I was walking through the park the other day and I saw grandfather coaching his grandson on his hitting stance while dad was pitching the ball. Could there be a more beautiful concept than three generations engaging in an activity together? No less, the handing down of the lessons learned from grandfather to son to grandson. It's Tradition, or as we call it, mesorah.
Chazal (the Rabbis) teach us that a cord created from three strings are not easily severed.Often we traditional say that this represents a family that has three continuous generation, grandfather, son and grandchild, all living a Torah rich lifestyle. Such a cord, that mesorah, will have a permanence to it. At Central East NCSY Spring Convention this past Memorial Day weekend, the NCSY’ers saw the mesorah unfold before their eyes. Each advisor participated in constructing a “Torah” family tree. They constructed a tree that followed a direct path from the most important Rabbi or teacher in their life so far. They then went back another generation to see who had taught their Rabbi or teacher and so on. All of the
advisors discovered that their Torah linage returns to Rav Chaim of Volozhin, who was a student of the Vilna Goan, and it is well documented that he can connect his Torah linage to Moshe Rabbanu at Mount Sinai! Now thats mesorah!
NCSY@60 is alive and well. We are in the midst of 60 days of reflection of the past 60 years of NCSY. Twenty years is a generation, and now NCSY is its own three stringed cord and you are a part of it! Join in the celebration and participate with us in the National NCSY Learn-a-Thon in honor of all of our amazing history. We are learning all of Tannach (Torah, Navi and Ketovim), Mishnah and Gemera join the team or become a sponsor of the learning. Sponsors can choose which programs their dollars go to. I and many others are already learning – come join the party! http://learn.ncsy.org/
What better way is there to go into Shavout than taking part in this learning initiative?
Anyway you shape it; Happy 60th NCSY!
Have a great Shavout!