A lesson from Jacob: Tradition!

Don’t follow tradition.

Okay, you should follow tradition but don’t just follow it to follow it. Unless you want to.

But why would you want to? Tradition can add joy to our lives, meaning to our lives, fun to our lives, satisfaction to our lives, connection to history and heritage. There are many reasons to follow traditions. I’m just not a fan of blindly following them,Speaking of blind, we arrive in Torah toward the end of Jacob’s life. Jacob has been renamed “Israel,” of course, and he, with dim vision, is moved and delighted to reunite with Joseph. Not only that, but he meets his grandsons as well, Ephraim and Menashe. Israel declares that these two boys will be to him like sons and he proceeds to bless them. Menashe is in place to receive the prime blessing with Ephraim seated in such a way as to receive a secondary, lesser, blessing.

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Joseph watches as his father crosses his hands preparing to give Ephraim the prime blessing. Genesis 48: 17-19 takes it from there:

When Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he thought it wrong; so he took hold of his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s.

“Not so, Father,” Joseph said to his father, “for the other is the first-born; place your right hand on his head.”

But his father objected, saying, “I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall be plentiful enough for nations.”

Israel knew the tradition but he also had a sense of what was to come, so he dropped the tradition of blessing the first-born but kept the meaning and purpose of the blessing. In a way, Israel taught us to think deeply about the purpose of what we do, the “why” of it all, and then allow the action, the tradition itself, to serve as a way to live out that meaning.

There comes a time when you work with children that just doing the tradition, just doing the action isn’t enough. Why are we giving presents? Why are we visiting grandparents for this holiday? Why do we want to make Shabbat different? Why do we have to just eat matzah? Children are going to ask, sometimes demand, an answer to why they are doing this or that. And the answer, “Because it’s what we do,” isn’t going to be very satisfying for long.

Judaism has always struggled with doing tradition because “it’s what we do.” Oceans of ink have been spilt to teach the deeper, more satisfying meaning. When done well, we take a moment to explain as we do.

The Pesach seder does this very well. But other holidays need a little more effort. Parents and grandparents might have to do a little research to help children tap into the deeper meaning. When you share the “why” of a tradition along with the meaning, that will be a tradition that uplifts and endures.

Now, of course, later in the Torah the Israelites will say, upon receiving the Torah, “We will do and we will understand.” This has always meant that sometimes you just have to do the tradition because meaning comes with repetition. You have to give it a try.

Why do we eat a braided egg bread every Shabbat? Who knows? But have a challah every Friday night and you’ve got a tradition that carries a powerful heritage-connecting sense memory.

All I’m saying is that there are traditions that stand on their own, there are traditions that deserve some explanation and there are some traditions that just don’t work anymore. Israel knew that when he modified how one blesses the children. He kept the blessing but dropped the old first-born primacy thing. We should do that, too. Don’t ditch traditions just because you don’t understand them. Go ask! But don’t blindly follow things just because somebody told you to. Engage traditions. Use them for all the wonderful things they can bring to your family. PJC

Rabbi Larry Freedman is the director of the Joint Jewish Education Program. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.