One More Whirl Through the Torah

After the intense focus of the two months of Elul and Tishrei, followed by the ebullience and even catharsis of Simchat Torah, we started all over again from the beginning of our family saga with reading about the creation of the world. I have been thinking and studying a great deal the foundational myths we read in Genesis and the narrative that will follow in subsequent books of the Torah. Having studied in recent years Richard Elliott Friedman’s The Exodus, followed by other books in the same vein – including the draft of an upcoming book by my dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Jonathan Cohen, who wonders what the meaning of our rituals and liturgy would be if the entire Torah is fictitious. Along these lines, I am disappointed that a Hadar class today on how real the Exodus was has been cancelled.

What do I personally believe? The stories in the narrative portion of our Torah were passed down through generations orally before they were ever gathered together and written down. Necessarily, as people will do, especially those trying to teach values to their children while at the same time impressing them with the feats of their ancestors, these stories get embroidered. But I believe that the underlying core is the genuine history of our forefathers, colorfully embellished, but telling us our actual background.

My second husband was a Kohen, and he used to refer charmingly to “Uncle Moses”. At one point, one of the couples in our Havurah made a presentation on the National Geographic’s “Genographic” program, which endeavored to trace migratory groups as humanity left Africa and spread around the eastern hemisphere. So my husband and I had ourselves tested. His DNA was traced to Israel a few thousand years ago, and he was very proud to receive this confirmation of his exalted status. My DNA was traced to two of the three original Jewish mothers, which verified my own gut feeling about my personal history. I have occasional flashes of ancestral memory of literally standing at Sinai, and I believe that there is an unbroken chain back to those days from where I stand today. We both treated our stories and the migratory history revealed to us with great reverence.

As we read through the stories in Genesis once again, I revisit thoughts that I have had in previous years, make new discoveries, have new insights provided to me by people with whom I study, and in general discover that I am learning and exploring more broadly and deeply each successive year that we read these old, well-loved tales. Just this year, it occurred to me for the first time that Abraham was circumcised only after Ishmael had already been born, so that Isaac truly was the first son born into the covenant, first one born of a Jewish father. Why have I never noticed that before?

So let me put these two questions to you: What is new and fresh to you this year as we make our way through the deceptively familiar stories of Genesis yet again? AND what is the relevance to your own life and relationships within your own family of these stories that are so steeped in human emotion and the vicissitudes of human nature?