What is a Tradition – Not Just a Fiddler on a Rooftop
Our country, society, religion, family all the way down to a brotherly pact are all built on traditions. Who are YOU to stop the tradition? What ego must you carry to say, “nope, this is not how I (ME) (MYSELF) choose to live.” Terrell Owens doesn’t show up to Canton for his induction to the Football HOF – the commentaries erupt. Baseball institutes instant replay, the traditionalists lash out. Is this not progression of the game’s fairness? A family ditches Turkey for Tofu, people scoff. Is the family not still together remaining thankful? When there is a deeper meaning to a tradition, the mechanics may change but the roots of the tradition remain in bedrock.
What is a tradition? Why do we adhere to them once officially proclaimed a “tradition?” What’s the difference between a tradition and a habit? Can a good habit graduate into a tradition? At what point or over what period of observance of a habit does it become a tradition? Can a tradition be one man’s and one man’s alone or must it embody others? What happens when traditions die off? Let’s explore.
With no help from Webster, I’ll coin a tradition as “An activity or expression in which ancestral observance perpetuates it’s importance and credence.” I hand selected each word as I carefully constructed the sentence, hoping it does this complex idea justice. What are the keys to unlock this definition? Let’s examine the word that this all hinges to, ancestral.
Do we not stand on the shoulders of giants? Do we not learn from the past and seek the guidance of those that came before us? If not, why would we choose to not adhere to our ancestors' ways? Do we believe that with the advancement of technology and society that the previous way of doing things are somehow less relevant or applicable? What if the methodology of the action has changed but the underlying formation of the event stays constant? If the past is just a set of stories, bequeathed to us as fiction, should we scratch the history books and each write our own?
What happens when an entire generation loses venerability of it’s elders? When the youth rebels and seeks asylum from the chains of it’s rising – have we seen or experienced that? In my short life, I don’t think I’ve experienced it in full but I can point to a few expressions of youth and YOLO-ship that certainly feel that way. What happens when the Jewish man skips out on Rosh Hashana instead to experience Burning Man? When the man elects to forego a commandment of G-d, a celebration of family, a tradition no question, and seeks out a gathering of people who claim to create an entirely new, yet ephemeral, society? Is he looking to begin a new tradition or renounce his commitment to the notion of tradition entirely?
When one tradition falters, does a new one begin in it’s place? Do the ancestors shed a tear as a remaining vine in the family’s wall of honor dies? Is the tradition bigger then that one individual – something so large and complex that it’s entirely inappropriate for one person to disobey? So many questions!
What are the rules and regulations of forming a new tradition? What if there are no predecessors – no ancestral grounding to look to. In the formation of a new tradition, you must have devout intent to do something meaningful and have the unwillingness to break from it. My brother, Adam, and I are forming a tradition.
What is the relationship to a brother? At the most biological level you were created from the same pool of marbles as each other. You share the same tree by which you, the apple, fell. Yet, you are definitively a different apple. Any iterations between you two are born out of pure happenstance of how the seedlings evolved. On a more harmonious note, you have many shared experiences, notably of the formidable years of your life and yet as you get older your lives bifurcate starting from the time you leave the home and continuing to the point where you begin a new home for a family of your own. Given the inevitable separation of your closest biological replica, might you want to find time to reconvene?
When I proposed the idea that we meet in San Diego for a brother’s weekend in 2016, it wasn’t a difficult ask. A house in La Jolla, golf at Torrey Pines, A boat on the Bay, nice dinners on the cove, a night out in Pacific Beach, massages and a chance to hang in San Diego! It was the perfect way to spend time together before we married him off to his wife Dana. The following year we landed on Baltimore and this year we went to Portland, Maine. Three years running, the brothers weekend feels less like a novelty set of trips and more like a commitment to each other to perpetuate something special; form a tradition.