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By Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky,
Congregación B´nei Israel, Costa Rica

Translated by Inés Baum - Proofreading by Ellen Zindler

Lekh-Lekha, the Torah’s third parashah, is the one where the story of the Hebrew people begins, starting with the life of its first patriarch, Abraham. From that moment on, the Torah will focus exclusively on the laws and stories inherent to the people of Israel.

The text begins with one of the most famous phrases of the Torah, those which every student must memorize in primary school: “Now the Lord said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee’” (Bereishit 12:1). Countless exegetic commentaries have been written regarding the first words of this verse, some of them as famous as the source itself. However, I will refer here to the end of the verse: “unto the land that I will show thee”.

The question that arises immediately, once we start reflecting on these words, is: Why doesn’t God mention the name of the place where he commands Abraham to go? Moreover, it is possible to wonder how Abraham understands the way in which he should go, since he departs hardly has God finished his address. Says the Torah: “So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto him…” (Bereishit 12:4). One more disconcerting element is that, in the following verse, when referring to Abraham and his family, we are told that “… they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came” (12:5), as if it was understood that Abraham knew where he was going.

Ibn Ezra, medieval Spanish commentator, holds that God revealed to Abraham the place where he should go, although it is not explicit in the Torah, because otherwise we could never put together verses one and five.

Nachmanides, on the other hand, explains that Abraham was, from the start, walking along the path to Canaan. In fact, his father Terah had already traveled with him that way (Bereishit 11:31), but not with the purpose of settling in that land but rather, possibly, as part of the usual route used by the nomadic nations who then inhabited Mesopotamia. Ramban recounts that Abraham wandered from town to town until, when he arrived at Canaan, God pointed out to him, “Unto thy seed will I give this land…” (Bereishit 12:7). Just at that moment did he come to know that this was the Promised Land, the one God would “show thee”.

Another interesting commentary is the one by Ohr HaChaim, the Moroccan rabbi Chaim ben Atar. He explains that, according to the midrash, we have to understand the first verse of our parashah in the context of the ten trials to which Abraham was subjected. The first one was, certainly, the divine command to abandon his homeland and native house. Ohr HaChaim adds that, by God not revealing to Abraham the place where he should go, He was just making this trial harder, since he had to leave his home in order to march to a place about which he knew nothing, not even its name. As a historical commentary, it is worthy to note that Chaim ben Atar (1696-1743) also left his homeland to make Aliyah in Eretz Israel, surely suffering countless hardships and “trials” to achieve his goal.

Rashi quotes the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (39:9) when he says that God did not reveal to Abraham the place he had to go, so as to make it more desirable to his eyes. According to this interpretation, God somehow intended to awake Abraham’s curiosity and interest, in order to keep him enthusiastic throughout his trip.

We do not know why God didn’t tell Abraham the name of his destination; we can only conjecture over the real motive through other biblical sources, just as the commentators quoted above did. The only fact we know for certain is that Abraham obeyed the divine command without hesitation, leaving immediately, even though he did not know where he was going. For me, this is a poetic image, radiating passion and love for a mission to be accomplished. Every now and then, we need to set aside the cold analysis concerning the steps we follow, giving up for a moment the possible costs and benefits, so as to plunge ourselves towards a dream we want to make true. This is what Abraham did when he heard the divine voice resounding within himself, and the first romantic Zionists of the 19th century did likewise. If they had stopped to examine their possibilities of success, they probably would have abandoned their objective even before they became enthralled with it.

It seems that the great projects, those which arise from a deep identification with following an ideal, need a certain dose of healthy madness in order to become a reality, a fresh combination of small measures of ingenuity or irresponsibility. I think that all great dreamers of humankind, those who bet on righteous or noble causes even when ignoring their real possibilities of succeeding in their enterprises, would identify with our patriarch Abraham, who left his homeland to go to an unknown land, of which he didn’t even know its name. And all of this in order to obey God, to found a new faith, to begin the history of a people that would become the proud spokesmen of ethical monotheism. An unknown land, a dream to follow, a promising future.

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Forwarded by Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, from Kol Shearith Israel Congregation, Panama.
Translated by Inés Baum and proofread by Ellen Zindler, from B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica.

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