Something in Judaism transcends scholarship. Which is saying a lot because the Torah scholar, beginning with Moses himself, is the epitome of the Jewish ideal, the Jewish identity and the Jewish authority.
But something transcends.
It is “generations.” “Le-dor va-dor, from generation to generation,” as we say colloquially. What does it mean?
The immediate sense is: I transmit to my children. Or: I was transmitted to by my parents. But note: “one generation to the next” focuses on the singular. One generation gave, one generation received. It is not this that transcends. “Generations” focuses on the plural, on more than one giver, more than one recipient. That is different.
For example, the late Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky (d. 1986), who lived to a ripe old age, relished enumerating the generations of a Bar Mitzvah boy. At the Bar Mitzvah of Elya Meir Feurer in 1983, Rabbi Kamenetsky was moved to tears, recalling that he would not have believed 77 years earlier, when Rabbi Eliezer Gordon passed through Kovno, Lithuania and delivered a lecture in Talmud, that he (Rabbi Kamenetsky) would see Rabbi Gordon’s sixth generation! Rabbi Kamenetsky saw Rabbi Gordon and was personally acquainted with every generation in his line: Rabbi Gordon’s son-in-law, the Bar Mitzvah boy’s great-great-grandfather Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloc, great-grandfather Rabbi Zalman Bloc, grandfather Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, father Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feurer, and now the Bar Mitzvah boy himself. Six generations!
Somehow, more than any “mazel tov,” more than any speech, more than any present, more than any performance by the Bar Mitzvah boy himself, someone who could testify to personal acquaintance with six of the Bar Mitzvah boy’s generations transcended all else. Why? What is it with “generations?” The invocation of a departed grandparent at a simcha is one thing. One yearns for the presence of someone whom many at the simcha knew and deeply miss. But nobody at the young Feuer’s Bar Mitzvah, except for the elderly Rabbi Kamenetsky, knew the boy’s great-great-great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather and few if any knew his great-grandfather (who was killed in the Holocaust). What makes the mention of six generations — including some whom no one actually knew — so meaningful?
We may unfold this from a shadow in the Torah, from a seemingly innocuous verse, “ . . . also the sons of Machir, [the] son of Mannaseh, were raised on Joseph’s knee” (Gen. 50:23). Machir is not only a shadow — hardly mentioned, hardly noticed, hardly described — but he also seems to be an afterthought. Upon Joseph’s death, the Torah notes that Joseph had lived 110 years, and that “Joseph saw three generations through his son Ephraim.” Ephraim was Joseph’s second son whom his father Jacob insisted on blessing first, passing over Joseph’s firstborn, Mannaseh. Primogeniture did not rule in Jacob’s mind. He blessed Ephraim first, and what a blessing it was. Joseph saw three generations through Ephraim.
But there’s an oddity here. No names of Ephraim’s children (Joseph’s grandchildren) are named. However, Mannaseh’s child (Joseph’s grandchild) is named: Machir. Not only that, but the Torah also notes that the sons of Machir were born in Joseph’s lifetime. Joseph saw three generations though Ephraim, but more generations through Mannaseh, who, ironically, Jacob saw as the lesser of the two brothers.
Still more. Skip from the end of Genesis, where Joseph’s generations are noted, to a distant future time, after the Jews had been enslaved in Egypt, after they had been liberated from Egypt and then wandered in the Sinai desert for 39 years. They were about to enter the Land of Israel. Moses’ and Aaron’s son Elazar were commanded to take a census. This census records that Joseph, through Ephraim, had three grandsons and one great-grandson. For Joseph, through Ephraim, the census records four generations.
But look at Mannaseh. The census records seven generations: Joseph, through Mannaseh, had Machir; who had Gilad; who had six sons, one of whom had Zelophehad, who is the father of the famous four women who queried Moses about their inheritance rights. And the census names them, too. The census names the great-great-great-great-granddaughters of Joseph. For Joseph, through Mannaseh, the Torah records seven generations!
Not only that, but the equation of “generations” and “children” emerges. Recall, Genesis noted that the “sons” of Machir were born in Joseph’s lifetime. But the census lists only one single son for Machir! Genesis’ mention of Machir’s “sons” must be retranslated as Machir’s “offspring.” Joseph saw, through Mannaseh, not only his grandson Machir, and not only his great-grandson Gilad, but also Gilad’s sons. They would be the “sons” (plural) of Mannaseh.
Parenthetically, given the discrepancy in dimension between the generations of Ephraim and Mannaseh, it is difficult to understand Jacob’s blessing that “the younger brother [Ephraim] will be greater than he [Mannaseh]” (Gen. 48:19), but that is not our present focus, which is: seven generations!
Joseph did not know his seventh generation, or even his sixth. Rabbi Kamenetsky’s Bar Mitzvah celebrants did not know their sixth generation, or even their fifth or fourth. La-dor va-dor really means that we sustain the teachings of the Torah and of our family — even those of the generations before us with whom we had no personal connection, and the generations after us whom we shall never know. It is not just the grandparent whom we knew and deeply miss; it is the grandparent whom we never knew — and the offspring we shall never know. “Generations” means: We transcend the generations. As distant as Joseph saw —down to his great-great-grandsons — he did not see his sixth and seventh generations. But when he blessed his sons, he blessed these distant generations, too.
How so? How can one bless an abstraction? How is the picture on the wall of my progenitor whom I never knew really able to receive my focus, my blessing? It must. That is la-dor va-dor. It is a tall order. But sometimes there is help. Sometimes, someone knew my progenitor whom I did not know. Sometimes, an elder like Rabbi Kamenetsky is able to step forward and say, “I am the only one here who personally saw the six generations.” Sometimes, there is a living connection. The picture on the wall comes to life. “The Master of the Universe has granted me longevity so that I can tell this generation what preceding generations were like,” said Rabbi Kamenetsky at the Bar Mitzvah.
The Torah records “the offspring of Machir”; Machir is the only grandchild of Joseph who is named as Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons. Machir becomes a code word, a signal, a link, an indication that through him generations down the line will arise whom Joseph will not know. Machir makes his appearance by name in order to caution: Do not limit your perspective to the generations personally known to you. See further. Respect deeper.
Yitzhak Tabenkin (d. 1971), an associate of David Ben Gurion, once excused himself from a meeting in the early Zionist says, before the State of Israel, saying he could not offer an opinion on the critical issue at hand without “consulting.” He could offer an opinion only on the morrow, after he had “consulted.” The next day he offered his opinion. His colleagues were perplexed. With whom should he consult other than his colleagues, who were already at the table?
Tabenkin answered that he needed to consult with his grandfather whom he never knew and with his grandson who was not yet born.
He needed to consult with the “sons of Machir” to see beyond a shadow that obscured a universe.
© IJN 2025
