In the Ears of Your Son: The Customs of Our Fathers

1(Said at a Shabbos aufruf celebration.)¹ “And so that you may relate in the ears of your son and your son's son … and you will know that I am Hashem.”² Notice the wording. Why does the verse say the telling should be “in the ears of” your son, and not simply “so that you may relate to your son”? We must also ask why the Torah mentions “your son and your son's son” here. At first glance “your son” would be enough, and the grandson would be included, since the son will tell his own son after him. The Baal HaTurim, R' Yaakov ben Asher, already noticed this difficulty in his commentary on the Torah.

2Further on, Moshe says: “With our young and with our old we will go; with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our cattle we will go …”³ Why does the verse say the same thing twice, both “our young” and “our sons”?

3The early Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu says: “Those who went out of Egypt had one mitzvah in their hands, and it pleased the Holy One, blessed be He, far more than a hundred mitzvos. What was this one mitzvah? They all joined together in one band and made a covenant to treat one another with kindness, to keep the covenant of circumcision, not to abandon the language of the House of Yaakov, and not to go and learn the language of Egypt, because of its idolatrous ways.”⁴ Why does it matter so much to take care not to speak the language of the nations of the world? It is not forbidden by the Torah, or even by Chazal. Why, then, did guarding it raise their standing so high, and why was it dearer to Hashem than many other mitzvos?

4aLet us begin with what my holy father and teacher, zt"l, wrote in the sefer Tiferes Avos:⁵ “Why does it say ‘in the ears of your son,’ and not ‘so that you may relate to your son’? As we have explained, the main thing is to train children first of all in the customs of Israel. The Gemara says that Shlomo HaMelech made ‘ears,’ that is, handles, for the Torah: eruvin and the washing of the hands.⁶ [Rashi explains that he instituted eruvin and the washing of the hands …, and through this Israel takes hold of the mitzvos, since it is kept far from sin, just as a vessel with a handle is easier to hold than one without.] By its ear, its handle, a person can hold the whole vessel, however heavy it is. In the same way, the customs of Israel are the root and the starting point of keeping the Torah. This is ‘so that you may relate in the ears of your son’: train your son in the customs of Israel and in the fine points of the mitzvos.” So far his words.

4bMy holy father explained the verse “For I have known him, so that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of Hashem …” along the same lines, in his Haggadah shel Pesach.⁷ He wrote: “There is a hint here. Someone walking in the wilderness loses his way and does not know how to get out of his confusion and reach the king's highway. If he meets a man who knows the roads well, that man warns him to follow right behind him, in the very steps he takes. The traveler must take care to walk exactly in those steps, and then he can be sure he will come out onto the straight road in the end. So too, Avraham Avinu will command his children to follow behind him in all his steps and to keep all the customs, safeguards and fences of Israel, for the Gemara tells us that Avraham Avinu kept the entire Torah, even the laws of Chazal.⁸ Then his children will go their way in safety, for those who seek Hashem are ‘the seed of Avraham, His beloved.’⁹

4c“When a person sows a single seed, much grows from it. So it is with the customs of Israel: even when we do not understand their reason and meaning, lofty things grow from them at the root. The main thing is to accept the yoke of the kingship of Heaven with simple wholeheartedness, without clever reasoning and speculation. Above all, then, one must believe in and keep all the words of the true tzaddikim, all the words of our holy teachers and all their customs, and all the holy customs of Israel. Then Heaven's mercy will be aroused for Knesses Yisrael.” Those are his holy words.

5aMy holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l,¹⁰ wrote along the same lines in the holy sefer Divrei Binah, on the verse “And it will be, because (eikev) you listen …”¹¹ He wrote: “The word eikev is related to ikvei, ‘footsteps,’ in ‘Go out in the footsteps of the flock,’¹² which means the custom of your fathers. [As Rashi explains there: ‘Look at the steps along the path where the sheep walked, where the footprints can be seen. Consider the ways of your earliest fathers, who received My Torah and kept My charge and My commandments, and walk in their ways.’] It is in the spirit of the saying ‘A custom of Israel is Torah.’¹³ And this too is the general rule the verse states: that you will listen to the commandments of Hashem your God. What will bring you to listen to them? Walking in the footsteps, eikev, which are the ancient customs of Israel. It is ‘Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother,’¹⁴ ‘your mother’ being Knesses Yisrael and its customs. This is not the way of the innovators of this generation, who want to uproot things little by little and in the end uproot everything, Heaven save us; they begin by changing the customs of Israel. So if you walk in the footsteps of your fathers, you will be able to listen to the commandments of Hashem your God, and from this you can infer the reverse: if you do not, you will not be able to listen.” Those are his holy words.

