Freedom, Oneness and God's Name

This week’s Torah portion is Va’eira, which means, and I appeared. In this portion God speaks to Moses about the Holy Name, and how God appeared to the patriarchs as El Shaddai, which may mean, God Almighty, God who is sufficient, or God the Provider; and not as Yud hei vav hei, the name of God which means Being or existence, in the past present, and future.
The rest of this portion tells about the Divine promise to free the Israelites and take them out of Egypt, leading them to the Land. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and demand that the people be freed, but Pharaoh refuses repeatedly, bringing upon himself and his people the plagues of blood, frogs, lice, swarms of beasts, and fiery hail. Each plague brings Pharaoh to consider freeing the people, only to renege and reconsider, once the plagues have been removed.
It is interesting that the portion begins with a discussion of God’s Name, Yud hei vav hei, a conjugation of the verb, To Be. The Torah says, “I am Yud Hei vav hei. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but with my name, Yud Hei vav Hei I didi not make myself known to them.” Why does God care what name we use? What is so important about the Name? We could call God anything really, but Moses is being given a vital piece of information here. God is saying – I am being - I am existence, which is One. You are on the brink of a completely new understanding – a shift. What Rabbi Zalman Schacter Shalomi of the Jewish Renewal Movement, has called a paradigm shift, to quote the title of one of his books. And this is an understanding that we are still working on coming to terms with, even now.
Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, the Other. For him, he and the Egyptians were US and we, the Israelites were THEM. By not having the understanding of Yud Hei vav Hei, that spiritually speaking, there is no us and no them, only US, Pharaoh brought suffering to himself, misfortune to his people, and brought his country to the brink of ruin. Pharaoh was under the mistaken impression that there can be persecution without negative consequences. The cycle of repression, pain, persecution leading to bankruptcy, ruin, and destruction has been enacted again and again in history, for us, for African Americans in this country, and for so many other peoples.
This leads us to the question – If God is One, then how does God experience our suffering? Perhaps it is like having a splinter in our finger or breaking our toe. Our finger, our toe, is a part of us; and we feel the pain acutely. When a part of us is injured, it hurts. When we cause another human being to suffer, we cause the Eternal pain. When we alleviate someone’s suffering, perhaps we even cause God to smile.
If God told Moses, I am Yud Hei Vav Hei, being, existence, Oneness, over 3,000 years ago, why do we still not understand the implications of that piece of information ? Why do we not immediately follow the logic of that statement to its conclusion: that if God is One and God brought forth all existence from that Oneness, that there could not ever be an Us and a Them. The realization of that reality has been slow in coming. Many of our sages were prepared to understand that Israel, all the Jewish People were one, but it has not been until recently, perhaps only until the second half of the 19th Century that we as individuals and also as a society were prepared to understand God’s statement profoundly, in its essence. While I was writing this sermon, I recalled the quotation, "Until we are all free, we are none of us free." And I tried to find its author. Perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr. had written it, I thought, which would be great for timing, given that this is the Shabbat before the national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Maybe Gandhi, I thought? Do you know who wrote it? Emma Lazarus: a Jewish woman, born in 1849 and died in 1887. Since she said those words, the understanding of Universal Oneness has been gaining ground. Abraham Joshua Heschl wrote, in his book, Man is not Alone, “Divine is a message that discloses unity where we see diversity, that discloses peace when we are involved in discord. God is the One who holds our fitful lives together, who reveals to us that what is empirically diverse in color, in interest, in creeds: – races, classes, nations – are one in God’s eyes and one in essence.” Later, Martin Luther King said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” And also “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” And he also made an inexact paraphrase of Emma Lazarus, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But perhaps we can go to the S’fat Emet, who lived at approximately the same time as Emma Lazarus, and who wrote that “we must be empty of everything before we can hear.” We can extend this to sight as well. We must empty ourselves of what we see and think we know, to understand our oneness and then to feel it and act upon it. How would we speak to God, how would we treat God if we had the opportunity to talk to the Holy One? That’s how we could treat each other. To believe that we are all a part of each other, to regard the problems we encounter in ourselves, in others, in our society not as evil, reacting with fear or hatred, but as the unredeemed parts of God that we can play a part in redeeming, would be a major shift in our thinking. If we let ourselves, we can feel our connection to each other. These are ideas whose time is coming, or perhaps whose time has finally come. But the profound understanding of Yud Hei Vav Hei, is more than an idea – it is a universal truth; and the ability to live out of that truth is a great challenge that brings great blessings. May we realize the tremendous potential we have to bring the realization of our Oneness finally, after 3,000 years, into our lives and into the consciousness of the world. In so doing we will bless each other and ourselves, and perhaps even, to cause God to smile.

