Shabbchella Torah Study: Lech L'cha + L'chayyim

Answering the Call.

Fathers + Sons

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” [Mark Twain]

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks commentary on Lech L'cha

Whether Freud was right or wrong about the Oedipus complex, there is surely this much truth to it, that the power and pain of adolescence is that we seek to define ourselves as different, individuated, someone other than our parents. When we were young they were the sustaining presence in our lives, our security, our stability, our source of groundedness in the world.

But then comes the time as we approach adulthood, when we have to learn to make our own way in the world. Those are the years of searching and in some cases, rebellion. They are what make adolescence so fraught. The Hebrew word for youth – the root n-a-r – has these connotations of ‘awakening’ and ‘shaking.’ We begin to define ourselves by reference to our friends, our peer-group, rather than our family. Often there is tension between the generations.

One of the great discoveries that tends to come with age is that we begin to realize that having spent what seems like a lifetime of running away from our parents, we find that we have become very much like them – and the further away we ran, the closer we became. Hence the truth in Mark Twain’s insight. It needs time and distance to see how much we owe our parents and how much of them lives on in us.

Breaking the Idols vs. Leaving Ur (Terach's homeland)

Journeys.

The Unnecessary Miracle, by Rabbi Dara Frimmer

Do you remember the story of God parting the waters and the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea? It’s epic. It’s iconic. It’s a pivotal moment in our redemption story.

And, it didn’t need to happen.

The Suez Canal was built in 1956. That’s why a modern day map shows a continuous blue line from the Mediterranean Sea down to the Red Sea. But, before 1956, that was all desert. Our ancestors could have crossed over on dry land.

There was no need for a miracle.

Fast forward to the book of Joshua, the 6th book of the Bible, following on the heels of Deuteronomy. Joshua leads the Israelites over the Jordan River in order to enter Canaan, the Promised Land. Why? Just South of the Dead Sea is desert. Our ancestors could have crossed over on dry land.

So why did God choose to perform the miracle? Why was it necessary to cross through water not once, but twice? The challenge of movement and change is not just the physical displacement, but the mental shift required to see and accept our new “normal.” Our ancestors fled slavery and were immediately told, “Now you are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” How many of them were ready to believe those aspirational words?

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. A generation of former-slaves died in the desert, unwilling or unable to accept their inheritance as God’s Chosen People. Now, their children stand on the precipice of a new land, terrified that they, too, will not survive.

Crossing through the water was a deliberate choice by God, Moses and Joshua. It was a moment to be in-between what “was” and what “will be.” It was a breath. It was a pause. It was a temporary space in which to transform. Victor Turner, the anthropologist, noted the power of ritual lies in these moments: You enter as one person, you are held in a liminal space, and then you are released as someone new.

Some time soon, you will stand on the precipice of change. Perhaps you enter with grace and surrender. Perhaps, you will be terrified. Perhaps, like our ancestors, you will create a space to pause and breathe, and to allow an “unnecessary” (and yet miraculous) moment to strengthen you as you enter a new land.