The day of our grandson’s bris, my mechutan held the baby up to the ceiling like Simba in The Lion King and proclaimed, “This is your legacy.” At the time, it was impossible to fathom that this fragile bundle of bones and skin could possibly be a legacy of anything; the future, his future, seemed centuries away – all that mattered now were the practicalities of caring for this tiny little person.
The first mention of a grandparent-grandchild interaction in Tanach is in Parshas Vayechi. At the end of Yaakov’s life, he calls for Yosef, who brings his two sons to his father to be blessed. The language Yaakov uses to describe his relationship with his grandsons is unequivocal: “Li hem” – they are mine (Bereishis 48:5).
When my daughter was pregnant, she and her husband moved back to Highland Park so that they would have an emotional and physical support system as they raised their new baby. After their son was born, we tried to help them as best as we could, but inherent in the blessing of being a first-time grandparent is that our relative youth meant that we were still busy with our own household and our own careers. My daughter scheduled the baby’s first real checkup on a day that I didn’t work so that I could provide an extra pair of hands while he received his first set of vaccinations. As the needle pierced his brand-new skin, I flinched inwardly – my child’s child, flesh of my flesh – he was mine, he felt like mine. But after the checkup, after my daughter dropped me off at home and drove her son back to the comfort of her little nest, the shape of our relationship became clearer: mine, but not mine.
After Yaakov Avinu boldly asserts “li hem,” he qualifies his statement by declaring that Ephraim and Menashe are going to become two discrete tribes, equivalent in status to all of the other shevatim. Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch points out that in the conversation regarding the future of Ephraim and Menashe, Yaakov is referred to as Yaakov, but once the narrative transitions to a broader discussion about the future of Klal Yisrael, Yaakov is then referred to as Yisrael. Rav Hirsch comments that this gift given to Yosef’s sons does not stem from “national considerations” but rather from “individual, personal ties which affected Yaakov as Yaakov the man.” Nowhere else in Sefer Bereishis do we see this direct, face-to-face relationship between a grandfather and a grandson. There is no evidence of Avraham communicating with Yaakov, or Yitzchak communicating with any of the shevatim. Yaakov is the first one to forge and span this bridge between the generations.
In a beautiful essay titled “The First Jewish Grandfather” (Man of Faith in the Modern World Vol. 2), Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik explains that this scene between Yaakov and Yosef’s sons is more than just a touching interaction between a dying grandfather and his grandsons; rather, it is the foundation for the transmission of the mesorah across the generations. Our nation is called Bnei Yisrael and not Bnei Avraham or Bnei Yitzchak because Yaakov/Yisrael ensured the perpetuation of the mesorah until this very day. The Midrash tells us that after Yaakov went down to Mitzrayim, he used to study Torah with his grandsons on a regular basis; this earned Yaakov the appellation of “Yisrael Sava” as well as the title of “Zaken.” He became the exemplar of a Jewish grandparent, the keeper of the old traditions.
As a “girl mom” whose house is still infused with traces of fairy dust and glitter and whose only interaction with baby boys was limited to growing up with four brothers, I wondered at what point my grandson’s “boyness” would become apparent. I didn’t have long to wait – almost as soon as he was sitting up, he displayed a love for anything with wheels, anything that could be zoomed or vroomed. One of his earliest favorite activities was watching cars go down the street with his Zaidy. Although he is very physical, he also loves to “read” books and be read to; he has a shockingly incredible amount of zitzfleish, possibly more than whoever it is that sits down to read to him.
Although I love spending time with him, I find it difficult, both mentally and physically, to get down on the floor and race monster trucks across the carpet ad infinitum. So, I try to be the book reader, and when it’s not Shabbos, one of our favorite Bubby-grandson activities is baking together. The first time we baked together, my daughter reminded me with a fair amount of side eye that I used to tell her “You can help by watching.” As a mom, every moment was accounted for; there was no extra time (or patience) to clean up the bag of flour that inevitably toppled over or to deal with puddles of spilled chocolate. As a Bubby, however, eventually the little guy goes home and there is time to clean up. This is the beauty of grandparenthood – “mine but not mine.” Every time I bake for Yontif, I try to have him come over and help. When we baked honey cake and apple crisp for Rosh Hashana, I tried to talk about apples and honey and a sweet new year, and as we put in just a pinch of ground cloves and inhaled its spicy scent, we talked about the besamim at havdalah.