Hiding and Revealing

This week’s Torah portion, the first portion in the Book of Exodus, is Shemot, which means, Names. It is about the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, Pharaoh’s decree to drown every male Israelite baby, the birth of Moses, his exile in Midian, and his call by God and eventual return to carry out God’s plan for him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. This portion has a number of references to something hidden. The first reference says, “A man went from the house of Levi and married a daughter of Levi. The woman conceived and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was good and she hid him for three months. She could not hide him any longer.” We know what happened next: She placed Moses in a waterproof basket, put it into the River, and sent Moses’ sister Miriam, to watch it as Pharaoh’s daughter discovered it. Pharaoh’s daughter had pity on the child and decided to raise Moses as her own. As Moses’ mother became his caretaker, he never lost touch with his family and his people.
The text says, “She saw that he was good.” What did Jocheved, Moses’ mother, see? The Torah says, Ki Tov, for he was good. This phrase, Ki Tov reminded the sages of the primordial, spiritual light of the Divine Presence, about which, on the first day of creation, God said, Ki Tov, for it, the light, was good. In Midrash Rabbah, it is written, the Sages say: When Moses was born the whole house became flooded with light; for here it says: AND SHE SAW HIM THAT HE WAS A GOODLY CHILD, and in (Gen. I, 4) it says: And God saw the light, that it was good. Another commentary is from the Zohar, where it is written, “That light is the sacred and hidden temple wherein is concentrated that divine essence from which all the worlds draw sustenance, and all divine hosts are nourished and so subsist.( I:6b). From this comparison, it is tempting to create a very small bit of Kabbbalah for our times. What did Jocheved see? The sages say she saw Moses’ inner radiance. She saw his life force, the life that God gives to each of us. So she hid it, allowing it to grow, to develop. She nurtured his radiance, protected it, covering it when danger threatened. Just as we cover, hide, and protect our inner soul light. But after three months, when she could hide him no longer, she put him in a basket. With trust in the Eternal, and with the prayers she must have prayed, she placed him carefully in the water, the birth waters of the Eternal – attached to the womb-wall of the bank of the Nile, protected by the reeds, yet partially exposed. All it took was the kindness of another human being, to open the basket and expose the radiance within, and the baby was crying – the cry of our soul light when there is none to share it.
Just as God has hidden the Divine Radiance from us, so do we hide away our own spiritual spark. It is deep within us, protected by layers of ourselves: layers of reason, scientific knowledge, fear, insecurity, hurt, and pain. God saw the sparkle in Jocheved, the brilliant beams in Moses. God sees our light as well. But how aware of it are we? After hiding it away for so long, do we often bring it forth? Have we protected it for too long? Do we dare to shine, as God intended us to? In Walt Whitman’s the Song of Myself, he writes, I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good- belongs to you. Whitman’s words unleash the passion of sharing the light with another person. To uncover our light is to share it, to connect and join the flow of the River of life, in which all light is connected, and all passion becomes compassion. The Psychologist Erich Fromm has written, "Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself." And the philosopher Derrida has written, I give birth to myself and I write myself.
Jocheved gave birth, then hid away her light until it was developed, and finally, shared it with the world, making possible a glorious redemption of her people and also all humanity, through the revelation of Torah. The nurturing of our Divine spark is precious work, but letting it out and sharing it is not only holy but redemptive. The Eternal Holy One knows that each of us is part of the Divine Plan. As God is Ki Tov, Goodness, we are goodness. Our light is desperately needed in the world. It is our task not only to protect it so that it can grow, doing the inner work that supports its nurturing, but to let it out, that we may illumine the world for others. It is our light that can repair the world, if we are willing to share it. And when we birth it and share it, Ki Tov, it feels good, is good; and we mint even more goodness and more light, fulfilling the Divine purpose for which we were created.

