Hevron evokes emotions – Chukkat
Towards the end of the sidra the itinerary of the Children of Israel resumes. Place names are mentioned, and though some may today be simply spots on a Middle Eastern map many are full of emotional associations.
Hevron does not happen to be amongst those that figure in this list, but it poignantly illustrates the emotional tug that comes with so many parts of Israel’s geography.
But it is not only place names that arouse your memories as a Jew and kindle your emotions. It is occasions too: evenings in particular, like Seder, Kol Nidre and of course Friday night. You may have strayed, but the feelings associated with these occasions are ineradicable. The same thing goes for melodies, prayer-book passages, personalities – and when you come to think about it, the power Judaism has to draw you back is uncanny.
But there is a proviso. All this is only if the memories are there in the first place, if you actually have something to remember. If you are an adult, you cannot of course re-invent your childhood and pretend there was Jewish colour and warmth there if it never existed.
But if you have children and grandchildren, you can ensure you enhance their lives now and enrich them with such a range of Jewish experience that whatever happens, in years to come they will come back to it again and again.
