תורת רושל זל
Letters to a Future Child
Covenantal LIVING SEAN DREIFUSS I
decided to deliver this speech to you in letter form so that I could convey the significance of your wedding and its overall relation to your Jewish life at large. Marriage is a covenant. This message not only applies to you, but it comes from my own experience and is felt strongly among those in the Jewish community. I hope you will take these messages to heart and realize the importance and duty you possess as an individual Jew living covenantally.
Dear Jonah,
Today, you legally enter a covenant. While this is a new covenant for you, it surely is not the first covenant in your life. You may be asking yourself, “What even is a covenant?”. The answer to that question is multifaceted. In its most simple form, a covenant is an agreement similar to that of a contract or a pact. The covenant that you live by is that which defines you as a Jew and as a human being in all your relationships. While you may
not have signed the covenant you have in your life knowingly, you are bound in many covenants. As a Jew, your covenant has three primary facets: one with God, one with the community, and one with the self. Although each of these covenants is predicated on distinct values and responsibilities, they all culminate to form your Jewish identity. From the dawn of time, all humans, not just Jews, were brought into this world with an inherent covenant with God. In Bereishit, God creates humans in God’s image, imbuing humans with intrinsic worth, as the Torah states, “Vayivra elohim et ha-adam b’tzalmo, b’tzelem elohim bara oto, zachar v’nekevah bara otam. God created humanity in God’s image. In the image of God, God created him. Male and female, God created them” (Bereishit 1:27). In creating the world, God creates male and female as equals, and the first human is often regarded as an androgynous being. As Dr. Judith Klitsner explains, the way in which the Torah describes God relating to humans is the ideal, prescribed vision for humanity (Subversive Sequels in the Bible). See Dreifuss, next page
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