Lech Lecha by
Devorah Lynn
We revisit Lech
lecha. Two words, four letters. Actually two letters, Lamed chaf sofit.
Two letters so powerful we have a song, Adam talked about them, Eliza talked
about them and I am going to talk about them and when I am finished I will have
only scratched the surface. So powerful to us because of the
journeys we have just begun. For twelve
years I was in the tourist business. Not your ordinary travel agent but a
really amazing program called Elderhostel. Older, mostly retired adults,
physically fit and the crème of the crop, highly educated professionals. Highly
curious people who love to travel and learn deeply about their
destinations. The people who invented your computer, who put Neil
Armstrong on the moon, worked on the Manhattan project, novelists, artists and
journalists. I even had Rabbis, ministers and Indian chiefs. It was
great. I had almost a thousand students each year. They had been to Bali,
New Zealand, the Galapagos, China, you name it, but a very few had ventured
here. They would shake their heads and say how sad it was about the security
situation. I had one student who told
me she was in the "189 club." The goal was to go to all 189
countries in the UN. She had been to about 70, maybe 80. I asked
her where she had been last. Viet Nam she said. Oh how was it? Oh
it was like any other country, she said. Pause. Like any other
country? Yeah. So what’s the point going to any more?
So I can say I did it. Check it off my list ……
Lech lecha, el-haaretz asher arehcha. Go forth to the land that I
will show you. Lech Lecha. On the power of these two words leave
everything, drop your entire life, your homeland, your community, your family,
to go to some unknown place. Trust Me. I’ll show you where to go. For
most of us that is exactly what we did. We dropped everything we knew to
be safe, secure to follow some sort of calling, a pilgrimage, a mission. To a
place that is not just another country. To a place that has been in the
imagination and reality of the Jewish people for over 4,000 years.
There are two simple translations for Lech Lecha, Go TO yourself and go
FOR yourself. Let’s first look at Go TO
yourself. Go into yourself is the interpretation of Rebbe Mordechai
Joseph Leiner, the Ishbtizer Rebbe . Listen to that small inner voice that gets
louder and louder until you can no longer resist. It is a searching and
fearless inventory of ourselves. Abraham himself tells us in Genesis
20:13 that it is G-d who is directly responsible for his wanderings from his
father’s house. In the Midrash Tanhuma, Abraham is described by his
contemporaries as a spiritual vagrant. The Midrash says Avraham
shogayah, walks aimlessly, drunk with his obsession, the same root we know
for meshuga. A meshuga with unknown destination. A madman.
But for Avraham he is meshuga for Adonai, the voice he
hears within. Mary Oliver in her poem
"the Journey" reveals the dangerous nature of such a journey to
within:
"It was already late enough,
and a wild night
and the road was full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little as you left their voices behind,"
(we know those voices he ones that said your crazy, why do you have to go
NOW)
"and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own
kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world."
Roger Housden comments in his book Ten Poems to Change Your Life, "
the door for this journey opens inward as well as outward and the inner terrain
is often more rugged than any other wilderness."
Up until September 11, the world was our oyster. It was so
easy to get on a plane and journey to thousands of weird and exotic
destinations. To convince yourself that doing wild things like that was
relatively safe in the scheme of things and yet spiritually uplifting. Why go
to clichés like Bermuda or Switzerland when you could go to Costa Rica, Cuba or
Tibet. Before September 11th it seemed important to go to as many unusual
places that you had never been to before. Lama? Stam, just because,
because they are there. To check them off your list. It was easy to go to
Tibet without much preparation except vaccinations, because that is someone
else’s religion. It was easy to climb the steps of Aztec temples, Buddhist monasteries,
Egyptian pyramids but a bit more of a challenge to climb the steps to your own
soul, to your own heartland. About 25 %
of the visitors to Israel are from North America, half a million a year.
Over half of them are Christians and less than 20% are Jews. The numbers
of Jews went down by 6% last year, before the intifada started. I know
my Jewish friends and colleagues are traveling every where else and although
Israel is on their list and they admit guilt for not having it rise to the top
they have not been here because they are afraid. But I think not
for their physical safety. I believe they fear for their spiritual
safety. They are afraid it will touch something very deep inside and that
is a bit more problematic. They are afraid of what they might find in
themselves when they get here to Eretz Yisrael. Look even in this room. There were a
handful of people who hadn’t been to Israel before. Applied to Hebrew
Union College as Jewish leaders for three to five years "wasted" out
of their lives, how much more committed could you be, but hadn’t been to the
Jewish homeland. Doesn’t make sense, does it. I am not judging you. I
didn’t come here until I was 40. It was too frightening
spiritually. It took an Abraham, a meshuga, carrying around G-d’s
directions, to leave all he knew and make a journey of thousands of miles to
cling to the G-d he knew deep inside to be true.
Lech Lecha, another meaning from Rashi is go FOR your own benefit.