Resolutions for the New Year

This week’s Torah portion is Vayigash, which means, “and he approached.” Judah comes before Joseph, the Vizier of Egypt, to plead for his youngest brother, Benjamin, and to offer to take Benjamin’s place in jail. Benjamin has been framed by Joseph, in order to see whether the brothers have changed and grown; whether they hate Benjamin as they hated him; and whether they will abandon Benjamin or try to free him. In this speech, which has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful sections of the Torah, Judah speaks movingly of his father’s love for Benjamin. He says, “Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us; seeing that his soul is bound up in his soul; It shall come to pass, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die; and your servants shall bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father in sorrow to the grave. For your servant took responsibility for the lad, saying, If I do not bring him to you, then I will have sinned to my father for ever. Now therefore, I beg you, let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brothers. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad not be with me? ” (Gen. 44:30) After this speech, Joseph is overcome with emotion and reveals himself as their brother. What makes this speech so effective? The Torah commentator Nechama Lebowitz points out that Judah uses the word “father” 14 times in 17 verses. Judah shifts the emphasis of the speech away from himself and Benjamin to his concern for his father. But this is only part of the power of Judah’s oration. Judah took a chance and courageously bared his soul to Joseph, who he thought was a stranger. He could have protested Benjamin’s innocence, which was the truth, but instead he spoke a deeper truth from his heart. The Chassidic Rabbi Asher Horowitz noted that Judah’s mouth and heart were united. When we encounter another person’s truth: their vulnerability, their humanity, we realize our humanity and we are drawn to that person, heart to heart. It is what Martin Buber calls the “I and Thou:” honoring another person’s holiness. When a person bares his soul, it is irresistible, because our need to love and be loved is greater than our need to hate or take revenge. Our need for harmony is greater than our urge to maintain divisions. Joseph felt the genuine-ness, the sincerity of Judah’s feeling for his father and identified with the love Judah expressed.
The question for us then, is how to live in that place of truth, sincerity, love, and even vulnerability? There is a custom at the changing of the secular New Year to make resolutions so that the New Year will be better than the old one. So here are some of the resolutions that could improve not only the year but our very lives. We could give up hatred, the hatred in every human heart. It is easier than you think. It absolutely can be done, if we wish to do it. We could give up anger. We could give up revenge and grudges. This is what Rabbi Gelberman has written on this subject: “Thoughts can dominate us or liberate us. Tame the tyrannical thoughts of fear and hate with thought of faith and love, and we have overcome a meek adversary. If we allow rampant domination of negative thinking we are defeated by a foe with no more power except that which we thoughtfully grant to it. With love and wisdom we are capable of control over what enters and leaves our mind.” This is what Joseph, the only person in the Torah to be called a Tzaddik, a righteous person, did. He gave up anger. He gave up hatred. He gave up revenge and grudges. He forgave his brothers for what they did, thereby creating blessings for millions of people, and of course, for himself. We can strop creating misfortune for ourselves in this New Year, by being willing to give up the habit of creating negativity. Joseph is our role model: the person who was willing to be moved by another person’s love. As we anticipate this New Year, let us be willing to give up that which we no longer need; that which we have grown out of. What can we give up before the new year begins? What are we willing to give up so that, like Joseph, we can be greater than we are?

