Abraham is the original immigrant to Israel. His journey is the supreme example of divine calling and the original order to aliyah. It opens, “Lech Lecha, go from your land, your birth-place, your father''s house, to a land that I will show you.” God''s call basically says, ''Leave behind all family and familiarity and take a walk into the utterly unknown.'' Abraham''s story models for us our own journeys of setting out on unmapped spiritual paths. It is a compass for our own travels and travails. For how do we decipher God''s calling voice in our lives? How do we extract a coherent command from the vast amount of ''life material'' that fills our days? One essential hint offered by the text on how to do this is in the enigmatic first lines and title of the parsha itself – lech lecha. Though it is commonly translated as, “You shall go”, that translation utterly flattens out the poetry of the literal Hebrew. For this terse 2-word mantra Lech Lecha is read literally by the Kabbalists as - “Go to yourself!” And hence the biggest hint for all of us on our spiritual journeys. How to hear and follow God''s command? Pursue your own deepest self! That is the secret gift of the parsha. It points us in the direction of the divine. And, in the end, that directing finger points back to our deepest selves. The poem below is Abraham''s letter, attempting to explain why he must leave his 'father''s house'. The Letter Father, I leave you a letter about leaving you as sure as an out-breath escapes the chest that heaves the next inhale for we all have to breathe. I pray that this meager math of words might add up to some sum that you can count upon. For I have heard a calling, two terse words that disperse even the sturdiest soils of my place of birth. They hold for me an undeniable truth ineffable yet indelible impossible to prove or tell or yell or weigh its value on a merchant''s scale. With pain and precision I have made this decision - to listen. As if listening were an art a compulsion to record Divine diction with all the weight of my earthly limbs. Your voice is so concrete, so clear and level, so rational. While this voice that compels me - well, its fluid & fanciful and yet demanding. Unpredictable, poetic, astounding pounding proof into sounds which make no sound and yet deafen the ears of all around who listen well to their own silence. A still small voice with an unsettling lisp. A voice that to be heard, it must be lived. If belief is knowing that there stands a wall then faith is leaning on it - - And so I fall for the sake of this flight of grace. I lunge in to this journey to an unknown land God-shown unsewn rock-strewn and sand-duned so foreign from everything I ever knew. And so unbearably far from you. If faith is a wall then I must lean. If God is a journey then I must leave.
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)