By telling our story, we begin to unfold the mystery of our lives.
Why is one person drawn to music and one person able to understand physics just by reading it?
Why can one person captivate an audience with a speech, while another cannot walk up to a stage to speak?
Why do these abilities seem to be shared along familial lines?
Inside each and every one of us is a “sim card”, our soul, breathed into us directly and only by the Master of the universe.
There is a profound architecture in this world and every minute detail operates in its synchronicity.
We cannot hear its tick-tock; we cannot see its threads.
However, when we sit back from everyday tasks and examine our lives and the lives of others, we can hear the hint of all that happens underneath the story: what happened, why, and what does this mean?
While we can never approach answers to these questions, the search can change our lives.
The narrative of each individual life is haunting – why… what if… what wisdom led to the major decisions… where was the wisdom learned … where do we go for advice?
Are the stories of the families in the Bible a guide?
The map of collected individual stories forms a community tale.
We build ourselves.
We build others in the same process.
Our individual choices colour the community.
However, the bonds of our lives must be strengthened so that they may endure through our lifetimes and beyond.
We must learn how to live the noble life G-d intends for us.
We must learn how to live in accordance with that blessing, and how to help others continue to stay in the embrace of that blessing.
The story is one road to that destination.
We tell the family story in honour and admiration of those before us. We hope to imbibe some of the courage, the strength, the belief, and the positive note of their lives lived well through many different circumstances.
The story can be written down and videotaped.
The questions that hang in the air after the story is told, the many questions that lead to other questions, that point to our destinies, individual and shared, can only lead to further questions, further study, to the attraction to good deeds, and to prayer, as we continue to search for the visible and invisible connections of our lives.