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Isaac Shulman Parsha Corner (1)

Lech Lecha 2021

“Go from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house to a land that I will show you. And I will make you unto a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing”


This isn’t so much a test as a statement to Abraham and to those who follow in his path. You will be forced to leave behind your land (meaning all things familiar to you), your birthplace, (meaning your sense of who you are) and your father’s house (meaning all those people who you have known and loved). King David wrote “For my father and mother have abandoned me and G-d shall gather me in”. (Psalms 27:9) This is the path of the Jew and those who follow in Abraham’s footsteps. The path towards G-d is strange and mysterious, is nothing like you imagined but at the end it is full of blessing. G-d promised to Abraham “and you shall be a blessing”.

 

What is the meaning of this promise?? Why was this only possible in the “land which I will show you”?  In fact, why was Abraham told to leave his land altogether? Whether it was Babel aka Ur Kasdim as Ibn Ezra suggests or Assyria aka Haran as the Ramban claims, either location would have been suitable for a homeland, or would it and why not?? I would like to suggest that the term Lech Lecha is neither a command nor a suggestion, rather an encouragement. Abraham, according to the Ramban was already on his way to Canaan along with his family when he stopped for a while in Haran. As the pasuk says Ch11 v 38 “And Terach took Avram his son etc, and they went with him from Ur Kasdim to go to the land of Canaan. In Ur Kasdim Avram was literally or figuratively in the pit or the fire. The theme, as often the case, is that of the need to start fresh in a new land with a new life. In Ur Kasdim and Haran Avram was just a trouble maker, in Canaan he was a pioneer with a new vision and a following.  Lech Lecha, according to this interpretation of the Ramban, is encouragement of a previously determined vision. Why then does G-d not tell Abraham that the land is to be Canaan? After all that was where he was going anyway! I believe the focus here is in the leaving and not in the going. Lech Lecha, go out of this place it’s a bad place for you, like Rashi says, here you won’t have kids, why not? Because when you are in a bad place nothing works and the opposite is true when the place is right. 


“Abraham will be a blessing.” Ramban say’s it means that people will bless their children and say, “G-d should make you like Abraham”. This interpretation gets undone by Jacob’s blessing of Joseph’s children. “And he blessed them on that day saying, “In you shall Israel bless saying “let G-d make you be like Ephraim and Menashe”. 


The Talmud has a different understanding of this pasuk entirely. “I will make you a great nation”, this refers to the blessing recited in the daily shmoneh esrai “the G-d of Abraham”. The next part of the pasuk, “I will bless you” refers to the words in Shmoneh esrai, “The G-d of Isaac”.  The final part of the pasuk, “and I will make your name great” refers to “the G-d of Jacob”. The concluding language of the first blessing in shmoneh esrai refers back to Avraham. “Magen Avraham”.  G-d said to Abram, “Fear not I am your shield (Magen). (15:1) The Author of the Siddur understood that Magen is protection that Abraham was promised to be protected by G-d. Abraham is special because he was without any support, one man against the entire world, against his father, his community, his entire nation, alone utterly. Only G-d and Sarah stood with him. As such G-d promised “I am on your side” with Me you are never alone.  

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