Dear TBZ Community,
This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, is all about journeys: the places we leave, the places we go, the choices we make along the way, and the circumstances that sometimes leave us with little choice at all. Some journeys begin with faith and a sense of possibility, others begin with fear or distress, and some begin because conflict makes staying where we are no longer possible.
Lech Lecha is the beginning of Abram’s journey, when God calls him to leave his land, his birthplace, and his father’s house, to go toward a place that God will show him.
וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־אַבְרָם לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ
The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).
Abram and Sarai leave behind the familiar, beginning a new chapter guided by faith and the promise of a future they cannot yet see. Their journey is an act of trust, a willingness to step into the unknown and imagine that life might take them somewhere new.
But this is not the only journey in our parasha (Torah portion), and not every journey begins with a call or a choice made freely. Later, Abram and Sarai travel to Egypt because a famine strikes the land of Canaan. This time, they are not leaving in pursuit of a promise but in response to distress, seeking a way to survive when the land can no longer sustain them.
וַיְהִי רָעָב בָּאָרֶץ וַיֵּרֶד אַבְרָם מִצְרַיְמָה לָגוּר שָׁם כִּי־כָבֵד הָרָעָב בָּאָרֶץ
There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land (Genesis 12:10).
Their journey reminds us that sometimes we move because of difficult circumstances, and that the places we go are shaped not only by our dreams but also by the challenges we face.
We also read about Lot, Abram’s nephew, who starts the journey with him and later separates from Abram after conflict and quarrels arise between their households. Their possessions and their herds have grown so numerous that the land cannot support them together, with tension developing between their herders. Abram and Lot ultimately choose to go their separate ways, with Lot selecting the fertile plain of the Jordan.
וַיְהִי־רִיב בֵּין רֹעֵי מִקְנֵה־אַבְרָם וּבֵין רֹעֵי מִקְנֵה־לוֹט
And there was quarreling between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock… (Genesis 13:7)
Abram eventually says to Lot:
הִפָּרֶד נָא מֵעָלָי אִם־הַשְּׂמֹאל וְאֵימִנָה וְאִם־הַיָּמִין וְאַשְׂמְאִילָה
Let us separate: if you go north, I will go south; and if you go south, I will go north (Genesis 13:9).
This is a different kind of journey, one shaped by disagreement and the recognition that continuing together is no longer working. Sometimes the choice before us is not simply where to go, but whether we can continue walking alongside someone else, and what it means to part ways when we cannot find a way forward together.
And then there is Hagar, whose journey is perhaps the most vulnerable of all. After Sarai treats her harshly, Hagar runs away into the wilderness. Unlike Abram, she is not setting out in response to a divine promise; unlike Lot, she is not choosing between two desirable destinations. She flees because she is afraid, because she is vulnerable, and because the situation in which she finds herself has become unbearable.
וַתְּעַנֶּהָ שָׂרַי וַתִּבְרַח מִפָּנֶיהָ
And Sarai treated her harshly, and she ran away from her (Genesis 16:6).
Hagar’s journey reminds us that not everyone has the same freedom to choose when and where they go or what they leave behind. Sometimes a journey begins with the urgent need to find safety.
There is another detail in the text that invites us to look at Abram’s journey differently: Although we often understand God’s call as the beginning of his departure from his father’s home, Abram had already begun traveling with his father, Terach. At the end of last week’s parasha, we read that Terach took Abram, Sarai, and Lot and set out from Ur of the Chaldees toward the land of Canaan. They traveled together as a family, but when they reached Haran, they settled there.
וַיִּקַּח תֶּרַח אֶת־אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וְאֶת־לוֹט בֶּן־הָרָן בֶּן־בְּנוֹ וְאֵת שָׂרַי כַּלָּתוֹ אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וַיֵּצְאוּ אִתָּם מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד־חָרָן וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם
Terach took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there (Genesis 11:31)
We don’t know why they stopped in Haran, or whether they intended to stay there all along. We only know that the journey toward Canaan came to a halt, and the family settled in a place that was not their original home but had become their home nonetheless. Then Terach died, and Abram faced a choice: he could remain in Haran, in the place where his family had settled, or he could continue the journey.
It is at this moment that God calls to Abram, inviting him to keep going. The journey does not have to end here. There is a place that I will show you, there is a future you cannot yet see, and there will be challenges along the way, but you do not have to remain where you are simply because you have stopped here.
The Ben Ish Chai, Rabbi Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad, offers a beautiful teaching on the words Lech Lecha:
“Lech Lecha: the capacity to walk (lech), to go forth, to not stop in one place, to not get stuck — this is the thing that is actually lecha, yours. It is only the journey (lech) that is yours (lecha), that is in your ownership.”
I find this teaching particularly meaningful because our journeys rarely unfold in a straight line. Though we begin with one destination in mind, we sometimes arrive elsewhere. We travel with people who accompany us for part of the way, and sometimes our paths separate. There are moments when we stop because we need to rest, moments when circumstances force us to stop, and moments when we become stuck because we are afraid of what might happen if we continue. Sometimes we know exactly why we are leaving, and sometimes we cannot yet explain what is drawing us forward.
The teaching invites us to think about what it means to own our journeys, not because we control everything that happens to us, but because we have a role in deciding how we respond, what we choose, and where we go from here. Even when the road ahead is uncertain, even when we find ourselves in a place we did not expect to be, the journey remains ours to shape.
And this is what I have been thinking about in our own moment, when so much feels uncertain, vulnerable, and frightening, and when the choices before us can feel both deeply consequential and difficult to make. What does it mean to be on a journey at a moment like this? How do we decide where to go, what to leave behind, what we need to reject, and what we want to carry with us? How do we recognize when it is time to stay and when it is time to move, when we need to hold our ground and when we need the courage to take another step?
The story of Lech Lecha reminds us that there are many kinds of journeys, and that even when we find ourselves in a place we did not expect to be, we still have choices to make about who we want to become and how we want to move forward.
As we enter Shabbat, I invite us to reflect on the journeys we are taking, individually and collectively, and on the choices that are before us at this moment.
Where are we being called to go?
What do we need to leave behind, and what do we want to bring with us?
What are we choosing, what are we rejecting, and what possibilities might open up if we allow ourselves to keep moving, even when the destination is not yet clear?
And as we make these choices, can we also pay attention to those whose journeys look different from ours, whose choices are more limited, or who are simply trying to find a place where they can be safe?
May this Shabbat give us the space to pause and take stock of where we are, the courage to recognize the choices that are ours to make, and the wisdom to understand the different journeys unfolding around us.
May we find the strength to continue when it is time to move forward, the humility to change direction when necessary, and the compassion to accompany one another along the way, remembering that even when we cannot see the whole road ahead, we can still choose the next step we take.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia