Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Why We Are Still Here
Kasamba put the wrong words to a children’s Purim song on her blog and after my initial chuckle I immediately began to sing it in my head the right way (I know you did too!). It brought a huge smile to my face remembering how cute my kids were when they sang that when they were 3 and 4 even though at the time I am certain that I was quite sick of hearing it the by the 4,000th rendition.
Anyway it got me thinking (no small feat) about how nice it is that wherever we are on this great planet, our kids are all learning the same things and doing the same things in school. This is what we call mesorah and it is the cornerstone of our survival. So when you say to yourself “I paid HOW MUCH for my kid to learn that song?” remember it is not just a song that he is learning but a tradition that links us with all of the previous generations.
Several years ago, after returning from a trip to Yahupitsville I was telling a non-jewish co-worker how happy I was that the place had a shul that I could go to. She asked how I was able to follow the services if I had never been there before. She was amazed when I told her that every Orthodox synagogue in the world has the same services (I know there are some differences) recited pretty much the same way as they have been for close to two thousand years (I was going with the AK”H instituting Shemonah Esrei) . I was equally amazed at the lack of any formal process or procedure in her church, basically the pastor picks a few hymns to sing and the core part of the service is his sermon. Of course, we all know Rabbi’s who think that the core part of the davening in their shul is his drasha, someone should point out to them that they have the wrong religion.
And therein lays the fundamental problem with the rest of the world, ish kol hayashar b’einav ya’asseh. All you have to do is whatever you (or someone else) decides needs to be done. It can be one thing today and the complete opposite tomorrow. Moral Authority is based on human reasoning and the concept of tradition is completely foreign.
All that from a parody of a kids Purim song that is still going around in my head, kind of like “It’s A Small World After All” stays with you for a month after you’ve been to Disneyworld (now that’s in your head too) and that’s not a bad thing after all.
