Midrash by Dr. Barry Leff
Midrash Archive
Jackson Snyder Biblical Literature ArcCenter
Lech Lecha. The opening words of this week’s Torah portion are
surely two of the most commented upon words in the entire Torah. God
tells Abraham lech lecha—go, leave, depart from your homeland, go on a journey
to a place that I will show you.
One reason these words are so commented on is that everyone can relate to
them. Every grown up, at some time or another in his life, has had to
pick up and leave, if not physically, as in to go off to college, at least metaphorically,
as in deciding to jump into the uncharted territory of getting married.
Everyone sees their life in some way as a journey, and at some point something
or someone comes along which gets them to move in a new direction.
I strongly relate to this week’s parsha for two reasons. First, it’s
my bar mitzvah parsha, so I have a sentimental attachment; second, I feel a
close connection to Abraham with my personal journey, picking up and leaving my
old life behind to start a new life following the word of God.
In Hebrew grammar, lech lecha is a slightly strange construction. It
would seem to mean “go to you,” or go to yourself. Just plain “lech”
would mean “go.” In Hebrew, very typically words are repeated for
emphasis, as in “really go!” Rashi says that what lech lecha means is
this command is for your benefit, for your own good…God is saying “trust me,
this will be good for you.”
We could read “go to yourself” as referring to a spiritual journey, to go
into yourself—that it’s not just about going physically from one place to
another, but about making some spiritual movement within yourself.
God tells Abraham to “leave your country, the land you were born in, your
father’s house, to go to the land that I will show you.” The order given
for these words seems to be backwards: if you go on a trip, the first thing you
leave behind is your house, then the town where you were born, and finally you
leave your land, your country. Interpreting “lech lecha“ as a spiritual
journey is supported by Ramban, Nachmanides, who points out that these
locations are listed in order of increasing difficulty to separate from.
We have the weakest connection to our country, a stronger connection to our
birthplace (the town we come from), where we have our friends and familiar
places, and it is still harder to separate from the house of our father, from
our family. Ramban says this shows that Abraham had to give all these
things up for the sake of his love of God.
What was Abraham’s response to God? Another classical commentator,
Radak, says that by going without knowing the destination, Abraham was showing
his love for God. Most of us would say that Abraham was being called on
to make “leap of faith.” However, what Abraham did was what Abraham
Joshua Heschel describes as a “leap of action.” This is perhaps the
essence of what Judaism asks of us: not to take a leap of faith, to believe in
something just “because,” but rather to take a leap of action. To do
something even if you don’t understand why.
When Moses brought the Ten Commandments to our ancestors at Mount Sinai,
they responded “na’aseh v’nishma.” We will do, and we will
understand. We will take a leap of action—we will obey the mitzvot, even
without understanding why. And by obeying the mitzvot, by taking that
leap of action, by doing them—so we will come to understand them.
This is a very profound teaching. I could give a dozen brilliant
sermons about why it is a wonderful thing to observe Shabbat, and someone who
has never tried it would still not get what Shabbat is about. To
understand Shabbat, you simply have to do it. Try it—not just once, but
at least three or four times. Taking 25 hours out of a busy life, and
spending it doing nothing but being with friends and family, eating good meals,
drinking wine, singing, hanging out, is incredibly restorative. Not to
run around from here to there, not to watch TV, not to shlep the kids to soccer
games, not to run errands, not to do the laundry, but to simply BE, and be with
each other, is an incredible experience. But to appreciate it requires a
“leap of action”—a willingness to try it and experience it, and understand what
it’s about later.
One of my colleagues, Jackie Redner, shared something she learned from a
teacher of Jungian psychoanalysis: an egg on a stable surface will remain
stationary. If you put an egg on a table, it will stay there, it will
just sit there. Movement requires a nudge—not necessarily a big one, but
a nudge nonetheless.
The message to all of us from this week’s parsha is “lech lecha,” go, as
Rashi says, do it for yourself, it’s good for you. Give yourself a
nudge—whether it’s in Shabbat observance, kashrut, prayer, studying Torah,
giving to charity, avoiding gossip, or whatever mitzvah speaks to you.
Take a leap of action. Lech lecha.
Shabbat Shalom