BS”D
Parasha Lech Lecha – Go to yourself!
Genesis ch12 v 1 to ch17 v27
G-d Tells Abram Lech Lecha literally meaning “Go to
Yourself” the meaning of to yourself
needs explanation, Rabbi Aurbach points out the message is Hashem saying to
Abram, you need to leave your comfort zone for your own good, go out of your land
your city and your home, to the place I am sending you. (note the last thing
mentioned is the thing closest to us all
-it is our home, our home gives us or should give us our greatest sense
of stability, however in this security and stability we often forget that we
are actually all visitors on this planet with a job to do, in a limited time - according
to scripture - for three score and ten years and with strength a decade or two
more, and if we are really blessed 120 years!
The message:
Go find yourself, actualize your light and its potential
so you can truly earn the greatest possible blessings. This what Hashem was
telling him - the move is for your
benefit, if you do it you will be blessed with a good name, wealth and
children. The Kalever Rebbe insightfully
pointed out this Sabbath, when a person travels to a new place they normally lose
their networks their reputation – unknown to the new people and surroundings,
it costs money to travel you become poorer, is it not easy to have children
when you are not settled and are on the move, thus G-d promises Abram he will
flourish by blessing him precisely in these areas! Ch 12 v2 reads “I will make
you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be
a blessing”.”
Sometimes we live in an environment that is not
conducive to spiritual growth, we are used to the status quo we get lost in the
comforts and rut of our routine. We
forget to seek out and develop the talents and G-d given gifts, and spread them
throughout the world and in doing so we cheat ourselves of making the maximum
impact possible in this world that we are all visiting, this is sad as we end
up undervaluing ourselves. Sometimes when
we recognise greatness we need to be told to move on and out spreading goodness
and also move to protect ourselves from the negative forces and obstacles that
surround us. In Ohr ha Tzaddikim, the anonymous author of this classic Jewish
work states when you are in an environment of sin, it rubs off on you, he
explains in the gate of repentance that when you see others around you sin: the
first time you see immodest or crude behaviour it makes an impression you may
even be shocked, offended and disgusted, the second time it may start to be
less offensive eventually it begins to rub off on you, it finally does not seem
that bad, it becomes normal, you become jaded to the sin and this makes
repentance that much more difficult as we no longer are as sensitive, we no
longer recognise the wrong of it. Today if we look to Hollywood, the level of
immodesty and violence that has become acceptable to the general population is
astonishing. Worse our news channels
sometimes show real life blood and gore and people watch on eating their supper
oblivious to the suffering they behold in front of them – real suffering!
That is why we need to guard ourselves from becoming
immune to sin, insensitive to suffering, it is key to maintaining our humanity.
The world just before the flood the Passuk states in
Genesis ch 6 v 11 “The earth was corrupt before Elokim…” the world was
corrupted in G-d’s eyes, i.e. the verse is teaching us to G-d we were corrupt
but not in the eyes of man, man had been so tarnished he could no longer
recognise the depths of depravity to which he had fallen.
When he arrives in Cannan he is again faced by a test a
famine, and Abram needs to take refuge in Egypt. Ch12 v 11
“And it occurred, as he was about to enter
Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, ‘See now, I have known that you are a woman
of beautiful appearance.'”
How strange a comment made by Abram, that the Torah
bothers to tells us about it, why is this phrase important enough to highlight
that Abram saw his wife in a physical way, and G-d wanted us to read about
this, just before their entry into the land of the children of Ham - Egypt ( The
biblical Egyptians were from the descendants of Ham, I will try answer this, I
recall hearing on a tape by the late Rabbi Goldfein ztl Cham means hot in
Hebrew the root of the word also means physical or focussed on material, that
is why in Hebrew a donkey is a Chamor – it is a very physical creature that is how
Hashem made Donkeys.) Abram in fear that Chams’ children who were steeped in an
unholy physical environment (as testified by Abram later, he feared that they would
lust after Sarai and her incredible beauty, acutely aware of the dangers at
play, Abram comments V12 “they will say this is his wife. They will kill me and let
you live.” (speaking of her beauty that there would be a desire take her) If
our blessed holy fore father Abram was worried about the environment and its
dangers how much more so us the average person on the street should guard
against the dangers around us.
Again we see the danger of the environment to one
spiritual journey where In ch 13 v 10 we learn that Lot chooses to dwell near
Sodom and Amorah the infamous evil society by the physically lush watered and
beautiful Jordan plain. V13 “The people
of Sodom were wicked and sinful” we see what happens to Lot who in the end,
father’s a child with his daughter who named her child Moav (in Hebrew
translated from my father), This union ultimately give rise to the ungrateful
nation of Moav, but surprisingly it is also from this root that Ruth the
convert is born, who was also a person of Humanity and kindness who through
this merits fathering King David but that discussion is for another time.
So to conclude the physical is here for us to uplift it
and to enjoy it, but in a holy and beautiful way that reflects gratitude sensitivity
and respect for each other, and for our Father in heaven. When we live for this
world alone we face a danger of succumbing to immorality, it is when we
recognise our creator the ultimate giver we start to live for the real end, one
that is pure and devoted to true good, it is a wholly unselfish life it leads
to the people that are truly Great.
