It has been some week. The importance of the moment of the graduation of our oldest children, Eitan and Gilad, from university can be lost in the parade of classes and the pomp and circumstance.
It is truly the moment of time when they transition out of childhood - more than when they turned 21, and in many ways, far more than when they were bar-mitzvah-ed.
But this week had another transition: we closed on the sale of the home of my parents this morning.
It had been empty for a long time. It has been three years since my mother passed away - this past shabbos was the third yarzheit of my mother, Zypora Bat Shmuel Moshe v'Dvorah Leah.
When I say empty, I mean that there was no one living there. But the apartment wasn't empty. Actually, it was filled - with their belongings.
And we left it that way. It has been a busy three years, and we no longer lived in the neighborhood. And my sister now lives in Israel.
But the reality is that walking into that empty, but not-at-all-empty apartment, I thought I felt a connection to them through their things. We inherited everything my parents built a lifetime accumulating, and frankly, I didn't know what to do with all of it.
So we took into our home things that reminded me of them. Photographs - we found a picture album with pictures from their wedding that I had never seen before. My father's machzor. Too many of my mother's tzatchkes. And, of course, a painting of cupid.
It was hard to clear out that apartment. And it left me wondering - what did I really inherit?
In Hebrew, there are different words that mean "inheritance". Rabbi Jonathan Sacks had observed that there are two Hebrew words for an inheritance: nachalah and morashah. They convey different ideas. Nachalah is related to the word nachal, meaning a river, a stream. As water flows downhill, so an inheritance flows down the generations. It happens naturally. It needs no effort on our part.
However, a Morasha is different. In the Talmud Yerushalmi, in Baba Batra, we reference the following pasuk in Shemot - in a difficult gemara that Rav Aharon Lichtenstein helps to explain:
וְהֵבֵאתִ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר נָשָׂ֙אתִי֙ אֶת־יָדִ֔י לָתֵ֣ת אֹתָ֔הּ לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַעֲקֹ֑ב וְנָתַתִּ֨י אֹתָ֥הּ לָכֶ֛ם מוֹרָשָׁ֖ה אֲנִ֥י יהוה׃
I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I יהוה.”
רִבִּי יוֹחָנָן מָתִיב. וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל אֶרֶץ אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם וגו׳. אִם מַתָּנָה לָמָּה יְרוּשָׁה. וְאִם יְרוּשָׁה לָמָּה מַתָּנָה. אֶלָּא מֵאַחַר שֶׁנְּתָנָהּ לָהֶן לְשׁוּם מַתָּנָה חָזַר וּנְתָנָהּ לָהֶן לְשׁוּם יְרוּשָׁה. אָמַר רִבִּי הוֹשַׁעְיָה. כָּל־מָקוֹם שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר מוֹרָשָׁה לְשׁוֹן דִּיהָא. הָתִיבוֹן. וְהָֽכְתִיב מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִילַּת יַעֲקֹב. אָמַר. לֵית דִּיהָא סוֹגִין מִינֵּיהּ. מָן דּוּ לָעֵי הוּא מַשְׁכַּח כּוּלָּהּ.
Rebbi Joḥanan objected: “I shall bring you to your forefathers’ land, etc.” If it was a gift, why an inheritance? And if an inheritance, why a gift? But after he gave it to them as a gift, he turned around and gave it as inheritance. Rebbi Hoshaia said, anywhere one mentions מוֹרָשָה it means weariness. They objected, is it not written, “an inheritance (מוֹרָשָׁה) of the congregation of Jacob”? He said, there is no weariness greater than this. He who studies forgets everything.
Rav Aharon Lichtenstein explains here: https://www.etzion.org.il/en/talmud/seder-nezikin/massekhet-bava-batra/inheritance-and-taking-place-deceased:
- “If it is a gift, why call it an inheritance; if it is an inheritance, why call it a gift? Rather, after He gave it to them as a gift, He gave it to them again as an inheritance.”
- Rabbi Hoshaya said: "Wherever the word morasha is used, it is a vague expression.”
- Can that be so? Is it not written: "[Moshe commanded us the Torah,] an inheritance (morasha) to the congregation of Ya'akov" (Devarim 33:4)!
- He replied, ”There is none vaguer than this [initially], but whoever labors obtains it wholly.”
