In synagogue this past Yom Kippur, someone handed me a machzor with a bookplate that read: “Dedicated by [X] in memory of Rabba Sara Hurwitz and Josh Abraham on the birth of Natan.”

Thank God, my husband Josh and I are very much alive. Somehow “in honor of” was replaced by “in memory of.” But my son, Natan, has just turned 9 years old — so what better reminder could there be to pause and examine my life? To ask the big questions that Shmuel in the Gemara (Yoma 87b) insists that we ask in the waning hours of Yom Kippur during Neilah: Mah anu, what are we? Meh chayeinu, what are our lives?

These questions don’t end with Yom Kippur. They echo back to the very beginning of our story as a people, when God calls Avram in Genesis 12:2, to leave his home with the divine promise: “I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.” The structure of this verse, which will be read in most synagogues this Shabbat, is striking. God doesn’t say “I will bless you” (that comes in the previous verse). Here, God says something different: “You shall be a blessing.” Avrahram is not a passive recipient but an active agent. His very existence, his life itself, will be a source of blessing to others.

This is God’s answer to Shmuel’s questions: What are we? We are blessings. What are our lives? Our lives are meant to be........

© The Jewish Week