You don’t come here to go snorkeling in Eilat, though you can, you don’t come here
to eat in great restaurants and buy beautiful arts and crafts though you can,
you don’t come here to look at ancient ruins and places still used since
ancient times but you can. You come here to find and reinforce your spiritual
self. You have all heard your friends
say they want to come but it is not the right time. They are waiting for
some magical perfect moment to visit the Holy Land, when it is perfectly safe.
But Sept 11 changed the rules and now
we must show people that they must visit this place, their Jewish homeland, not
for fun or fulfillment but for a purpose. For support. For
survival. For the survival of the Jewish people. Now is so the
right time to come to Israel.
When G-d directed Abraham to get up and go he had to sweeten the pot, to entice
him to take that courageous step by promising him benefits: he would have
children, be wealthy, have a great name.
I think, as Jewish leaders, we have to use some of the same enticements
to beguile our congregants into making the journey to Eretz Yisrael.
We have to appeal to people on a level that they can accept. I think that
as Jewish Leaders we need to use any and every excuse to lead a trip to Israel
every year in our congregations, our curriculums, even if we don’t go or lead
it ourselves. Every year. Different times of the year for different
reasons. Congregational Bnai mitzvah, beit midrash,
fun in the sun winters, Purim, Tu B’shvat whatever. Get them here and then rather than filling
up every space with activities, we need to leave some room, some space for
….enlightenment. Some room for the magic of this place to enter. Some room for
surprise, for the serendipitous moment that is unpredictable and unplannable
when the
Shechinah, pitome, suddenly shows up in the room. We have a job to do. One of our many tasks
when we return from our year in Israel is to be G-ds’ travel agents. I have
been trying to think of a clever name for the company. Possibly, Have G-d
Will Travel. And our job as guides is to demonstrate how a Progressive Jewish
life can be permeated by Jewish moments not just punctuated by them. If
Progressive North American Jews see how Jewish life is lived day by day minute
by minute, through the calendar, meals, work, play, school, entertainment, and
communally experienced sorrow, everything, the more enriched Jewish life can be
at home. And the more enriched will be our lives as Jewish leaders.
Clearly the benefits of frequent visits to Israel will multiply.
This is all very well and good. You get on El Al with a Mission, you
visit for ten days, two weeks, you make contacts, see sites, study some text,
meet some dignitaries and come back with great photos and your batteries
charged. But there is another side to the benefits that you accrue from a the
journey such as this. There are some
obligations that we have as Jews that on the surface feel like they benefit the
recipient but in fact benefit the giver even more. At the beginning of
the next parasha, Vayera, God visits Abraham after his circumcision.
This is said to be the origin of the mitzvah of bikour cholim, visiting
the sick. We think that when we make bikur cholim it is for the
benefit of the sick person but in fact we through our commitment, sacrifice and
devotion may benefit all the more. Although some Israelis might disagree
with me, a journey to Israel is like visiting a loyal and devoted friend who is
sick. Maybe we can say "in trouble". We all see it first hand,
the empty restaurants, the closed hotels, the disgruntled taxi drivers, the
quiet shops, the unemployed guides, Israel’s economy is a mess. And needs our support. Just like going to the
hospital, it may be a difficult journey, you won’t know what to say or do,
there is the chance you might "catch" something, get sick
yourself. But would you not visit your most devoted friend, your beloved
when they are having their most difficult
time because of these fears?
Listen to the words from a sermon by Rabbi Margaret Wenig I heard 10 years ago.
It is a sermon about G-d as a woman who is aging. I would like to paraphrase
it and look at it through the eyes of an Israel who is getting older.
"Israel is home tonight, turning the pages of her memory book.
"Come home’ she wants to say to us, Come home. But she won’t call
for she is afraid we will say, "No." She can anticipate the
conversation "We are so busy" we’d apologize. " We’d love
to see you but we just can’t come this year. Too much to do. Too
many responsibilities to juggle. Too many places to go."
Even if we don’t realize it, Israel knows that our busyness is just an excuse.
She knows that we avoid returning to her because we don’t want to look into her
age worn face. Yisrael understands that it is hard for us to face
a homeland who disappointed our childhood expectations. She did not give
us everything we wanted. She made us triumphant in battle and but not perfect
occupiers. Israel does things we can’t imagine doing, that embarrass us.
She spits and waves her fist and bleeds. We avoid going home to protect
ourselves from our disappointment and to protect her. We don’t want her
to see the disappointment in our eyes. Yes Israel knows the disappointment
is there but she would have us come home anyway." It is sometimes difficult and painful to be
here because we can’t always agree with the road our mother Israel is taking
and sometimes that road seems hopeless. But we must be here all the same
to see her and be seen, to
hear her and be heard. To make the strong bond that finally buries the anti-Zionism
of the Pittsburgh Platform. It took the courage and complete devotion and
yes, craziness, of an Abraham to get up and come here in the first place those
4,000 years ago. It takes the voice of G-d to urge even the brave ones
on. We must be God’s voice to tell those back home, our family, our
friends, our congregants, Lech Lecha, that now they have no
choice, now they have no excuse, and that now they have the courage to make the
journey back home.