and their children and 
made pledges to them about the 
future blessings which awaited 
their descendants.
The founding mothers and 
fathers are the original bio-
logical ancestors of the Jewish 
people. But, it is their spiritual 
parenthood that is crucial. We 
see this from the fact that con-
verts can join Am Yisrael and 

be considered the children of 
our forefathers and foremoth-
ers even though they are not 
biologically connected. In fact, 
converts are explicitly referred 
to as sons of Avraham and 
daughters of Sarah.
So when we encounter God 
today, we do so standing on the 
shoulders of giants, continuing 
the journey of our great ances-
tors who took those cosmically 
significant first few steps. At 
one of the greatest moments 
of Jewish history, the splitting 
of the Sea of Reeds, the Jewish 
people who crossed over on 
dry land declared: “This is my 
God and I will glorify Him.
” 
(Exodus 15:2) Our sages explain 
the word “this” indicates they 
had such a degree of prophet-
ic insight that they were, in a 
manner of speaking, able to 
point to God, and perceive 
Him with a clarity that even 
the greatest prophets in later 
generations were unable to 
experience. And yet, even at this 
climax, this pinnacle of human 
spiritual achievement, the verse 
continues: “[He is] the God of 
my fathers and I will exalt Him.
”

FOUNDATION OF OUR 
ANCESTORS
Rashi paraphrases: “I am not 
the beginning of the holiness; 

rather, the holiness and His 
divinity has been established 
with me from the days of my 
fathers.
” Even in their height-
ened prophetic state, they were 
completely dependent on the 
spiritual endeavors of those who 
came before them. Everything 
rested on the foundations laid 
by their ancestors.
Rav Elya Meyer Bloch cites 
a similar example from the 
Talmud (Shabbos 30a). The 
Talmud discusses the inaugu-
ration of the Temple by King 
Solomon, and how the gates of 
the Temple would not open, no 
matter how much he prayed. 
Eventually, he invoked the merit 
of his father, King David, at 
which point they opened. 
 In building the Temple, King 
Solomon reached a level of 
greatness that even his father, 
King David, had not reached. 
Nevertheless, at such a time, he 
was reminded that his achieve-
ments were based on the merit 
of his father. And similarly, so 
much of what we have today as 
the Jewish people, so much of 
what we have achieved and who 
we are, rests on the foundations 
of the generations that came 
before us.
It is for this reason that we 
begin the Amidah, the central 
Jewish prayer, by invoking our 

ancestors: “Blessed are you 
Hashem our God and God of 
our Fathers, God of Abraham 
and the God of Isaac and the 
God of Jacob…
” We encounter 
God not on our own merits, but 
on the merits of our forebears. 
We acknowledge the spiritual 
foundations that they built, 
which have prepared the way 
for us to commune with God, 
Himself. We stand before God 
in the merit of the community 
among whom we pray, but also 
in the accumulated merit of the 
generations of Jews who came 
before us, and especially those 
who laid the foundations for 
our people, Avraham, Yitzchak 
and Yaakov; Sarah, Rivka, 
Rachel and Leah.

THEY PAVED THE WAY
Our spiritual fathers and 
mothers also did something 
else. They paved the way by 
connecting to certain key val-
ues that are central to how we 
serve Hashem and to the kind 
of people that we are today. 
And in that sense, we are also 
their spiritual children, hav-
ing received their values. The 
Mishna in Pirkei Avot says the 
world stands on three spiritu-
al principles: the learning of 
Torah, the service of God, and 
acts of lovingkindness (Pirkei 

Chief Rabbi 
Warren 
Goldstein

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Standing on 
the Shoulders 
of Giants

