D'var Torah

In our prayerbooks, there is a beautiful alternative reading for the Ahava Rabba (a prayer about the ways the Torah can be seen as an expression of love) that goes like this:

“Once or twice in a lifetime,
a [person] may choose
a radical leaving, having heard
Lech L’cha – Go forth. …
We don’t like leaving,
But God loves becoming.”[i]

The words lech l’cha (often translated as “go forth;” literally meaning “go to yourself”) come from this week’s Torah portion – and give it its name. They are the first words God speaks to Abram (who will later receive the name Abraham): “lech l’cha – from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.”[ii] Because the Torah does not tell us much about Abram’s life before this moment, many commentators through the years have asked some version of the question: why did God approach Abram, in the first place?

What are the conditions that lead each of us towards own moments of “radical leaving,” of going out into experiences we’ve never had before and also, at the same time, going more deeply into ourselves?

One of my favorite answers to this question comes from midrash:

“Once there was a person who was traveling from place to place. They saw a castle that was all lit up, and they said ‘is it possible that this castle doesn’t have anyone to take care of it’?”[iii] The midrash goes on to say that Abram was like that traveling person, and the world was like the castle – he saw the world, all lit up, and he asked “does this world have someone to take care of it?” It was only then, the midrash explains, that God came forward, inviting Abram to lech l’cha – to go forth, and partner in the work of caring for the world.

The really interesting thing about this midrash is that the word it uses for “lit up,” doleket, is a fairly neutral word – sometimes suggesting candlelight, and sometimes suggesting dangerous fire. And so we could either imagine this to be a story about a person who stumbles into a castle with beautiful candles in the windows (“how nice that this castle is lit up! I wonder who takes care of it?”), or as a story of a person who happens upon a fire (“this castle is aflame! I wonder who takes care of it?”). In one reading, Abram notices the beauty of the world and marvels at it. In the other, Abram notices all that is awry in the world, and is alarmed by what he sees.

Our journeys in life – towards each other, and towards our own deepest sense of self – require both kinds of noticing. This week, may we find moments to notice and appreciate the many sources of beauty and joy in our world. And may we also notice – and take responsibility for – the wrongs perpetrated in our world that need our attention.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Alexandra Stein

[i] Mishkan Tefilah, p. 113. Poem by Norman Hirsch.

[ii] Genesis 12:1.

[iii] Bereishit Rabba 39:1. Bereishit Rabba, a classical midrashic complication, is a series of questions, stories and observations that use verses in the book of Genesis as a jumping-off point.