Jewish Continuity

 Jewish Continuity

What good was it if God blessed Abraham and Sarah "with all things" if they had no one to pass their spiritual inheritance down to? You could say they faced the first ever crisis of Jewish continuity. In last week's parsha we saw they had lost hope in ever having an heir, notwithstanding God's promise, "to make of them a great nation." Then, after he is nearly sacrificed on the altar, their prodigal son Isaac shows little interest in marrying or starting a family of his own. Perhaps part of the problem was that his parents forbade him from taking a wife from amongst the local Canaanite maidens, like his half-brother Ishmael did, and there were no Yiddeshe maidlach in the area. In sending his servant Eliezer abroad to find a wife for his scholarly homebody of a son Isaac, Abraham in effect created the world's first concierge dating service!
The Jewish community is as concerned today about the Jewish future as Abraham and worries about the same challenge:  how do you make a compelling argument for the value of particularism and tribalism in today's increasingly universal and pluralistic world?  Are these values, in fact, mutually exclusive?
Instead of answering this question directly I'll invite you to join me for the 25th Anniversary of Lou Balcher's YJLC, Young Jewish Leadership Concepts, at 5:30PM Sunday afternoon, December 11th, downtown at Congregation Mikve Israel. We can discuss the relative importance of our enduring Jewish values directly with GenY.

Yesterday our synagogue hosted all the congregational Rabbis and Jewish educators from the counties on both sides of the Delaware for an exclusive lecture and discussion (and bagel brunch) with Dr. David Bryfman, a Jewish internet maven. He did not just come to promote J-Date. Rather we talked about bringing virtual resources into the classroom, and sharing more values-laden Torah online. We'll be exploring the quickly changing ways we can engage our children and grandchildren in Talmud Torah and Jewish living at services this Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin

By the way...Care to guess the two most common queries on JewishLearning.Com? First, how do I mourn for and bury my loved one in a traditionally respectful way? That's actually another dilemma Abraham faces in Chayyei Sarah, and he buys a cave in Hebron called Marat HaMachpelah. What's the second most asked online Jewish question? The best recipe for hummus!