Back-to-school season has a way of filling our screens with firsts.
A friend proudly posts that her grandson is the third generation of the family to enroll at a prestigious university. What an extraordinary legacy!
Another shares photos of the matching outfits she bought for her granddaughters, followed by pictures of them wearing those outfits on the first day of school. They truly looked adorable.
Someone else writes about the long, heartfelt conversation she had with her grandchild about the fears and feelings that come with beginning a new school year.
You look at the pictures. You read the stories. You feel happy for them.
And perhaps, somewhere underneath that happiness, there is another feeling too.
A small emptiness.
Because these are not the first fruits in your basket.
Your grandchild may be starting school far away, without you there to help choose an outfit, and even if they did, the clothes you selected are not likely to be worn. Perhaps they did not call you to talk about their fears. Perhaps there is no shared family institution stretching across three generations. Perhaps the relationship you have with your grandchildren simply looks different from the relationships you see displayed so beautifully around you.
This week, Parashat Ki Tavo opens with a remarkable image.
After entering the land, inheriting it, settling it, and cultivating it, the farmer gathers the first fruits and places them in a basket before bringing them to the Kohen.
I wonder what it would feel like to arrive carrying that basket alongside everyone else.
Would you look around?
Would you notice whose fruit was larger? Whose grapes were fuller? Whose figs were more beautiful?
Would you wonder whether you had watered enough? Whether you had worked hard enough? Why another person's harvest looked more abundant than yours?
Of course, we do not know that this is what the farmers were thinking. But human beings have always compared what they have to what others seem to have.
Grandparents do too.
We compare the relationships, phone calls, visits, photographs, traditions, and milestones we are included in.
And social media has given us a constant opportunity to look into everyone else's basket.
But Ki Tavo offers us a different place to focus.
The farmer does not bring someone else's fruit. They bring the first fruits of what grew in the land entrusted to them.
That land was an inheritance, a nachalah, but it was also something they had to cultivate and tend. And no farmer controlled everything.
They did not control the weather.
They could tend their crops, but they could not guarantee the harvest.
Perhaps there is something comforting in that for grandparents.
We can nurture. We can show up. We can tell the stories, make the calls, remember the birthdays, create traditions, and keep opening doors to connection.
But we cannot control every relationship or every outcome.
And we cannot measure our own legacy by the first fruits we see in someone else's basket.
There may be something in your basket that another grandparent would cherish.
A small tradition no one posts about.
A private joke.
A story your grandchild still asks you to tell.
A moment when they trusted you with something important.
A relationship that may not look impressive from the outside, but is real.
As we move through Elul, perhaps this is an opportunity for honest reflection.
Not: Why does someone else have what I wish I had?
But:
What has been entrusted to me?
What is growing here that I may have overlooked?
What can I continue to tend?
Joyful. Look for one small fruit in your relationship with a grandchild that brings you joy, even if it does not look like the grandparenting you imagined. Appreciate and nurture it!
Intentional. Notice when comparison is making you overlook what is already in your basket. This week, choose one relationship to tend rather than one relationship to measure.
Connection. Ask your grandchild:
"What is something you are proud of that other people might not notice?"
You may be surprised by what they choose to share.
As we bring our own first fruits into this new season, preparing for the New Year, may we learn to cherish what is growing in our own baskets while continuing to tend what has been entrusted to us.
Wishing you a Shabbat of joyful, intentional connection.
Rabbanit Sharona Hassan
Founder of Grand Plan
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A grandparent.
A child.
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