The document discusses the role of families in passing down religious traditions from generation to generation. It covers several topics: the importance of parents teaching children about God's expectations; the requirement for children to honor their parents; and inheriting spiritual and material possessions from one's ancestors in order to carry on religious traditions. The overarching message is that sustaining faith over time depends on families successfully transmitting religious knowledge and practices between generations.

1. From Generation to Generation
Introduction
We are today completing our study of the mitzvot - God’s guidance for
good living. We have looked closelyat Biblical text this past year. We have
paid attention to how these words may have had certain meanings for
people in ancient times. We have studied their possible meanings for us.
And, we have explored the deepest meanings that might underlie the text
eternally. I hope we have learned and retained much of this Divine wisdom
- to help us live our lives with love, justice, compassion, and righteousness,
in close relationship with God and others.
In this study, we’ve examined the means by which these words came to us
- the role of Divine revelation, their transmission to us by prophets,
teachers, and sages, and the understanding that arises from ongoing study
and discussionby ordinary, faithful people such as ourselves.
Our last sessiontoday will be focused onthe role of the family in teaching
about, and then passing on from generation to generation, the vital
importance of relationship with God and living true to God’s expectations.
Today’s mitzvot relate, in part, to the formation and maintenance of the
family. They also relate to the health and wellbeing of the family. And, they
relate, as we have noted, to the fundamental role the family plays -
following on to roles played in the past by priests and prophets - in keeping
God’s Way alive over time.

2. If parents do not teach and expect their children to learn and live as God
expects, it is far less likely that they will. If children do not honor and
respect their parents, especially in their role of conveying relationship with,
and expectations of, God, it is far less likely that they will know and honor
God and others. Unless family is preserved,at least in fundamental
respects, the goal of achieving these goals becomesthat much more
difficult.
The mitzvot push us hard to recognize that, while there are many ways to
construct strong and effective family, the failure to do so altogether or at
least effectivelymakes precarious the perpetuation of our faith and
undermines God’s expectations of us.
Who will plant and nurture faith and knowledge of God’s Way in our
children, if not the family? Government? T.V.? Our culture? Even clergy or
teachers, acting without strong support from parents, cannot do it, or do it
particularly well. Some will indeed find their way to God without proper
rearing. And some will lose their way, even after properrearing. Yet, as
we’ll study today, God calls out for help and partnership with families.
I say this fully mindful of difficulties families have. Despite our bestefforts,
things don’t always turn out well. There’s oftenpain and less success than
we seek or actually deserve. I believe that God knows this and is simply
guiding us on the right path of understanding and the hope that we try with
sincerity.
Interestingly, these mitzvot leave open much of the details about the
substantive details of family life - how preciselyto rear children, how we
love our spouses, and so forth. We do get guidance in these areas from

3. other mitzvot, as we have learned from our study. But we remain largely
free to choose how to build family. We are given a framework; we are
shown principles; and, mostly, we are told how important the enterprise of
family must be in our lives.
I. There are a few dozen mitzvot regarding marriage - the manner of
marriage and divorce, those who may marry, matters of relations
outside of marriage and other prohibited relations. While I will list all of
these mitzvot below for reference, we will only have time to discuss
them generally, and only a few in greater detail.
A. Basic Rules of Marriage - I-II.Deuteronomy24:1-2, Deuteronomy23:18
B. Life Within Marriage - III-VII.Deuteronomy24:5; Leviticus 18:19,20,
Numbers 5:12
C. Who May Marry - VIII-XXXI.Leviticus 18:6, 8-18; Deuteronomy22:24,
23:2-3,24:4, 25:5,9
D. Other Prohibited Relations - XXXII-XXXVI. Leviticus 18:7, 14, 22-23
E. Special Concerns for Womenin Marriage - XXXVII-XLII.Deuteronomy
21:11-14,22:29;Exodus 21:8,10, 22:15-16
F. Divorce - XLIII-XLV.Deuteronomy24:1,22:19
G. Essentially, these mitzvot are largely what we would expect to see in a
list of traditional requirements for marriage and the conduct of marriage.
There is a special concernwithin them about sharing faith, being faithful,
and living a life in sync with God’s expectations. But, as noted above, there

4. is little detail prescribedabout the nature of the love, the specifics of most
marital decisions, and so forth. Further, while there appears to be an
orientation against the breaking up of marriage, there’s a fairly liberal
permissiveness about the granting of divorce.
A few questions arise:
1. Do you think the balance I’ve just describedis what you would have
expected from the Bible as to marriage? If so, why? If not, why not?
2. What is mostimportant about marriage to sustaining faith and
relationship with God?
3. What do you think explains the fairly liberal tolerance of divorce in the
Bible? Yet, we live in an era of an apparent weakening in the institution of
marriage in our culture. Are we doing something wrong? What could or
should be done to strengthen this institution?
(Discussion)
II. Parenting and the Duties Owed Parents

