If My Father Were Here Today…

In Parshat Toldot, Yitzchak tries to continue Avraham’s path exactly. He digs the same wells. He gives them the same names. And when famine strikes, he prepares to do what Avraham did — go down to Mitzrayim.

But Hashem stops him.
“Al teired Mitzraymah. Gur ba’aretz hazot.”

Ramban explains that Yitzchak assumed he should follow his father’s actions. Rav Hirsch says this is the lesson: mesorah doesn’t mean copying the past. It means continuing the mission — living the ratzon Hashem in the world you inhabit.

The Torah never changes, but our circumstances do.
And sometimes we cling to the form, not the purpose.

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The Manischewitz Example

Take the classic (but extreme) example: Manischewitz wine. Some people say, “This is what our family has always used at the Seder.” But if the hechsher were lost, would we keep using it? Or would we remember the point? We only use kosher wine.

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And This Shows Up in Real Life

Chinuch:

“My parents raised us this way.” Beautiful. But the world is different. Technology is different. And most of all, children are different. Each child must be raised “al pi darko” — according to their individual way, not according to how things looked decades ago.

Aliyah:

Our parents or grandparents didn’t make aliyah — many couldn’t. If they lived in today’s world with today’s opportunities, what would they tell us?

Techeilet:

Your grandfather didn’t wear it because he couldn’t. If he had today’s options, what would he do?

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The Real Question

The question is never “What did my father or grandfather do?”
It’s: “What would they do if they were here today?”

Rav Hershel Schachter was once asked “Sometimes you follow the Rav exactly, and sometimes you don’t. Why?”

He answered:
“I follow the Rav where I believe he was correct.”

Meaning — he follows his rebbe’s commitment to truth, not every one of his conclusions.

That is real mesorah.
Not copying the past, but continuing its mission.

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And That Brings It All Together

We all have a little Manischewitz inside us — habits we never question, things we do just because “that’s our tradition”. “That’s what we’ve always done.”

The question is: Will we choose Hashem — or tradition?