Lech Lecha

Go Forth - Genesis 12:1 - 17:27

Abram, Sarai, and Lot go to Canaan. (12:1-9)

Famine takes them to Egypt, where Abram identifies Sarai as his sister in order to save his life. (12:10-20)

Abram and Lot separate. Lot is taken captive, and Abram rescues him. (13:1-14:24)

Abram has a son, Ishmael, with his Egyptian maidservant, Hagar. (16:1-16)

God establishes a covenant with Abram. The sign of this covenant is circumcision on the eighth day following a male baby's birth. (17:1-27)

Chevrah Torah Saturday Davids

English translation is merit. Hebrew is righteousness.

Christianity - Paul uses this verse to say the Merit (salvation) depends on faith rather than law or action.(צֶדָקָה)

Ibn Ezra -

Abraham had complete faith in God’s word that he would beget a son who would be his heir. It was only with regard to the possession of the land that he asked for a sign. He acted like Gideon.11 Furthermore, all prophecies are conditional. God’s oaths, on the other hand, are unconditional.12 Hence Abraham did not sin in requesting that a covenant be made between God and himself.13

The thought of profiting upon the misfortunes of others is repugnant, and this move would sabotage Abraham’s lofty moral agenda. To memorialize Abraham’s moral courage, we wear string-laden tzitzit as a constant reminder to live within ourselves and within our resources rather than chasing unbridled consumerist longing.

Rashi tells us that the word kaved that is used here to convey Abram's wealth usually means "heavy" or "honored" (think of the Yiddish word kovod,"respect"). Here it is used to mean that Abram was weighted down with many possessions because he was wealthy. But in the next verse, we learn that Abram went from the Negeb to Bethel "by stages," l'ma-asav. Rashi tells us that the use of this word means that upon Abram's return from Egypt, he took the same route back and stayed in the same places in which he had lodged on his way down to Egypt. Rashi points out that even though Abram is wealthier now than when he went down to Egypt, he has retained his humility and doesn't change the places in which he lodges. Hence we know that Abram has not been altered by his accumulation of greater wealth.

And then, just a few verses later in this chapter, we gain a further sense of Abram's unique quality. We read in verse 10 that Lot "raises up his eyes" and sees how lush (well watered) the plain of Jordan is. But when Abramlooks up, he sees stars. What finally distinguishes Abram from so many others that came before him is that while others (e.g., Lot) see only material things, Abram has visions of spiritual matters, namely, stars.

Abram is a dreamer in the best sense of the word: He looks beyond the world of things and possessions to a force greater than himself. That is why he is able to enter into a covenant with God. He senses the existence of something greater than himself, and he works to enter into a relationship with it. Abram wants to be involved in something greater than this world: He wants to commit himself to a connection that points to something beyond. This is why Abraham ends up becoming a "blessing"―because he looks beyond himself.

God says: "Your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs [for] four hundred years." (Genesis 15:13) Only then they shall return to claim Zion, their Promised Land.

In case Abram wondered why the long delay, God explains: "For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:16) In other words, God does not play favorites. Only after the Amorites have lost their rights to Canaan through their ethical failure will the Chosen People of Israel be allowed to make Eretz Yisrael their own. Even then, explains the Torah, the gift of Israel is a sacred trust that will be held and enjoyed only "if you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments. [Only then will I] be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people."

A look at the Hebrew in this sentence, however, reveals a peculiarity. The word “Lech” is the command, second person form of the word, “L’lechet“–“to go.” The next word, “l’cha,” is an article which tells us that the previous word is meant to be in the second person (for example, “Ten lecha” would mean “give to you”). Since the form of the verb “to go” the Bible uses is already in the second person form, the word “lecha” is superfluous. Commentators offer various meanings of this extra article, translating the sentence as “Go for yourself,” “Go by yourself” or “Go to yourself.”

There are certainly enlightening and meaningful explanations for why “Go for yourself” (this was a great “career move” for Abraham) or “Go by yourself” (Abraham, his wife and nephew needed to go on this mission alone because they needed to start fresh), are viable translations of “Lech lecha.” However, my favorite of the three is “Go to yourself.”

While Abraham had many difficult tests to overcome in his lifetime, the most important one is the first one we read about in the Torah: “Go to yourself.” Realize what your mission in life is. Recognize your potential. Become YOU. Without this, there would never have been a covenant, a circumcision, a binding of Isaac, or a founding of the Jewish people.