Leah, Our Mother

This week’s Torah portion,Vayetze,means and he left. Jacob leaves his parents and brother Esau, to evade Esau’s rage after Jacob stole the blessing from him. He also leaves to find a wife from his mother’s family in Haran. On his journey, he dreams of a ladder with angels going up and down on it. God speaks to him in his dream and promises to be with him, to guard him, and to return him to Canaan where he will have many offspring and inherit the land. He arrives in Mesopotamia, falls in love with Rachel, the younger daughter of Laban, and works for Laban 7 years, for Rachel, since he had arrived in Haran without a dowry. When the 7 years are completed, he tells Laban, “deliver my wife for I have fulfilled my term.” Laban makes a wedding feast and gives him Leah instead of Rachel. In the morning Jacob is outraged and confronts Laban, who promises Rachel to him after one week of marriage to Leah, on condition that he work another 7 years. In this story we are so caught up with Jacob, Laban, and Rachel that Leah becomes lost. In Torah commentary, we hardly hear anything about Leah. Who was she and what does she have to teach us? The Torah says, in the Rashi translation, “Leah‘s eyes were tender, while Rachel was beautiful of form and beautiful of appearance.” Here we have the ugly older sister, the beautiful younger sister, and the scheming father. What would Laban have had to do to make his deception work? He would have threatened Leah and Rachel. In a patriarchal society women have no power. But in this society, it was even worse: they had no access to food, shelter, or even livelihood outside the family unit. Their undervalued feminine selves were necessary for procreation and childcare, and not much more. Self Esteem? How could there be very much? What was there for a woman but marriage and children? Leah knew her prospects were slim to nonexistent. So she went along with her father’s command, which may even have been: Don’t tell or I’ll kill you. So Leah and Rachel chose life. Another translation of Leah’s eyes is: Leah’s eyes were not tender but weak. One midrash says, weak from crying. In either case, there was a compassion there, the willingness to go along with where events took her, hoping for an outcome that would eventually be better than what she had. Unlike Rachel’s her beauty was internal. How did she feel as she impersonated Rachel, under the chuppah and later in the bridal chamber, on what was supposed to be a happy day in her life? How filled with self hated, fear, and also desperation must she have been. How sad, on her wedding night, knowing how angry her new husband would be at her, in the morning. No love from a parent, no love from her husband, no love from her sister. But God saw her compassionate nature and God knew her suffering. She was blessed with sons, while Rachel had none. She named her children meaningfully. Reuben means, look, a son, meaning, God has seen. Simeon, God has heard, Levi, now my husband will be attached to me, and Judah, praise God. Leah seems to have become a monotheist, unlike Rachel, who even 20 years after having met Jacob, steals her father’s idols to take them with her on her journey to Canaan. Perhaps Leah took on Jacob’s religion in order to be closer to him, and actually found an authentic relationship with the One God.
Desperately wanting Jacob’s love, Leah uses her children to try to gain it. It is only at the birth of her 4th child that she allows her relationship with God to fill some of the void in her heart. She is still not the preferred wife. The Torah calls her unloved in some translations, but really the Hebrew text says hated. Jacob hated her, we are told, but she was healed by God and the love of her children. Much later, Reuben finds mandrake roots in the field. Rachel, who is still childless, desires them for fertility. Leah says, “was your taking my husband insignificant, and now to take even my son’s mandrakes?” She and Rachel strike a bargain. Jacob will be with Leah that night in exchange for the mandrakes. The roots Rachel wanted produced results: Rachel conceived, perhaps even because of making peace with Leah, but also, Leah has 3 more children: Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah. Her seven children plus the two from her servant Zilpah gave her the full life she craved. She was never beloved by Jacob that we know of, but she was beloved by God through the great blessings sent to her. Her willingness to persevere through hardship, offering herself without complaining, creating blessing for those around her and herself, make her the ideal Matriarch from which most of us are descended. Her 4th son, Judah is the name we call ourselves. We are Jews from Judah: from the same root as Todah, and Modim, giving thanks. As we give thanks to the Holy One on this Thanksgiving weekend, may we also be grateful for Leah, who gave thanks to the Eternal for the blessings she received. She was deeply grateful to be one who creates more life, and was ultimately satisfied with the blessings she received. May each of us be truly grateful for all our blessings, and also for Leah, our compassionate, loving, life giving Mother.