What the Yerushalmiis saying is that a person inherits the basics of Torah as a gift; afterwards, we must continue the mission on our own, and find the rest. Inheritance is not merely a gift from the past, but also "a vague expression" – something that is yet to come into being, something that requires development and completion.
Rabbeinu Bechaya on the same pasuk in shemot explains further:
Rabbeinu Bechaya on the same pasuk in shemot explains further:
מורשה ולא ירושה לרמוז שלא יהיו יורשים אותה לפי שעתידין היו יוצאי מצרים למות במדבר אבל יהיו מורישים אותה לבניהם ובניהם יכנסו לארץ ולא הם ולכך הזכיר לשון מורשה, וכן יש לפרש בפסוק (דברים ל״ג:ד׳) תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה ולא אמר ירושה כי היה במשמע שהתורה לא תהיה ירושה כי אם לאותו הדור שקבלוה בלבד ועל כן אמר מורשה שצריך להורישה לבניהם וכענין שכתוב (שם ו) ושננתם לבניך, כי גם הדורות העתידים חייבים הם בקיום התורה כאותם שקבלוה, ועל דעת רז"ל שם היו וכענין שכתוב (שם כט) ואת אשר איננו פה עמנו היום. והנה הבטחה זו סיים בה אני יהוה כי כן התחיל בלשון הזה ובא ולמד אני יהוה המבטיח אני יהוה המקיים.
מורשה, “an inheritance.” G’d refrains from saying ירושה. There is a difference between מורשה andירושה . The people addressed were not the ones who would personally receive the land as a heritage seeing that all those who were adults would never get there due to the sin of the spies. They would, however, bequeath their claim to it to their children, i.e. they would be מורישים. This is why the Torah used the word מורשה instead of ירושה. We need to interpret the word מורשה in Deut. 33,4 in a similar manner. Torah cannot be handed down as an inheritance as if it were a house, a field, or a business, i.e. some object merely to be passed on from father to son. Inasmuch as Torah is an inheritance it remains such only for that particular generation. which stood at Mount Sinai and had received it as an inheritance, i.e. something inalienable, not to be stolen from them. The next generation had to study Torah on its own in order that it should become an inheritance for them also. However, the children of someone who “owned” Torah are predisposed to acquire it for themselves. Hence Torah is forevermore a מורשה for such children. Parents have been commanded not only to study Torah but to train their children in studying Torah, ושננתם לבניך, (Deut. 6,7). it is a מורשה, something to be transmitted to successive generations down the ages. By the same token later generations of Jews are as duty-bound to observe the commandments of the Torah as were those who had actually received it at Sinai. According to our sages the souls of those generations had already stood at Mount Sinai at the time when G’d revealed Himself to Moses and to the people (Pesikta Zutrata Va'etchanan 5,3). This concept is spelled out in detail in Deut. 29,14 “including all those who are not present (in the flesh) on this day.” (the day Moses renewed the covenant with the generation who would enter the Holy Land). G’d concluded this promise with the words אני ה’, seeing He had commenced the paragraph (verse 2).
The message is : “I Who make a promise can be relied upon to translate it into reality.”
The message is : “I Who make a promise can be relied upon to translate it into reality.”
Rabbineu Bechaye says that a Morashah is something you can't just pass down. In the context of Torah learning, each generation has to study the Torah for themselves in order to inherit it. Parents are therefore commanded to train and teach their children: ושננתם לבניך.
A Morasha is a living heritage of learning passed from generation to generation.
And that is what I inherited from my parents.
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I now turn to Eitan and Gilad - I have a message to the both of you.
The inheritance that we have from our parents is not a material thing. It's not a possession. It's the knowledge and tradition and education that you yourself have to earn.
Your graduation marks the completion of a tremendous amount of work. Those who study other fields don't really understand the dedication necessary to complete a degree in math or engineering. The volume of work can be overwhelming.
You have chosen to learn how to create things and how to build things.
It's not a Nachalah - it doesn't just flow easily with no effort.
I have sat with each of you over the years, worked with you, done math problem sets with you, reviewed your code, and truly understand what you have accomplished so far - and understand that this is only the commencement.
In fact, one of my favorite things (and I know it's yours) is that I no longer can help either of you - you have each surpassed what I know in different areas. And you have been learning how to learn.
And this is your Morasha from your mother and me - the same as the Morasha I received from my parents.
We provided the education.
But you have worked and labored and studied to make it your own.
Congratulations on this moment, and for many more in the future.