Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Parents care about their kids. They say people love their grandchildren even more than they love their children.
[00:00:08] We hope to see our great grandchildren, but how many generations of our descendants do we worry about?
[00:00:19] Probably about those who we will see. Maybe a couple more generations and that's it.
[00:00:26] If I told you what will happen to your offsprings, let's say in 20 generations, would you be affected by it anymore than by a story about some strangers?
[00:00:38] You have no clue where they will live, what they will do, who they will be, and even whether they will be in the first place.
[00:00:51] Human nature is to only care about our immediate descendants.
[00:00:59] Westminster hall in London is the oldest parliament building in the world. It was built in the 14th century. In 1913, it required major renovations.
[00:01:13] The giant rafters that had to be replaced required unique oak trees that would be at least 3, 300 years old.
[00:01:22] Where are you going to find them?
[00:01:25] Believe it or not, they had the records of where the trees were purchased. When the building was built, it was the Korthop family estate of Sussex.
[00:01:38] And you know what?
[00:01:39] Their family still owns the forest and they still sell trees.
[00:01:45] They contact them to see. Maybe they will help them.
[00:01:49] And Sir George Corthorpe answers. We were expecting to hear from you. The oak is ready.
[00:01:58] The ancestors of George Corthorp, having sold the wood for Westminster hall, knew that in a few centuries trees would be needed for repairs. It takes hundreds of years to grow an oak tree.
[00:02:14] So he immediately planted a new oak forest. And it has been sitting and waiting there for more than five centuries.
[00:02:24] We care about our children.
[00:02:26] If you knew that your child will live for 120 years, you would certainly be concerned about what will happen in his lifetime.
[00:02:36] And if you would be expecting him to live, say, 200 years, you would worry about what he will see in his 200 years.
[00:02:46] But unless Mashiach comes, we don't have a hope of living for 200 years.
[00:02:52] One day our children will leave this world, and our children will leave this world too.
[00:02:58] And then God knows what will happen then.
[00:03:02] But if a person has a business or a cause that he invested his life in, we call it his baby project.
[00:03:12] This business can live for 100 and 2200 years and maybe even longer. A person hopes that whatever he's dedicating, his life too will not just disappear into oblivion. This is why there are family businesses that have been operating for centuries.
[00:03:31] By investing himself in a business like this, a person hopes that it will continue to live after him, after his children and after his grandchildren.
[00:03:41] He has a family business only because his ancestors devoted themselves to it centuries ago. And he does everything to ensure that his descendants centuries later will do the same.
[00:03:56] In a case like that, my descendants, after five generations or more, are no longer abstract living beings which I don't know anything about, and I don't even know if they will exist.
[00:04:12] They become now specific people on whom I put my hopes. Now I am worried about what they will see in their lifetime.
[00:04:22] With the instability of the world today, wars, migration, it is hard for us to imagine that many family businesses can survive for centuries.
[00:04:33] But what if I told you that there is a family business that is flourishing for thousands of years?
[00:04:43] For us Jews, our Jewishness is exactly that.
[00:04:49] More than 3,000 years ago, our great grandfathers started this project by living according to the Torah laws.
[00:04:57] Two thousand years ago, our ancestors were risking their lives literally to keep Shabbat. Thousand years ago, our ancestors were ready to give up their lives to be able to go to a synagogue.
[00:05:12] And they did it hoping that their descendants would continue what they dedicated their lives to.
[00:05:22] For our ancestors, who were living according to the Torah laws 500 years ago, we were not just some abstract great, great, great something, but specific people on whom they pinned their hopes.
[00:05:39] If we take part in this family business, then for us our offspring will no longer be theoretical living beings, but a part of our life life.
[00:05:53] When a non Jewish prophet, Bilaam, was hired by the nation of Moab to curse the Jewish nation, what came out of his mouth was a prediction of the greatness and prosperity of the Jewish people.
[00:06:11] And this was obviously instead of a curse that he wanted to give us. The people of Moab who hired him got angry and Bilaam needed to do some damage control. It will not be soon, he said.
[00:06:24] Ah, not soon. Then it's alright.
[00:06:27] Moab, like everyone else, were worried only about their children, their grandchildren.
[00:06:33] And after that, God knows what will be anyway. And indeed, the nation of Moav has already disappeared long ago, and our Jewish enterprise is still continuing.
[00:06:45] Balaam's prediction worked for both sides.
[00:06:49] The nation of Moab was glad that the prophecy about the Jews would not come true in their lifetime.
[00:06:57] And the Jews said, our endeavor is designed for many generations. We can wait.
[00:07:05] Usually people only care about their immediate offspring, and that's okay, that's normal. But Judaism gives us an opportunity to have something additional. With Judaism, our subsequent generations become the successors of our life.