When Acceptace is Complete

This week’s Torah portion is Toldot, generations. It tells the story of the original dysfunctional Jewish family. Rebecca gives birth to the twins, Esau and Jacob. Jacob pressures Esau, who agrees to sell Jacob his birthright. Later, Isaac, the twins’ father, wishes to bless his firstborn, but Rebecca overhears Isaac’s plan and substitutes Jacob, who impersonates Esau, and receives his father’s blessing. The Torah tells us that the boys were very different: it says, “The lads grew up and Esau became one who knows trapping, a man of the field, but Jacob was ‘tam,’ whole or complete, abiding in tents. Isaac loved Esau, for game was in his mouth, but Rebecca loved Jacob.” Love is elusive – difficult to define or explain. It is hard to know just why we love someone, but we can ask the broader question, why do we love at all? This question takes us back to B’reisheet, the first Torah portion. This portion dignifies the emptiness in each human that is described metaphorically as the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Given that each human being has the feeling of not being complete, I would suggest that we love to become whole; to compensate for our own lacks and deficits. In the case of Isaac, he seemed to love Esau because Esau was a man of action, whereas Isaac was a more passive personality, evidenced by his compliance at the time of his father’s almost sacrificing him. Jacob, a quieter personality than Esau, was loved by Rebecca, the courageous and spunky young woman who left her family, friends, and native land to follow a strange servant to a new land where she would marry another complete stranger. In this family, opposites seemed to attract. But the fact that the parents Rebecca and Isaac could not love the boys equally points to a lack of acceptance of themselves. If they could have truly accepted themselves, with their faults and strengths, then they could have accepted their sons and loved each of them, perhaps not equally, but individually and fully. In child rearing, I am fond of saying that it is necessary to say YES to the whole person. When many of us were growing up, we had the experience that our parents accepted parts of us and not other parts, creating inadequacy, loss of self esteem, inner conflict, and self hatred. If we could truly love and accept all of ourselves, we could love and accept others. It is a failure of self love, a failure of self acceptance that leads to our projecting our self hatred onto others and dividing people into those we like and those we do not like. To heal ourselves, we have to be God to ourselves, the loving accepting parent we may have never had, in order to become a compassionate brother or sister to our neighbors. I am not however recommending the abandonment of common sense. Our quality of judgment about people is one of our necessary and useful gifts. One of the Chassidic masters, Rabbi Naftali, said that “innocence by itself is not necessarily a good quality.” But the quality of judgment can lead us astray, giving us an excuse for the refusal to accept others in their totality, the way God accepts us. My most recent tool for myself, which I use to talk to myself about people who are harder for me to love is that: the person is a wonderful, loving person, but that the person has a hard time showing that side of themselves to me. In order to fulfill the commandment in the Torah, Love your neighbor as yourself, we have to love and accept ourselves, choosing love over judgment, albeit with clear eyes. It is a skill that can be acquired; a habit of loving that will come back to us as the richest of rewards. Through the ability to accept and love our whole selves, we can become whole; experiencing the Divine love between people that we are meant to give and receive. Each of us was born to be loved and to love greatly. As we approach this holiday season, may we allow ourselves to love each person for who they are, knowing how alike we all are, knowing and accepting who we are: fallible creatures who make mistakes, but also magnificent, loving, and Divine.

