We are born, so the Mishnah says, into the world against our will. No one consulted with us before our arrival. And we were born into a world that had already benefited and suffered because of the choices that other people had already made for us. Where our parents lived, their income and compatibility, whether we had a roof over our heads, beds to sleep in at night, and a full stomach every evening were all-important questions that we never chose for ourselves.
The idea that our world and our options are already shaped and constrained by the decisions that others have made runs counter to the American insistence that a rugged individual can control his or her own destiny. While there is certainly a great deal that individual initiative can accomplish, there is also a larger context that is not of our own doing. We are dependent on the foresight of those who have preceded us, just as our children will face the consequences of the choices we make-or postpone-today.
Today's Torah portion, Terumah, portrays the interconnection of the generations in a vivid way. As the Israelites are wandering through the wilderness of Sinai, God instructs them to gather material to build the Mishkan (tabernacle). Among the ingredients are to be found: "gold, and silver, and brass, and blue and purple and scarlet yarn, and fine linen and goats' hair, and skins of rams dyed red, and skins of seals, and acacia wood."
Each of these supplies is subjected to rabbinic scrutiny, but none evokes such surprise as the atzei shittim, the acacia wood.
In his commentary, Rashi asks, "From where did they obtain this in the wilderness?" After all, there are no acacia trees in the desert! How could God expect the Israelites to have access to this kind of lumber? Rashi then quotes an answer from Midrash Tanhuma (4th Century Israel): "Rabbi Tanhuma explained, 'Our father Jacob foresaw by means of the Holy Spirit that Israel was destined to build a tabernacle in the wilderness; so he brought cedars to Egypt and planted them and commanded his children to take them with them when they would leave Egypt."
The kind of foresight that our ancestor Jacob showed, according to this answer, is one of anticipating the needs of a future generation and then going out of his way to provide for those needs. He had no requirement from acacia wood, nor did he have any benefit from them. To the contrary, it must have seemed an unnecessary burden to his contemporaries. Yet Jacob knew that his descendants would need it, so he went out of his way to provide for them. Such foresight is so treasured that the Midrash attributes it to divine inspiration (Ruach ha-Kodesh)!
In our own age, two parallels seem clear: if our generation does not provide for the care of the planet and all its inhabitants, then we will call into question the survivability of human life on the earth. Like Jacob, we must measure our actions and our choices by their consequences seven generations hence-not by the yardstick of short-term comfort but of long-term habitability. Jacob planted the trees that his children would need 400 years later. How will our choices shape our descendants lives in 400 years? Will our choices today leave them with greater bounty and freedom, or with constricted possibilities and compromised health?
Judaism provides the second forum where foresight is needed. Our children can only inherit what we ourselves possess. If we do not plant trees of living Jewish experience and passion now, they will not have the memories, values, or guidance to fall back on later in life. Our own Jewish fidelity today will establish the Jewish possibilities of tomorrow. As with our ancestor Jacob, we too must rely on the Ruach ha-Kodesh as a source of insight, but then must translate that insight into action.
Tomorrow begins the moment today is finished. And the work we do today will shape our children's tomorrows.
Have you checked the latest forecast?
Shabbat Shalom!