‘From Generation to Generation . . .’: Teaching Judaism through the Life‐Cycle

Abstract

Summary A rabbinic teaching holds that God, the ‘Torah’ and Israel are one. That there is an organic unity between Creator and creature, or to put it in more specifically Jewish context, between God and the Family of Israel. This unity was first forged when Abraham and God sought and found each other. The discovery was marked by a covenant, binding and eternal, constantly renewed and renewable, dramatically reaffirmed with collective Israel through the revelation at Sinai. The account of that revelation and of other encounters with God as well as the history and teachings that flow from them is the content of the ‘Torah’. Thus ‘Torah’ is an inseparable part of the relationship and its human purpose is that Israel be collectively and individually ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’. Moreover, it is the mandate of the Jewish people that, in partnership with God, they continue that process which began with Creation until the Kingdom of God is built and perfected here on earth.