A remarkable scientific claim has recently been travelling around social media. Spend ten minutes a day thinking about one grandparent, it says, and after thirty days, genes inherited from that grandparent will become more active.

It is a captivating idea.

It also appears to be untrue. No identifiable scientific study supports it.

Yet perhaps the claim has circulated so widely because it gives biological form to something human beings have long sensed: our ancestors are not entirely gone. They live within our appearance and temperament, but also within our habits, loyalties, fears, aspirations and ways of understanding the world.

Two of the world’s most ancient continuous civilizations, Chinese and Jewish civilization, have built this insight into the structure of life. They express it differently, but they agree on something modern individualism easily forgets: no person begins with himself.

In traditional Chinese culture, reverence for one’s ancestors gives the departed an ongoing place within family life. Rituals honor their virtue, express gratitude for what has been received and cultivate filial responsibility among the living. The individual understands himself as one link in a chain, indebted to those who came before and responsible for those who will come after.

Judaism does not pray to ancestors. It prays exclusively to G-d. Yet Jewish prayer continually places us in relationship with those who preceded us.

In the Amidah we address:

“Our G-d........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)