By: Jenn Abrams
PJ Library Manager
Recently my 13-year-old came home with an assignment for her Social Studies class. The class was learning about how the introduction of the internet changed the way knowledge is acquired and skills are passed from one person to another. For most of human history, if people wanted something, they had to figure out how to make it themselves. If they wanted to learn a new skill, they had to find someone who knew how to do it and teach them or track down a book that could guide them. The internet has changed all of that and, in many ways, changed how our children learn.
Students in her class were tasked with choosing something they wanted to learn, finding someone to teach them, documenting the steps involved, and then presenting what they learned to the class.
Lucky for my household, my daughter has developed a strong interest in cooking, so she came home and declared that she was going to ask her grandmother to teach her how to make blintzes — one of her favorite recipes in Grandma’s repertoire. In one of those “only in Colorado” moments, a few weeks ago my daughter found herself spending an unexpected May snow day with her grandmother, learning step-by-step how to make blintzes.
There is an obvious connection here to the holiday of Shavuot: a grandmother teaching her grandchild how to make a beloved dairy-filled family recipe. But what struck me most about this moment was something deeper — the experience of tradition being passed from one generation to another.
In a world where answers are instant and tutorials are only a click away; there is something profoundly meaningful about slowing down and learning directly from another person. Learning this way requires patience, conversation, observation, and connection. It is not only about mastering a skill; it is about building relationships and preserving memory and tradition along the way.
That feels especially connected to Shavuot. On this holiday we commemorate the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, but Judaism teaches us that Torah is not something that was received once and left in the past. Torah continues to live through us — through study, questioning, interpretation, and the responsibility to pass it on to future generations.
My daughter did not just learn how to make blintzes that snowy afternoon. She learned family stories, techniques that never quite make it into a written recipe, and the value of spending uninterrupted time with someone eager to teach her. Like Torah itself, these traditions are carried forward person to person, generation to generation.
And perhaps that is one of the enduring lessons of Shavuot: wisdom is not only found in what we learn, but in who teaches us, how we receive it, and how we choose to pass it on.
Please email Jenn Abrams at jabrams@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.