Abraham was told “Lech lecha” so that he wouldn’t just pick up his things and start running. He needed to stop and turn inward first, to introspect and reflect on his life and who he was. Only after that could he fulfill the second part of the commandment, to go to the Land which God would show him.

“Prior to Abraham, all four dramas of Genesis dealt with the evasion and abdication of responsibility. Adam denies personal responsibility. Cain denies moral responsibility. Noah fails the test of collective responsibility. Babel was a rejection of ontological responsibility – the idea that the ethical imperative comes from a source beyond the self.1 Abraham represents the turning point, offering a counterpoint to the previous failures.”

“Unlike Adam, Abraham accepts personal responsibility, heeding the word of God and setting out on a journey in obedience to the divine call. Adam is exiled from Eden against his will. Abraham undergoes a kind of voluntary exile, bidding farewell to the familiar in search of the unknown, guided only by the voice of God.

Unlike Cain, he accepts moral responsibility, rescuing his nephew Lot from war. He is his brother’s – more precisely, his brother’s son’s – keeper, the very principle Cain denied. Abraham knows that we have duties not only to ourselves but to others. This is the moral sense.

In contrast to Noah he accepts collective responsibility. He prays for the inhabitants of Sodom, even though he knows they are sinful, on the grounds that there may be innocent, righteous people among them. They are not his brothers, not his kin, not part of his specific covenant with God, but they are human beings, and Abraham feels the imperative of praying, even arguing with God, on their behalf.

In contrast to the builders of Babel, he understands ontological responsibility, the duty of human beings to respond to the otherness, and the command, of God. This is the basis[…]”

“Freedom is not a given of the human situation. Like the other distinctive achievements of the spirit – art, literature, music, poetry – it needs training, discipline, apprenticeship, the most demanding routines and the most painstaking attention to detail. No one composed a great novel or symphony without years of preparation. That is why most theories of human behaviour are simply false. They claim that we are either free or not; either we have choice or our behaviour is causally determined. Freedom is not an either/or. It is a process. It begins with dependence and only slowly, gradually, does it become liberty, the ability to stand back from the pressures and influences upon us and act in response to educated conscience, judgment, wisdom, moral literacy. It is, in short, a journey: Abraham’s journey”

“That is the deep meaning of the words Lekh Lekha. Normally they are translated as, “Go, leave, travel.” What they really mean is: journey (lekh) to yourself (lekha). Leave behind all external influences that turn you into a victim of circumstances beyond your control, and travel inward to the self. It is there – only there – that freedom is born, practised and sustained.”

“To be sure, he is a man of exemplary virtue. He welcomes strangers and gives them food. He fights a battle on behalf of the cities of the plain in order to rescue his nephew Lot. He prays for Sodom in one of the greatest dialogues in religious literature. He patiently waits for a child and then, when the command comes, is willing to offer him as a sacrifice, only to discover that the God of truth does not want us to sacrifice our children but to cherish them. But if we were asked to characterise him with adjectives, the words that spring to mind – gentle, kind, gracious – are not those usually associated with the founder of a new faith. They are the kind of attributes to which any of us could aspire. None of us can be an Abraham, but all of us can take him as a role model. Perhaps that is the deepest lesson of all.”

“Abraham is the paradigm of an unheroic hero, one who (in Maimonides’ lovely phrase) “does what is right because it is right”2 and not for the sake of popularity or fame.”

“As the founder of Judaism, Abraham gives us a vision of what it is to live directly and immediately in the presence of God, who knows our thoughts, our hopes, our fears, our dreams. This involves a radically new kind of heroism: the heroism of ordinary life, of decency and goodness, integrity and faithfulness, the humble, unostentatious heroism of being willing to live by one’s convictions though all the world thinks otherwise, being true to the call of eternity, not the noise of now.”

“Those who live within the laws of history are subject to the laws of history. Whatever is natural, said Maimonides, is subject to disintegration and decline. That is what has happened to virtually every civilisation that has appeared on the world’s stage. Abraham, however, was to become the father of an am olam, an eternal people, that would neither decay nor decline, a people willing to stand outside the laws of nature. What for other nations are innate – land, home, family – in Judaism are subjects of religious command. They have to be striven for. They involve a journey. They are not given at the outset, nor can they be taken for granted. Abraham was to leave behind the things that make most people and peoples what they are, and lay the foundations for a land, a Jewish home and a family structure, responsive not to economic forces, biological drives and psychological conflicts but to the word and will of God.”

