It was a beautiful winter day today in Jerusalem. We had just celebrated Eliza Garmise’s bat mitzvah at the family section of the Western Wall. Eliza stood to read the Torah right at the heart of the Jewish story. She was surrounded by her proud parents, Jason and Jessica, and her grandparents — our shul members Alan and Rochelle Garmise. Three years ago, they all stood witness to Eliza’s sister Hannah’s bat mitzvah, observed with grandma Rochelle also celebrating her belated bat mitzvah. This time, the celebration was shared with the bar mitzvah of Eliza’s friend Benjy, who was accompanied by his parents and grandparents.

It was wonderful to see the three generations standing shoulder to shoulder — mothers, daughters, and granddaughters; fathers, sons, and grandsons. Our rabbis teach us that the connection of the three generations spells out the word “stone” — as in the cornerstone of the Temple. Seven months ago, a large stone suddenly fell out of the Western Wall, right there at the family section, and many practical and spiritual speculations followed. But even if all the stones fall, the important stone of the foundation was standing in front of us in the form of three generations keeping their promise to God, as God keeps His promise to them.

My words to the teens came out of an important lesson from the weekly portion of “Ki Tisa.” One of the signs of maturity and responsibility is to keep those promises. We read about the 40 days and nights that Moses goes away to bring down the two tablets. The people somehow believe he is late (“boshesh” 32:1), even though he actually returned on the same day. But the people demanded a visible God, something to believe in right then and there. By creating the Golden Calf, they were violating the cardinal prohibition of having no other gods.

The golden calf was not the first time the covenant between Man and God was broken because of not waiting a little longer. The midrash also tells us that Eve and Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge on the same day they were created. Had they waited a bit, they would have entered a peaceful Sabbath.

The common thread between the Golden Calf and the Tree of Knowledge is “instant.” To be in a hurry, and in a hurry to know. If we let our FOMO (fear of missing out) control us, then we instantaneously lose our relationship to God. God gives Moses the tablets right after His mandate to keeping Shabbat. “And the people of Israel shall observe the Shabbat for their generations as an eternal covenant.” (Exodus 31:16)  Perhaps the essence of God’s creation is exactly that — to take our time, to slow down, to keep Shabbat, to nourish the generational connections, of becoming a bat/bar mitzvah — the cornerstone of the covenant.

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Rabbi Gadi Capela