In Parshas Chayei Sara (24:15), we encounter one of the earliest references to a grandmother – Milcah, the mother of Besuel and the grandmother of Rivkah Imeinu. Although Milcah does not have a speaking role in the story of Rivkah and Yitzchak, her name is mentioned multiple times in the parsha, and since we know that not one word in Tanach is superfluous, clearly the repetitive statement that she is Rivkah’s grandmother has significant meaning. Also noteworthy is that Rivkah’s mother is not mentioned in the pasuk, which prompts Rav Hirsch to comment that Rivkah took after her grandmother while her brother Lavan took after their mother, implying that their mother was not a woman of great character.
After Rivkah and Yitzchak got married, he brought her home to his mother’s tent, and Rashi teaches us (on Bereishis 24:67) that the three things that disappeared with Sarah’s death returned to their new home when Rivkah entered: A candle stayed perpetually lit, the challah remained bountiful and fresh all week, and a cloud, Hashem’s Shechinah, came back to hover over the tent. These three things represent the feminine mesorah, and it was through Rivkah’s grandmother Milcah that Rivkah was able to become the holy woman that she was, even though she had grown up in a home steeped with evil. Indeed, it is no coincidence that Milcah, the great-grandmother of Yaakov Avinu, Yaakov Sava, the first grandfather to perpetuate the mesorah, is herself a grandparent who had a hand in perpetuating the Jewish mesorah.
In another essay titled “Two Traditions, Two Communities” from the sefer The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Vol. 2, the Rav posits that there are two types of mesorah, two shalshalot hakabbalah (chains of tradition). These are mussar avicha and toras imecha – the masculine and the feminine. He describes the paternal mesorah as one that is “intellectual-moral,” encompassing halacha, mussar, and discipline. The Rav ponders, however, how to explain Toras imecha, and he admits that he is unable to define it precisely. Nostalgically, he thinks back to what he learned from his mother, which was that “Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law, but also in a living experience. She taught me that there is a flavor, a scent, and a warmth to mitzvot…Without her teachings, I would have grown up a soulless being, dry and insensitive.”
Now that our grandson is three, it’s easier – not totally possible, but easier – to imagine him as the beneficiary of our legacy. Often, though, it is impossible to imagine myself as the guardian of a legacy since I am still processing the legacy that has been left to me. While raising my daughters, I had a very clear image of what I wanted to pass on to them. I tried to teach by example and I shared with them my mistakes, my regrets, but also my successes. What legacy, though, do I leave to my grandson? When he was two, he took the strings from his Tinker Toys set, draped them around his shoulders, and began to sway. “He’s davening,” my daughter explained. “The strings are his tallis.” He is a sponge, an empty vessel waiting to be filled. The responsibility is enormous, terrifying. One misstep can topple the entire edifice that those before me have carefully erected.
A few weeks ago, our grandson stayed by us for a few days while his parents took a mini vacation. The first morning, I was startled out of sleep by the door of my room being flung open and smacking into my closet. At 5:15, it was still dark outside, and as my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I saw my grandson’s tiny silhouette framed in the doorway. As soon as he saw I was stirring, he scooted over to my husband’s bed and crawled in, pretending to go back to sleep. I too pretended to go back to sleep, but really I was watching him blink.
What legacy will we leave to this little boy? We will leave him the legacy of family, of history, of different role models to learn from. Eventually he will know that the reason why his Zaidy’s bed was empty at 5:15 in the morning is because Zaidy gives a daf yomi shiur at that time, followed by Shacharis and a long day at work. We will tell him about my father, his great-grandfather, after whom he was named, a talmid and musmach of Rav Soloveitchik who raised us through the rigorous lens of Torah U’mada, gently and lovingly. From his chassidish great-great-grandfather, my maternal Zaidy, he will inherit a fierce emotional connection to Yiddishkeit from a man who was unashamed to cry while reading the Haggadah on Pesach or singing “Yibaneh HaMikdash” at every family gathering.
I assume that eventually baking with Bubby will fall by the wayside; my grandson will grow older and want to play with his friends or do whatever it is that little boys do. I wonder what he will remember from those times. Will he recall my hands over his as we rolled the dough or the smell of cinnamon as the apple cake rose in the oven? Later he will find out that aside from being a Bubby, I am also his mother’s mother, as well as a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a granddaughter. He will find out that like his own mother, I have a life and a job outside of the home; I will model for him what it means to be a Jewish grandmother. Perhaps he will read my articles, my stories – they will be my legacy once I am gone.
On one of the days that I picked him up from school, we drove through town and as usual he pointed out all the different vehicles on the road, “Bubby, it’s an excavator… a school bus… a dump truck!” As we reached the bend in the road right before my house, I asked him where we were, and with his cute little voice that bears an uncanny resemblance to a plush toy, he said with excitement, “We’re home, Bubby, we’re home!” I didn’t correct him, not then anyway, but I will, eventually, for he is mine, but not mine.