Beyond Hospitality

This week’s Torah portion is Vayera, which means, and God appeared. It is packed with events: Abraham’s welcoming of three travelers, who announce the birth of Isaac; Abraham’s questioning God about whether any righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah will be saved; Lot receiving the Angels who save him and his family, when Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed; the birth of Isaac; the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael, and finally, the test of Abraham in which he is asked to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. This portion begins: And God appeared to him in the plains of Mamre; while he sat at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day; And he lifted his eyes and saw, and three men stood by him; he perceived so, he ran toward them from the tent entrance, and bowed toward the ground; And said, My Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, I pray, from your servant; Let a little water, be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; And I will fetch a morsel of bread, that you may sustain your hearts; after that you shall pass on; seeing that you are come to your servant. And they said, do so, as you have said.
Several things are notable in this first section. Abraham ran eagerly to the men, then bowed deeply to them, calling one, My Lord. Torah commentary for this section always speaks about hospitality, how welcoming Abraham was. At this time, and even through the middle ages, there were no restaurants and few inns; and it was a matter of human survival and a universal law that one had to take a traveler in; feed that person, and keep even one’s enemy overnight and up to three nights, because their survival depended on it, and your survival might depend upon it tomorrow. Abraham not only welcomed the travelers, but attended to them as a servant would, seeing to their comfort and giving them his best foods. He honored the Godliness in them, treating them as he himself would have wanted to be treated. This portion then, begins with the theme of how we treat others. We sense our own inner royalty and are disappointed or even offended when others do not treat us with honor and respect. To act at every moment in such a way that we honor the royalty in others is the mark of a very high spiritual level. Based on the Mussar literature, Rabbi Zvi Miller writes, “Abraham’s ability to treat people like royalty reflected his profound understanding of the world.” But it is so easy for us to forget and even easier to deny the spark of God in others. Our sages say that certain people cannot enter the kingdom of heaven; and among those are scoffers: those who discount other human beings and treat them badly.
Lot, too, is seen as offering hospitality in this portion. Lot urges the men who come to him, to stay the night with him in his home and eat a meal there, knowing that the townspeople of Sodom will brutalize them if he does not shield them. But Lot shows a moral failing, offering his virgin daughters to the mob, in place of the travelers. The society Lot lived in was corrupt; out of balance, devoid of moral kindness, and Lot had absorbed some of its disregard for human decency; because it does not matter who we treat badly. As long as someone is mistreated, whether or not, like Lot, we have an excuse for our behavior, we ourselves are pulled out of balance. We transgress a law of the universe that we are all equal and part of each other. And this theme is continued in the portion, with the treatment of Hagar and Ishmael. Their banishment and the divisions it caused still are being played out today.
If we could act as though we believed that there is Godliness in each of us, we would never be able to treat each other the way we do. Rashi discusses Abraham’s use of the term My Lord. He asks whether Abraham was addressing the men politely or whether Abraham was addressing God. But in reality, every time we address another human being, we are addressing God. Abraham’s willingness to attend to the comfort of the travelers showed where his passions were directed: not to satisfying his own desires, but to serving. He found the greatest satisfaction in being of service to others, never putting himself above them, but imagining himself in their place with empathy. The very first words of the portion, God appeared to him, points to the intent of the story of Abraham and the travelers. Whenever we behold the true face of another, the intrinsic holiness of that person, God appears to us. Or rather, we bring forth the appearance of God when we honor another human being. It reminds me of the story about Rebbe Moshe Lieb of Sassov, retold by Elie Wiesel. “I saw two drunkards sitting in an inn drinking and drinking, silently. But from time to time they would stop for a brief exchange. Are you my friend Alexei, asked the younger one. Do you love me? Yes, Ivan, I do. I am your friend. They emptied another glass and dreamed their separate dreams in silence. Again the younger peasant said, Alexei, Alexei, are you really my friend? Do you truly love me, Yes, I am your friend, he said. After Ivan’s asking and asking, finally Alexei got angry. How many times must I tell you, Ivan that I am your friend? Don’t you believe me? Must I go on repeating it all night? At that point Ivan looked at Alexi and shook his head sadly. Alexei, Alexei, he said. If you are my friend, if you do love me, then why don’t you know what I need? Why don’t you know what is hurting me?” A society is known for the way it treats all its members, not just the wealthy, the powerful, or the famous; and we, like Abraham, are known for how we interact with others. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of how the people treated each other. May we spur ourselves to greater consciousness in our interactions with others, being willing to intuit their needs and find holiness in honoring them. May we not forget their Godliness when we speak to them. May we remember that we are each created with the spark of the Divine, and act to honor our own inner royalty by the honor we give to the spark of the Divine in each and every person we meet.