“Jews,” wrote Andrew Marr, “really have been different; they have enriched the world and challenged it.”6 It is that courage to travel alone if necessary, to be different, to swim against the tide, to speak in an age of relativism of the absolutes of human dignity under the sovereignty of God, that was born in the words Lekh Lekha. To be a Jew is to be willing to hear the still, small voice of eternity urging us to travel, move, go on ahead, continuing Abraham’s journey toward that unknown destination at the far horizon of hope.”

“According to this reading, Abraham’s rejection of the past was intellectual rather than physical. He broke no idols, merely the thoughts that gave rise to them. But whether the iconoclasm was literal or metaphoric, what is common to Maimonides and the midrash is discontinuity. Abraham represents a radical break with all that preceded him.

Remarkably however, the previous chapter gives us a quite different perspective:

These are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot…Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran (11:31).

The implication of this verse seems to be that far from breaking with his father, Abraham was continuing a journey Terah had already begun.”

“The story of Abraham can be read in two ways, depending on how we reconcile the end of chapter 11 with the beginning of chapter 12. One reading emphasizes discontinuity. Abraham broke with all that went before. The other emphasizes continuity. Terah, his father, had already begun to wrestle with idolatry. He had set out on the long walk to the land which would eventually become holy, but stopped halfway. Abraham completed the journey his father began.”

“Lot looked all around and saw the whole Jordan Valley and that there was much water there. It was like the Lord’s garden, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose to move east and live in the Jordan Valley. In this way Abram and Lot separated. Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived among the cities in the Jordan Valley, very near to Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were very evil and were always sinning against the Lord. (13:10–13)

Lot chooses the good land with evil inhabitants. Evidently, he puts the material before the moral and spiritual. This alone is sufficient to tell us that, as far as the covenant is concerned, he is not a child of Abraham.”

Excerpt From

Covenant & Conversation: Genesis

Jonathan Sacks

“Why does Genesis go out of its way, in the very first chapter after the terms of the covenant between God and Abraham are set, to tell us of an Egyptian slave being oppressed by an Israelite? In order to teach us, I think, that the role of victim and victimizer are not set in stone. Israelites are not always victims, any more than Egyptians are always victimizers. ”

Excerpt From

The Heart of Torah, Volume 1

Shai Held

“Both the Torah story and Kaplan teach that life has meaning when we believe in our ability to shape others’ lives and our own. Like Abraham and Sarah, who eventually brought Jewish civilization into being, we may end up exerting more influence on human history than we can possibly realize while on our own individual journeys.”

Excerpt From

A Year with Mordecai Kaplan

Steven Carr Reuben

“For us, a book is a printed object boxed in between two covers, with title and author emblazoned on the front cover and the year of publication indicated on the copyright page. The biblical term that comes closest to “book” is sefer. Etymologically, it means “something recounted,” but its primary sense is “scroll,” and it can refer to anything written on a scroll—a letter, a relatively brief unit within a longer composition, or a book more or less in our sense. A scroll is not a text shut in between covers, and additional swathes of scroll can be stitched onto it, which seems to have been a very common biblical practice. A book in the biblical sphere was assumed to be a product of anonymous tradition.”

“The informing assumption of my translation and commentary is that the edited version of Genesis—the so-called redacted text—which has come down to us, though not without certain limited contradictions and disparate elements, has powerful coherence as a literary work, and that this coherence is above all what we need to address as readers. One need not claim that Genesis is a unitary artwork, like, say, a novel by Henry James, in order to grant it integrity as a book. There are other instances of works of art that evolve over the centuries, like the cathedrals of medieval Europe, and are the product of many hands, involving an elaborate process of editing, like some of the greatest Hollywood films.”

“Pray, let us part company. The Hebrew is cast in the form of a polite imperative, literally: “Kindly part from me.”

“And the LORD had said to Abram. Although all previous translations treat this as a simple past, the word order—subject before verb—and the use of the suffix conjugation instead of the prefix conjugation that is ordinarily employed for past actions indicate a pluperfect. The definition of temporal frame is pointed and precise: once Lot actually parts from Abram, heading down to his fatal involvement in the cities of the plain, God proceeds to address His promise of the land to Abram. The utterance of the promise is already an accomplished fact as Lot takes up settlement in the plain to the east.”

Excerpt From

The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary

Robert Alter