Parashat Lech Lecha

Bereshit 12:1-17:27

In the last two parashot, the story was told to us of the beginning of creation, culminating in what seemed to be its crown, humanity made in the image of the Creator. Sadly, our tale continues with the tragic recounting of the epic descent of this beautiful, amazing and “tov meod” creation into an exponential corruption of its original design! To the point that the Creator, Himself, declares that He needs to “rest” from striving with mankind’s “every intent of the thoughts of their hearts being continually evil!” All this because we ate of the fruit of “tov and ra” which we were warned by G-d not to eat, as we would surely die if we did! As I pondered on this, I understood that only the Creator can decide what is “tov or ra”, according to the design of His choice. If creation fits His design, it is tov. But if it decides to redefine itself according to a design of its own making, it would simply be “ra”! When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of tov and ra, they started humanity on a deadly path of redefining their G-d given design. As if the creation could tell the creator what it was designed to be! It would be like a tiger deciding it is an elephant! Absurd, it won’t work! We see the evidence of this in today’s mindset when we teach our children they can choose their own gender, ignoring what the DNA of every cell in their body declares! This rapid descent of creation into delusion and corruption is well summed up in the words of the proverb written in Kohelet 1:15: “What is crooked cannot be fixed and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” But in our Parasha, Lech lecha, we finally begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel as we read about a new beginning: the beginning of HaShem’s plan to fix what is now crooked, as in fact, only the creator can fix this distortion and provide all that is lacking through His plan of redemption for Tikkun HaOlam! And it begins with “Lech lecha.” G-d chooses a man, Avram, whom He knew would cooperate and asks him to first get himself out of three different things:

1. His country, including the culture in it that he lived by,
2. What he was born into, or the mindset of the generation he was born into (that would include what was politically, socially, economically, religiously etc.. correct in that day),
3. His father’s house (today, we would rephrase that as his family dynamics).

Not everybody is willing to do that as it is not so easy to do. Most of us would struggle with sentimental attachments! But this is an absolute requirement and the rest of the verse tells us why: “Get yourself out (of these 3 things)…to the country that I will cause you to see.” To begin to reverse the consequences of Adam and Eve’s eating of the knowledge of tov and ra, HaShem saw fit to choose another couple, Avram and Sarai, He would retrain to see and think as He does so they could cooperate with His plan of redemption. How would Avram be able to perceive and embrace what HaShem, whose thoughts and ways are higher than his (Is55:8-9), wanted to show him if he had refused to lech lecha and let go of the ways he used to think and function in? But Avram heard G-d and leaving all behind, embarked with his whole household, in this journey of new perspectives, new way of thinking as HaShem would cause him to see. This determined the course of his life as well as that of his descendants. A quick survey of our parasha will demonstrate, not just for Avraham but for all of us as well, the importance our perception of events and circumstances during the course of our lives holds. It will determine in fact, our choice of action and result in major life altering events, sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragic, depending on our cooperation, or not, with G-d’s plan of redemption, as we see:

• In Chapter 12 Avram instructs his wife to say she is his sister, because he is afraid that when the Egyptian see her, that she is beautiful, they will kill him. And in fact Pharaoh’s servants saw her and brought her to Pharaoh. Avram correctly perceived the designs of man, according to the culture of Egypt, the mindset of his generation and the ways of Pharaoh’s household but he failed to see HaShem’s invisible protection over him for the sake of His designs! Hopefully he learned his lesson when he saw HaShem rescue his wife! Pharaoh likewise failed to see the truth and as a result was subject to a plague until he restored Sarai to Avram.
• In Chapter 13 when Lot and Avram separate, Lot “lifts up his eyes and sees” the plain of the Jordan and Sodom and Gomorrah “like the garden of Adonai, like the land of Egypt.” He chose to go there because it looked advantageous to him in the immediate. What he didn’t see, the corruption that came with it, would cost him the lives of most of his family and change his own forever!
• In the same chapter, Avram is told by HaShem “to lift up his eyes and look Northward, Southward, Eastward and Westward…” to the land He would give him. I believe there was a hidden message in there for Avram that Adonai would cause him to see. For by looking upwards in all directions, what would he have seen but a land without borders, hinting at HaShem’s redemption of the whole earth!
• In chapter 16, Hagar, seeing she had conceived, despised her mistress, resulting in her fleeing to the wilderness. There the Angel of Adonai instructs her to return and submit herself to Sarai. She ends up calling the name of the angel of Adonai “You are the God who sees” for she said, “Have I also seen Him who sees me.” Her own perception of events caused her to despise Sarai and flee from her, but G-d’s perception brought her back!
• In Avram’s life, who believed what he was taught to see, it resulted in his receiving the Everlasting Covenant by which HaShem would guarantee a people and a land of promise. And when Avraham was 99 years old, G-d gave him circumcision as a sign of this covenant. And what is circumcision a picture of, if not a mind that has been taught to see as Avraham was taught by HaShem?!

I would like to end this drash by asking us all a question: How are we seeing today the events and circumstances of our lives? We, as did the characters in our Parasha have a choice:

• We can either see through the lens of our geographical culture, our generational correctness and our family history. That is thinking with an uncircumcised mind and would be at the peril of our own lives as we will find ourselves swept away, as Lot was, by the distorted design humanity has created for itself… Or…
• We can start our life journey with Lech lecha, as Avram did, and turn our gaze away from this worldly lens, past the veil of humanity’s distortion, allowing G-d to cause us to see His intent and His design in His creation. That is thinking with a circumcised mind and will enable us to perceive and cooperate with HaShem’s plan of redemption in our generation, demonstrate His goodness by a lifestyle in full agreement with His ways, calling out to all mankind to be reconciled with the Creator and His design.

As Moses admonished us in Deut 10: 14-16: “Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to Adonai your God, also the earth with all that is in it. Adonai delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.”