A Tidbit of Torah
Parshat Lech L’cha 5784
At God’s behest, Avram, along with Sarai his wife, and his nephew Lot, leave their native home and all its familiarity. Avram is told to step out of his comfort zone and to meet the challenges of encountering new peoples and difficult situations. The Torah will record the friendships he makes, the treaties into which he enters, and the difficult situations he must navigate. Into this new situation Avram carries with him God’s words, both their challenge and their promise.
1 The Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”
B’reysheet / Genesis 12:1-3
God incentivizes Avram by promising that he will become the ancestor of a great nation and the inheritor of this land. Avram must not only travel to this unknown destination but to receive the promised blessing Avram must fulfill God’s moral and ethical imperative that in his actions and through his actions, Avram become a source of blessing to those whom he encounters and to the whole world.
We, Avram’s descendants are called upon to walk in his footsteps. We, too, must step out of our comfort zone and speak the truth loudly and broadly in response to the misinformation and prevarication disseminated by Hamas and its enablers. We have watched how, despite the truth being evident and available, Hamas supporters march in major cities around the world and on campuses across North America calling for support of Hamas’ “resistance” efforts. Hamas enablers have undertaken a mission to hide the truth about the nature of Hamas as a terrorist organization whose sole reason for existence is the eradication of Israel as a state and the Jewish people as a whole.
Many of these enablers present themselves as progressives bewailing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza even as they chant slogans demanding the destruction of Israel. They ask for humanitarian relief for Palestinians even as they tear down pictures of Israeli children held captive by Hamas, children orphaned by Hamas terrorists and taken to uncertain futures. These progressives vilify Israel while ignoring that the truth that Hamas places the Palestinians in harm’s way, using them as human shields and has for years diverted aid from benefitting the Palestinian people in favor of tunnels and armaments in furtherance of their murderous intent.
Like Avram we must travel a difficult and uncomfortable journey, a journey made more challenging by individuals in positions of influence from university professors to members of the media, and even the head of the United Nations. It falls to us to document the lies underlying the Hamas narratives and to proclaim them until we persuade their enablers and those ignorant of the truth to reject the false narrative.
In doing so we not only express our solidarity with are Israeli brothers and sisters, and with Jews everywhere in the world, but we can like Avram become a source of blessing to each other, and to a world freed from falsehood.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
L’chi Lach
Debbie Freidman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8WrShnKTWY
As we read the story of our ancestors Avraham and Sarah, I share with you this piece by Debbie Freidman which captures GOD’s challenge both to them and to us, to go forth on our Jewish life journey, fulfill our divinely given potentiality, and thus become a blessing in the world.
L’chi lach,
to a land that I will show you
Leich l’cha, to a place you do not know
L’chi lach, on your journey I will bless you
And (you shall be a blessing) l’chi lach
And (you shall be a blessing) l’chi lach
And (you shall be a blessing) l’chi lach
L’chi lach, and I shall make your name great
Leich l’cha, and all shall praise your name
L’chi lach, to the place that I will show you
L’chi lach
(L’sim-chat cha-yim) l’chi lach
(L’sim-chat cha-yim) l’chi lach
L’dor Vador
Josh Nelson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzV0Y4MkIBQ
This beautiful piece by Josh Nelson, built around a phrase from the Kedusha in the Amidah liturgy, picks up on the themes of being a blessing and the concept of generational continuity that connects us across the ages to Avraham and Sarah.
We are gifts and we are blessings,
we are history in song
We are hope and we are healing,
we are learning to be strong
We are words and we are stories,
we are pictures of the past
We are carriers of wisdom,
not the first and not the last
L’dor vador nagid godlecha
(From generation to generation,
we will tell of Your greatness)
L’dor vador… we protect this chain
From generation to generation
L’dor vador,
these lips will praise Your name
Looking back on the journey that we carry in our heart
From the shadow of the mountain to the waters that would part
We are blessed and we are holy,
we are children of Your way
And the words that bring us meaning,
we will have the strength to say
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