The Journey Beyond

This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha, the first historical portion in the Torah, it being about a real person. The portion relates God’s call to Abram, his going forth out of Mesopotamia to Canaan, God’s promise that the land will be given to Abraham’s descendants, the birth of Ishmael and the prophecy of the birth of Isaac, the covenant between God and Abram in which Abram and Sarai receive their new names, Abraham and Sarah, culminating in their promise to worship only God, and the rite of circumcision.
This portion famously begins, God said to Abram, Lech Lecha, go for yourself, from your land, from your relatives and from your ancestor’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.” The first few words, Lech Lecha, go for yourself, have intrigued scholars for centuries. Lech, go, would have been sufficient. The addition of lecha, for yourself, makes the sentence mysterious. Lech lecha can also mean: take yourself, go into yourself, and also, go beyond yourself. It is interesting that Abram needed to leave behind his family and the influences of his society in order to grow spiritually. In our lives, we are guided by our upbringing first, and then by the messages society continually tells us, In our upbringing, a tremendous amount of information was imparted to us, some of it vital, true, loving, and valuable; some of it false, misleading, and perhaps even detrimental to our further development. The society was different in our parents’ times. The assumptions were different and often they had beliefs that came from the society their parents lived in. Part of being an adult is testing, evaluating, retaining, and disregarding information from our past. Through Abraham, we are taught that, even as an adult, even an adult well past middle age, as Abraham was, it is possible to go beyond ourselves to be a greater blessing than we have thought is possible. The first step is to have the courage to leave the confines of the teaching of our society. I am always impressed that Sarah, without hearing God’s voice, as Abraham did, left the good shopping to live in the hinterland, the sticks, leaving civilization for a rude and crude existence. But their existence was much richer on the inside than on the outside. Society will always stress the outside at the expense of the inside. Abraham and Sarah chose the path of elevating and testing their inner abilities, rather than being concerned with the values their society fed them. They chose the path of inner growth and an attachment to the Divine. Many sages write about the potential of aligning ourselves with the Divine force in the world. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson writes: Real spiritual progress requires that one leaves one’s current state behind. Yet as long as an individual’s growth depends entirely on his own power, his progress will be limited; nobody can exceed the bounds of his own understanding. The quotation, “Go out of your land, your native land and your Father’s house” is an instruction to abandon one’s ordinary way of thinking, to go to levels beyond and to transcend one’s own limits. With progress that is guided by God, there are no limits to the potential of growth.” By separating from the commonplace we can transcend our upbringing and cleave to the Divine force for goodness and purity in the world. It is a matter of identification. With what do I identify myself? How do I define myself? What is my mission and purpose? The S’fat Emet commented that the opening verse mentions the words, which I show you. He says this refers to that which a person cannot see on his or her own. The story of Abraham leaving home teaches that Divine guidance is there once we take the first steps to separate ourselves from the habitual. This includes habitual thinking as well as habitual action. We can cause blessings to flow when we align ourselves with the greater purpose of the world, transcending our upbringing as Abraham did, going beyond the self we think we are in the present, attaching ourselves to the root of goodness, service, and harmony, by becoming one with our inner spiritual potential. God chose Abraham, because of his inner goodness and potential, to be the instrument through which God’s presence and teachings became known in the world. We, too, can bring the Divine presence into the world and make the teachings of the Holy Scriptures manifest. May we take the journey, for ourselves, going into and beyond what we think we are, to the land God will show us, where the landscape is not quite familiar, but is filled with great promise and great blessings.