"When Esau heard the words of
his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to
his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’ And he said, Your
brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing." (Gen. 27:34-35).
Hey Gang: The passing down of
blessings through the generations has become another of those wonderful things
that we have buried in the new age thinking that we must be our own
thing. In my trips to Israel one of the great blessings that I was
privileged to experience was to go the Western Wall (the Prayer Wall), and just
watch the people come and go. Some came for prayer and often placed a
note to God in one of the cracks in the Wall of what was once the temple,
others came and just stood quietly reading their prayer book or Bible.
But I was blessed to see one type of ceremony
that impacted deep within my heart- called the Bar/Bat
Mitzvah. Bar for boys and bat for girls. The Bar Mitzvah or Bat
Mitzvah marks the legal change of status, from childhood into adulthood (usually
12 for boys and 13 for girls). Many refer to this ceremony as making the
participant subject to the Commandments and thus moving from child hood to
adulthood. At one time it was required that the participant memorize the
Torah, the first five book of the Bible, and recite it at his Bar
Mitzvah. But it appears this requirement has been set aside and
only certain parts required.
What a joy and fantastic thing it
was to see the blessings being passed down through the family, first from the
patriarch, to the second generation and then down to the one that was moving in
status from child to adult,even the clothing changes. As I watched this I thought of the many children
who have passed my way that were dealing with this very issue – identity and
belonging. This is especially true for those who did not have the luxury
of having a father in the home in those formative years.
Ya know, I long ago came to the
conclusion that we rob our children in so many ways. We give them the
world but do not teach them the joys of anticipation. We say we love them
but then we also say we love our dog and in many cases give far more attention
to our dog than we do our children. We often rob others of blessings when we don't allow them to help us.
Soooo, The question, can we steal a
person’s blessing. In a sense we have done just that as we have
depersonalized our relationships with friends and family and, in many families,
with our children. Homes that were once places of refuge have, in many cases
become place so of debarkation. The electronic age is a wonderful
thing but it has placed a real crimp in putting our love into action by giving
that special person a big hug. Try it today, put the phone or IPOD or
whatever, in the closet for a day and become involved on a personal basis with
those you care about.
Blessings,
Gramps
No comments:
Post a Comment