5bIn other words, the yetzer hara does not come to a person right away to tempt him, Heaven forbid, into serious sins. Rather, as Chazal said, “Today it tells him, ‘Do this,’ and tomorrow it tells him, ‘Do that,’ until it tells him, ‘Go worship idols.’”¹⁵ It begins by tempting a person to change light things, such as a mere custom and practice of Israel, but through these small changes he ends up, Heaven forbid, stumbling into serious sins. It follows that taking care to guard these small things is the fence that protects the keeping of the whole Torah.

6That is why, before the giving of the Torah, Hashem began by saying, “So shall you say to the House of Yaakov …”¹⁶ Chazal explain: “These are the women, so that they will lead (manhigos) their children to Torah.”¹⁷ The word manhigos comes from the same root as minhagim, “customs”: it means that mothers plant in the hearts of their sons and daughters the customs of Israel, which pass down from generation to generation. Shlomo HaMelech said the same: “Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.”¹⁸ Notice the word Toras, “the Torah of,” in “the teaching of your mother.” Surely it is not the mother who teaches the son Torah but the father, as Chazal said: “A child who knows how to speak, his father teaches him Torah.”¹⁹ Rather, “the Torah of your mother” means the customs of Israel that mothers teach their children, and through these customs the children are privileged to keep the Torah.

7This is why the passage goes on to mention the Exodus from Egypt: “You have seen what I did to Egypt.”²⁰ The verse reminds Bnei Yisrael why they were privileged to be redeemed from Egypt even though they had no mitzvos in their hands. It was because they held fast to the customs of Israel and did not change their names or their language.²¹ We know that “the main thing is not study but deed.”²² Accepting the Torah, then, is not enough; what counts is actually keeping it. And the safeguard that brings a person to keep it is observing the customs of Israel. That is why the Torah mentions the Exodus before the giving of the Torah.

8Chazal said that at the giving of the Torah the verse says, “You approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders,” to show that the young gave honor to the elders.²³ We may suggest, by way of hint, that the young valued the ways and conduct of the elders and walked by their light. It was precisely in this way that they were privileged to receive the Torah, for walking in the ways of the fathers is the condition for keeping the Torah, and its safeguard.

9This, we may say, is also the hint in Dovid HaMelech's words to his son Shlomo: “Know the God of your father and serve Him.”²⁴ When you walk in the ways of the fathers, along the path of the tradition, in the spirit of “Know the God of your father,” you will be privileged to be one of Hashem's servants, “and serve Him,” because in this way you will keep the Torah properly.

10In Egypt, Bnei Yisrael made a covenant not to abandon the language of the House of Yaakov. We can now see why this was so important and so dear to our Father in Heaven, dearer to Him than a hundred mitzvos. It was precisely because they took care to walk in the ways of the fathers, not changing even their language, that they were privileged to receive the Torah, and that is worth more than a hundred of our mitzvos. This answers our question about Tanna Devei Eliyahu.

11This lets us understand the verse “With our young and with our old we will go; with our sons and with our daughters …” When there is “with our young and with our old we will go,” when the young walk in the way of the old and in the tradition of the fathers, the chain of the generations will go on unbroken. Then “with our sons and with our daughters” will come true: all the generations will walk in the way of Hashem.

12The same hint lies in the verse “And so that you may relate in the ears (be'oznei) of your son and your son's son.” The word “ears” hints at the ways and customs of Israel, the Torah's handles, as my holy father wrote. When people guard these customs, the generations will go on walking in the path of the tradition, and the holy Torah will pass whole from generation to generation. That is why the verse mentions “your son and your son's son”: to hint at all the generations to come, for through these customs the Torah will be carried on to all who come after, so that they walk in the way of Hashem. This answers our first question.

13The Tashbetz Katan teaches, in the name of the Maharam, R' Meir of Rothenburg, that all the customs of groom and bride are learned from the giving of the Torah.²⁵ For there the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Himself like a groom coming toward his bride, Israel. From what we have explained, a groom can learn a lesson. When he comes to build and establish a new home in Israel, he must hold fast to the customs of Israel, just as holding fast to the customs came before the giving of the Torah. This teaches him to do everything in the way handed down to us in the tradition of the fathers, from generation to generation since the giving of our holy Torah, and not to turn away from the ways of our holy fathers.

14This may explain Chazal's teaching that one who gladdens a groom is privileged to gain Torah.²⁶ What does gladdening a groom and bride have to do with gaining Torah? In light of what we have said, we may answer that he is taking part in a celebration founded on holding fast to the ways of the fathers, in the way of the Torah handed down to us. So the same strength, to hold properly to the customs of Israel, flows onto him as well, and that is what brings a person to keep the Torah.

15The holy Zohar teaches, on the verse “Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,” that parents come from Gan Eden to share in their children's celebration,²⁷ and we are told that the celebration already begins on the Shabbos before the wedding. Everyone knows how much my holy father spoke about holding fast to the customs of the fathers, and how strongly he demanded it of us. May Hashem grant that we be able to continue in his way, and through this may my father plead for us at this celebration and bring down for us an abundance of blessing and success. And may we soon be privileged to have everlasting joy with the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid. Amen.