Maaseh Avot Simon L'Banim

The Midrash teaches us  that "Maaseh Avot Siman L'Banim".   This well know idiom can be simply translated as "The actions of the fathers are signs for their children" is generally understood in three different ways:  The first explanation is that our forefathers conduct teach us how to conduct ourselves in certain situations.  The second understanding is that Gd determines the destiny of their children according to what happened to the forefathers.  And the third explanation is that the actions of the forefathers' themselves determine the fate of their children.

I couldnt help but reflect on this idiom and a well known Gemara in Sanhedrin.  The gemara  (סנהדרין מד ב states:

אמר רבי אלעזר לעולם יקדים אדם תפלה לצרה, שאילמלי לא הקדים אברהם תפלה לצרה בין בית אל ובין העי לא נשתייר מרשעי ישראל שריד ופליט

"Rebbe Elazar says, 'A person should always pray before he has tsar (troubles). For had Avraham Avinu not prayed between Beis El and Ai, those who hate the Jewish people would have destroyed every last trace of them'" (Gemora Sanhedrin 44b as explained by the Torah Temima). [Avraham Avinu was traveling in the land of Canaan. He came to a mountain between Beis El and Ai where he built an altar and called out to Gd. Hundreds of years later, when Yehoshua was conquering the land of Canaan, they came to Ai, which they thought would be an easy conquest. Instead, the people of Ai smote the Jewish people. We eventually overcame them. However, had Avraham Avinu not prayed, the people of Ai would have been victorious.

I was struck by the power of this thought as I reflected on the passing of my Uncle Beirish Muschel, this past Thursday night at the age of  97.   78 year ago, on September 1, 1939, precisely 2 weeks before Rosh Hashanah bombs began to fall from the sky in my father's hometown of Tarnow Poland.  And so, the Muschel family, consisting of parents Frumet and Majer, and children, Chaim, Beirish and Nachum left their home not knowing when or if they would ever return.  Because they needed to move quickly, apart from the clothes they were wearing, my grandfather permitted his children to carry only what they could hold in their hands.  And so each of the Muschel children took a pair of tefillin in one hand and a machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the other.  And from there, they embarked on a long journey of years, much of it by foot, to the Russian front, to Siberia, and ultimately to America where the majority of them lived out their lives in  Brooklyn, NY.

This past Thursday night, Beirish peacefully passed away at the age of 97.  78 years earlier he left his home in Tarnov on the eve of a seemingly insurmountable tsunami on the horizon with just a machzor of tefilah in his hand.  And less than 24 hours from the time of his passing, at the Kotel Hamaaravi in Jerusalem, his great grandson put on Tefillin for the first time.  Maaseh Avot Siman l'banim