Jacob’s blessings, instructions and prophecies to his children and King David’s instructions to Solomon before he dies (this week’s Haftarah) feels extra poignant to me this year in which both my parents passed. It has led me to think … If I were to create my own Pirke Avot, with advice that I inherited from my parents, Jewish studies or life in general, what would I write? My mother often taught compromise with a comment to my father: “Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?” I would teach: Violence always leads to violence. The Jewish way to leave a legacy is to teach so that others may have better lives than we had, and so that our loved ones may succeed in whatever they undertake.
