Lech L’cha
I’ve always been a home-body, not adventurous, attached to my mother’s apron strings. Even after her physical apron strings were no longer there, I still had issues when faced with leaving home.
This caused great emotional pain for me as a child, and when I got to college and had the opportunity to write about this issue in a creative writing class, I took my written thoughts to my beloved rabbi. I clearly remember walking into his office and placing my notebook with shaking hands on his desk. Then I waited while he read my words. He looked up with a calming smile, and with simple wisdom said: “You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready to do.” His words opened the doors of the universe for me, and allowed me to step out from my painful childhood cocoon into many unknowns of my future. While he was, on the surface, saying “stay where you are,” my soul actually heard the word “go.”
Lech l’cha – the words that open this week’s parasha, propel Avram to leave his home, to pursue the unknown. There are promises of grandeur and blessings for following the command given by God. As if Avram would have argued with the message. Avram goes with Sarai and Lot, his nephew, and he takes all his belongings.
It would have been easy for Avram to remain in the homeland of his parents. It had afforded him the opportunity to accumulate wealth. But what would have become of him if he had not been given the proverbial kick in the pants to move out and make a new life? And where would we, generations upon generations later, be?
I often think about the stream of events that followed that fateful day in my rabbi’s study, when I reluctantly accepted the invitation of my rabbi to come up to camp where he was serving as faculty, to spend one night, only one night with his family that summer. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. And soon after, I spent a month house-sitting while my boss went on vacation. A year later I moved from my parents’ house to an apartment in the same city with my best friend. And I never lived in my parents home again. My first trip alone was to see that magical land I had only read about in my religious school textbooks, Eretz Yisrael. I cried as the wheels left the ground as we were homeward bound. I didn’t want to leave.
How do we muster the courage to face change in our lives? How do we leave physical and emotional ties behind, as Avram did, especially when the future is unknown? According to author and life coach Tony Robbins, “change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” I remember as a small child reading a midrash portraying Avram’s father Terach as a manufacturer of idols. One night, Avram smashed all the idols in his father’s shop. The next morning his furious father, demanded to know who had destroyed the idols. “They attacked each other,” Avram told him. “That’s impossible!” cried Terach. “They are made of stone. They could not possibly have destroyed each other.” “Then why do you worship them?” Avram challenged him. Avram believed in one God. He could not stay in a home or community that practiced idolatry. So when God called, Avram trusted that what lay ahead would have to be an improvement over the status quo.
Each of us travels through life either opening or closing doors, or having them opened and closed for us. There may be gaps between the closings and the openings, or the transition from one to the next can be seamless. The gaps can cause anxiety, with physical, emotional, and spiritual ramifications. Simultaneous closings and openings may cause confusion, not knowing if the next step is to be trusted.
Returning to the opening words of our parasha. Lech l’cha, the great medieval commentator Rashi read these words as “Go for you.” He wrote that the command means, “Go for your own enjoyment, and for your own good.” This is an invitation for wonder and self-discovery.
Our sanctuary, in which we read today the imperative given by God to Avram, is our home, our safe place. May each of us have the courage to take these words through the doors of our lives, taking steps necessary to follow our hearts in searching for all that transforms our lives, especially in living Jewishly. May we come to recognize the Oneness of God, through which we seek kedusha, holiness, so that we can achieve our utmost sacred selves.
Ken yehi ratzon – May it be God’s will
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Poet Janice Andrade wrote the following poem in 2011:
Give mother a hug
Father a kiss
The time has come
We have talked about it
Many times before
But the time is now
Fake a smile
And turn away
Start alone
I must leave everything I know
Into a world
One I do not understand
Hoping to find out
Who I truly am
Letting go of their hands
I am off
Not looking back
This is my time my journey
I have to do this my way
I walk in a girl
I will walk out a woman
Ready to face the world
