Lech Lecha: A Journey Toward Yourself

0:00 Good morning, and welcome. I'm David Ben Ami. Wherever you are, and whatever stream of Jewish life you call home, I'm glad you're here. Take a breath. The coffee can wait one more minute. We're in the middle of the month of Cheshvan. The holidays of the autumn are behind us, the next ones are far off, and the calendar is quiet.

0:26 Some people call it the unhurried stretch of the year. It's a good time to turn inward, and our Torah reading seems to know that. We've just spent time with the beginning of the world and with Noah. Now the reading arrives at Parashat Lech Lecha, and with it, one of the most famous sentences in the Torah.

0:47 Genesis, chapter twelve, verse one.

0:52In Hebrew Lech lecha me'artzecha umimoladtecha umibeit avicha el

0:58 ha'aretz asher ar'eka. "Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you." Notice what the verse leaves out. God doesn't name the destination. It's "the land that I will show you." And Abram isn't given a reason, at least not here. He's simply asked to leave everything familiar, in the order that makes it hardest: first the land, then the birthplace, then finally the house of his father.

1:33 It goes from the wide circle down to the closest one. Now, two Hebrew words. Lech lecha. Lech means "go." Lecha means "to you," or "for you." So a very literal reading is "go, for yourself." Hebrew doesn't need that extra word, and that's exactly why the sages stopped and asked what it's doing there.

1:57 Rashi, the great commentator who lived in the eleventh century, answers plainly. Lech lecha, he says, means lehano'atcha uletovatcha, "for your benefit and for your good." Staying where you are, God tells Abram, will not bring you what you hope for. Step out, and there will be children, there will be sustenance, and there will be a name that people remember.

2:22 So the journey isn't only a demand. In Rashi's reading, it's a gift wrapped in something frightening. Then there's a second reading, later and more intimate. Hasidic teachers, among them Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, the author of the Kedushat Levi, and Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, heard the words as lech le'atzmecha.

2:45 "Go to yourself." Journey inward. That's a homiletical reading, a creative one, not the plain meaning of the verse. But it opens a door. Maybe leaving the land and the father's house isn't only about geography. Maybe it's about everything we absorb without choosing: the habits, the expectations, the way we're used to reacting.

3:12 Leaving all that behind, even a little, is how a person finds out who they actually are underneath. The sages ask a question this verse seems to skip. Why Abram? The Torah says nothing about him before this moment. So the Midrash, in Bereishit Rabbah, chapter thirty nine, tells a parable, and it's attributed to Rabbi Yitzchak.

3:38 A traveler is walking from place to place, and he sees a palace. The Hebrew says birah doleket. A birah is a palace, a grand building. Doleket comes from a root meaning to burn, or to blaze. The traveler looks at it and wonders: can it be that this palace has no master? And just then, the owner looks out and says, "I am the master of the palace."

4:07 So it was with Abraham. He looked at the world and asked: can it be that all this has no one who cares for it? And God looked out and said, "I am the Master of the world." Here's the part I love. Readers have long disagreed about that word, doleket. Is the palace on fire, in chaos and danger, with someone surely needing to put it out?

4:34 Or is it aglow, lit up, so beautiful and so full of design that someone must have made it? The text allows both, and I think that's a gift. Some mornings the world looks like a palace in flames. Some mornings it looks like a palace full of light. Abram's response is the same either way. He doesn't shrug.

5:01 He doesn't say, "It's not my concern." He looks for the one who holds responsibility, and he steps forward into it. That, in the end, is what a call really is: refusing to be indifferent. The tradition doesn't pretend this was easy. In Pirkei Avot, chapter five, the Mishnah teaches: "With ten trials our father Abraham was tested, and he withstood them all, to make known how great was the love of our father Abraham."

5:37 Traditional commentators, including the Rambam and Bartenura, count this very departure, leaving family and everything familiar, as either the first or the second of those ten trials. So the sages heard fear in this verse. They called it a test, and they said the love was in the passing of it. Now, one practical thought for the day.

6:04 You may not be leaving your land this morning. But most of us carry a small version of lech lecha into every day. There's a Hebrew word, hitchadshut. It means renewal, a fresh start. The idea is that we don't have to wait for a crisis to break an old routine. So before the day gets busy, pick one automatic thing.

6:30 Maybe it's the sigh you give when your phone lights up. Maybe it's the way you greet someone you've stopped really seeing. Maybe it's the cynical thing you say about the news before you've finished your first cup. Take one step away from it, just for today. Not for anyone else's approval, but, as Rashi would say, for your benefit and for your good.

6:54 Go a little toward yourself, and act with presence and kindness instead of drifting along the old path. Let me close with the blessing that comes right after our verse. In the very next verse, Genesis twelve, verse two, God says to Abram: veheyeh berachah. "And you shall be a blessing." So may you walk into this day with steady trust, what we call bitachon, even when the road ahead isn't fully shown to you.

7:29 May you notice the palace, whether it's burning or shining, and may you answer it with care. And may you be a blessing to every person you meet today. Have a good morning, and a good day.