5. A. XLVI-XLVII.Genesis 1:28,17:10.Let’s read and discuss Genesis 1:28.
What does the requirement to be fruitful and multiply mean, and why is
it important?
(On one level, it means to have children. This could be what it seems on
the surface. It could also mean that we are to make numerous those by
whom God’s instruction and sovereigntywill be spread throughout the
world. We are perpetuating not only humankind but also more specificallya
species that is, in effect, a people of God.
Further, it’s essential for human survival.
Also, we benefit and learn from the experience of having children.
Does this mitzvah only speak to the bearing of children? I think not. At a
deeperlevel, it may mean to multiply and increase the exposure and
acceptance of children (or, more broadly, the next generation and even the
community as a whole) to God’s word and Way. At an even deeperlevel,
one could conclude that when one uses one’s dominion in a fruitful manner
that multiplies God’s presence in the world and others’ acceptance of God’s
Way, one fulfills this mitzvah. This fits neatly with our overall mission to be
a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.)
B. XLVIII-LI.Exodus 20:12;Leviticus 19:3; Exodus 21:15,17. Let’s focus on
the first two mitzvot. What does it mean that children must honor their
parents and hold them in awe? What does it mean that one’s days will be
lengthened upon the land if one does so?

6. (Traditionally, the sages say that these mitzvot require that we provide
joyfully for the needs and support of our parents. We honor God by
honoring our parents. We pay respect to our parents for teaching and
providing for us as children. We rememberthe warmth and the love, the
food,the shelter, and the teaching and the upbringing. We honor them, too,
as we would want our own children to honor us. As we will emphasize a lot
today, through this cross-generational exercise of memory and duty, we
extend relationship with God from generation to generation.
Isn’t this largely manifested when our parents teach us of God and God’s
expectations and when they help us build our own relationship with God? It
is this task - teaching to live in God’s way - which God places first for
parents. And it is in the fulfillment of this task that God expects from
children the deepest honor - not only through a profound and personal
respect forparents but also in a living out of the special heritage which they
have beengiven. In a way, one’s days are lengthened in the land when
God’s ways (to which they’re committed)are spread and extended in both
space and time. One’s own time in living in the Way is extended as well,
when one so honors one’s parents.
Does this mean children should not honor parents who have failed to teach
them of God and bring them up in God’s ways? No. They should honor
parents for providing them what God would provide - love and support,
guidance and blessing. Yet, the greatest expectation is preparation for
relationship with God, and for that, the deepest honor from children is due.
Are parents who improperly raise their children or are otherwise bad people
due honor and awe from their children? Children should honor their parents

7. for the parenting done in accordance with God’s expectations. An
otherwise bad person could be honored for parenting in that regard.
Children should not follow a parent’s request to violate God’s word.
As to a parent who seriously abuses or fails altogether at properly raising a
child, this is a difficult matter, and perhaps, at its extreme, one where the
obligation diminishes or even disappears.)
III.Inheritance - From Generation to Generation
LII-LIII.Deuteronomy14:1;Numbers 27:8-11.I’ve paired these two for a
purpose.
As to the first of the two, you may recall that we’ve already looked in the
discussionof idolatry at the prohibitions against excessive mourning.
As to the second,there are many details we won’t get into today as to how
property actually passes on in the family from one who dies to those who
survive. Suffice to say, it’s important in the text that there be clear rules and
procedures to encourage fairness, order, and predictability. And, second,
there is a strong direction that, at least for the most part and assuming

8. normal conditions, inheritance passes on to the next generation in the
family.
In the spirit of our tradition of clothes/body/soul analysis, I want to close out
our extended work on the mitzvot by asking you to go deep with this
question: why might I be concluding our entire discussionthis year with
these two mitzvot? What might they mean, taken together? What lessons
might they teach us as takeaways for all the study we’ve done?
(Living fundamentally involves serving God.Yes, we mourn those whom
we lose in death. But we have faith in God.We have faith as to the
enduring nature of the souls of our beloved. We have faith as to God’s
purposes forour lives, as well as the Divine’s eternal concern for our souls.
And, in our faith, we understand that in the remaining life we have on this
earth we are to serve God.
We live as God expects. We live as bestwe can, pursuant to God’s
expectations. This is the tradition that we have received from our forebears,
indeed often from our parents, whom we mourn when they die. So, living
on in the tradition they have given us, we understand that excessive
mourning, especiallythrough destructive behavior or lengthy incapacity, is
incompatible with that tradition and not in service of either their legacy or
God’s wishes.
Instead, we should be mindful of the inheritance they pass on to us, which
is partly material but mostly spiritual and ethical. It is fundamentally a

9. tradition of serving God.We are the beneficiaries of the good name, the
good will, the good deeds, the good faith, and the other resources we
inherit from those who have come before us.From them, we principally
inherit the mission they inherited to be a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation - to learn, to teach, and to practice God’s Way and words, and to
spread what we inherit in furtherance of God’s sovereignty in the world.
This is a matter of the greatest importance. From generation to generation -
from the duty to be fruitful and multiply in one generation to the duty to
honor those who came before in the next, from the inheritance of God’s
ways by one generation to the passing on of that inheritance to the next -
this is the nature and fundamental importance of these mitzvot regarding
the generations.
We both touch the link before us and connect to the one that follows. This
receiving and passing on of God’s Way from generation to generation is as
important as anything we do in our lives.)