Abram finds Hashem because he was the ultimate giver he
loved all mankind, he taught those whom he met, it is not about me, we are all
children of the one G-d, he gave us all the good in this world all that I have
is from him, we need to emulate him be like him, by giving life to those around
us, to those that need our help, his
message was to bring light and elevate and teach those around him, (this is why
I think the concept and the eternal covenant of circumcision is given to
Abraham in this Parasha – a cutting off of the foreskin, in recognition that
there is something greater that makes us more complete, we need to remove the
physical obstructions to reach it, to teach the understanding it is not only
about me but it is about me and our Father in heaven as we are all his children
we are all responsible for each other and this gift of a world he has given us. And to recognise this and the holiness of
every human being who was made in the image of the creator, we need to respect
each other in a holy and appropriate way.
This world is not an end, but a means to the greatest and most wonderful
light if only we recognise it is not about our physical pleasures alone, we are
meant to enjoy life but not at any cost. To with caution step out of our comfort
zones, to find out who we are and actualising our talents and gifts, in service
to our father and bringing the world to recognise and see the ultimate and true
purpose, fixing the world and helping others to find the hidden light reserved
for the righteous. To make the entire
globe a place worthy of the Creator so he need no longer be hidden, to build a
globe where he can dwell as he did with Adam before the sin.
An extract from the website of Ohr Somayach
http://ohr.edu/4057
Insights
An Historical Backwater
“And it
was in the days of Amrafel, king of Shinar...” (14:1)
In the
middle of this week’s Torah reading, the Torah seems to make a detour into the
backwaters of Canaanite political history. For an entire chapter of 25 versus
the Torah describes a war between the four kings and the five kings.
Ostensibly, these events have little to do with the story of Avraham and the
genesis of the Jewish People.
Or maybe
there is more here than meets the eye.
The four
kings and the five kings represent two inimical world-views.
The four
kings represent a world-view where everything in creation is subsumed under the
‘forces of nature.’ This view holds that there is nothing else in this world
except this world. Four always denotes ‘this-worldliness. There are four points
of the compass. We speak of the ‘four winds’. The world is composed of four
‘elements’: earth, wind, fire, and water. The letter dalet which has the
numerical value of four consists of two lines at right angles to each other,
suggesting the four points of the compass.
You can
look a this world as being no more than what can be contained within this world
— within the four directions, the four winds, and the four elements. Or you can
look deeper and higher and see that this world is focused on an Existence
beyond this world. This is the world-view represented by the five kings.
Five in
Hebrew is represented by the letter heh. If you look at the letter heh
you will see that it is composed of the letter dalet (the letter which
stands for four and all it signifies) plus the letter yud. Yud is
a unique letter. It is the only letter that doesn’t touch the line on which you
write. It is no more than the smallest of dots floating above the line. The
letter heh is a pictogram of this world focused and revolving around
that which is above this world — the dalet (the “four” of this world)
with the yud at its axis.
Avraham
fought on behalf of the five kings against the four kings. Avraham was the
first person to look at this world and see that there was an Existence beyond
that which is contained in this world. If there was a ‘manor’, there had to be
a ‘Lord of the manor.’
After
Avram fought the war against the four kings, G-d added a letter to his name.
Not surprisingly, that letter was the letter heh. For Avraham
represents all that the heh represents, that this world revolves around
a Higher Existence.
It was
also after the war against the four kings that G-d made a covenant with
Avraham, the covenant of Brit Mila. Brit Mila represents the
sublimation of the physical to the metaphysical. It signifies that the human
body is only complete when we dedicate it to its Maker.
The
natural cycle of this world is seven. There are seven days in the week, seven
notes in the scale, and seven colors in the rainbow. Brit Mila is
performed on the eight day because it symbolizes the dedication of the physical
to that which is above the physical.
Just a
little war between four kings and five kings. Just a little backwater
historical chapter in the Canaanite history books.
- Sources: An Historical
Backwater by Rabbi Eliezer Breitowitz in the name of the Maharal of Prague
as heard from Rabbi C. Z. Senter
I want to end off pointing out another verse in this
weeks Parasha given over to me by Rabbi Moshe Saltzer brought down in the name of Rav
Shapiro the originator of the Daf yomi programme
In Ch15 v 5
He (G-d) took him outside and said “look towards the
heavens and count the stars if you
are able to count them.”
Rav Shapiro asks a question - what this sentence is
meant to mean? G-d surely knows that Abram could not count all the stars so why
does the Torah teach us he said “if you are able
to count the stars”, there must
be a message for us to take home, and he says G-d is telling Abraham that he and his seed
,(Abraham – translated to English means father of the nation’s
: father = Av ; am=nation) the verse is teaching us it is within us to be dedicated, to persevere to break through the boundaries
of the physical to achieve the impossible!
PS we have a tradition brought down in the Oral law from
Sinai and it is written in the Talmud that our Sages stated the total number of
stars in the universe amount to 1 064 340 000 000 000 000.
(this excludes other solar bodies that range across space) how the Talmud could
have estimated there were so many at a time when only about 4500 starts could
be seen to the naked eye is testimony to the divine origin of the holy books –
Zamir Cohen in his book the Coming Revolution points out that with modern day
technological know how, they are finding there are figures approximating the figure taught in the Talmud,
Amazing!!!
Shavuah Tov have a great week, G-d Bless go and actualize your potential!
Michael.
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