Shalom all,

"Vehigadeta Lebincha - and you shall tell thy son", one of the pillars of our Jewish tradition: the commandment to make sure we tell our people's narrative to our children, the essence of Jewish continuity. It is a commandment that we struggle with every day, the very basis of Jewish peoplehood.
I was thinking of this commandment a few days ago, as I was traveling with my family to mount Carmel.
As the car climbed up the hills, the scenery was strikingly beautiful. Green trees and bush, Israel's summer flowers and blue skies all around us. We arrived at the hilltop of the Muchraka - Arabic for "the place of fire", the hill where our tradition tells us that Eliyahu built his alter and killed the pagans of the Ba'al gods. The hill is high enough to reveal Israel's entire north: from mount Hermon, in a far distance, through the Yizrael valley, the Gilboa mountains, the Tavor, all the way around to the Mediterranean sea.
I started testing my kids. First in geography, then in Jewish Bible and history. Together, we recognized the events of the past that transpired in the scenery around us: Dvora and Barak in the Tavor; Yael, giving Sisra milk instead of water; David, a young red-head, energetic youth, crying for his dead king Saul and his soul mate prince Yonatan, who died in the valley bellow; The Gilboa mountains, forever partly barren because of David's curse; King Ahab, Navot and his vineyard; Queen Jezebel and her pagan prophets; Eliyahu and his prophecies; on the other side of the hill - Zichron Yaacov, one of the first Zionist villages, built by our family over 120 years ago; and more.
They recognized the places. And the stories. We engaged in a long discussion - what is real, why is it important, what can we learn. It was all right there, in front of us, with stones that form structures that explain these events by a discipline called archeology and with vivid images believed in by a concept called peoplehood. 3500 years of history, tradition and faith came alive simply by standing on that one hill, the cool breeze and sweet fresh air filling the mind with stories that you could almost taste.
On the way back home, a fierce argument developed between all of us - David, Rotem, Roy and myself were competing with each other - who remembers David's eulogy for Saul and Yonatan best. Bar was supposed to be the judge.
For him, it was a very simple task: all he had to do was open the Bible in the right place, and read it, in the original language it was written in, the same language he speaks since he learned to say his first words.
I can't think of a better, more relevant way to not only fulfill the commandment of Vehigadeta Lebincha - but to actually live it.

Shabbat Shalom,
Liat