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