Lekh Lekha 5780: Rabbinic Intern David Chapman

Good morning. It’s been a very full week. It feels like it’s been a long week. We’ve had accomplishments and some failures; we celebrated a new life this morning and we have mourned a loss in our community. I know that every week is like that: celebrating highs and lows, calm moments and hectic moments, but for some reason this week felt especially full. I guess I’m not used to the time change yet. The short days make it seem like everything is really compressed. 

This week we joined Rabbi Ain and her family mourning the loss of her grandmother. As she shared with us, reflecting on Sybil’s life gave her an opportunity to appreciate the remarkable journey she had, lasting just under 98 years. And that gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own grandmother’s life. My grandmother Sadye passed a few years ago. She was the only member of my family I know who had been born in Europe; she was born in Hungary in 1917. She emigrated to Chicago as a teenager before the war, so she’s not a survivor in the traditional sense that we use that word, but nevertheless her life story bore the scars of the persecution of Jews in Europe. She had nine brothers and sisters, yes, she was one of 10. They were born in four or five different countries as her family moved across Europe and eventually settled in this country, the United States. When my grandmother died I realized that my personal link to that journey from Europe to America that my family took (and that many of your families took) was lost; that link was broken. And it made me think, some people may be familiar with Tony Kushner‘s play Angels in America that opens with a eulogy at a similar funeral. Tony Kushner calls that “the great voyage” and the rabbi at that funeral (who is played by Meryl Streep in the HBO movie), says: “In every day of your lives the miles of that voyage between that place and this one, you cross. Every day we live those miles of that journey. In you, that journey is.” The rabbi says there are no great voyages like that anymore in our story, but I’m not so sure that’s true. In our world today, there are great voyages still taken like that – sometimes taken willingly, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes to find opportunity and sometimes to escape harm and sometimes a little bit of both. This week I heard about three other remarkable journeys -- not even the one included in our Torah portion. I want to share them with you. 

Some of us were here together on Wednesday night for our multi-faith Kristallnacht observance. And we heard from Marty Brounstein who wrote called Two Among the Righteous Few. In the book, Brounstein talks about his journey to Holland to discover more about the lives of Frans and Mien Wijnakker, the couple that hid his family and many other Jewish families during the war in a small town in the Netherlands. Brounstein took that journey to Holland, and then wrote a book about that journey to share what he discovered about that family with all of us. I haven’t read that book yet but I’m looking forward to, and not having read it does not stop me from recommending that you buy the book. 

Another journey I heard about this week was that of Professor Arnie Eisen, the Chancellor of the Jewish theological Seminary, where I study. Chancellor Eisen took a trip to the US/Mexico border with HIAS, a Jewish organization that advocates for immigrants and refugees, and T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights group, along with other Jewish clergy members to learn more and to see firsthand, to the extent that they could, the conditions of people’s lives there on the border. Chancellor Eisen shared in very personal terms with the whole JTS community how unpsetting his visit had been. He emphasized that it was important to him, as a Jew, not just to take that journey and to see with his own eyes something that many of us watch on TV or read about it in the paper, but then to come back and tell us about it. To him it was integral to taking the journey that he share about it. He shared a very personal detail. His trip to the southern border came about one year after the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue. One of the victims of that tragedy was Chancellor Eisen’s former roommate. So, he had a very personal connection to that tragedy. And that individual who was murdered had been committed in his life to Jewish acts of social justice. In fact, we know that among the reasons that one of the communities inside one that building was targeted was because it had partnered with HIAS, and it had made rights for immigrants and refugees a core part of its identity. So, Chancellor Eisen said that by going to the border he was representing his former roommate, his dear friend whose life had been lost. Chancellor Eisen was carrying on the justice work that had been so important to him. And again, this meant not just going on the mission, but telling us about it. 

And the third journey that I heard about this week was that of Ariel Burger, author of Witness, a book about his experience about being Eli Wiesel’s student and colleague. This is a sneak peak, because this very same program will be coming here to Sutton Place in a few months. Ariel Burger wrote a book about the 25 years of his association with Wiesel, first as a student, then becoming a teaching assistant, then his doctoral student and becoming very close with him over time. So Ariel Burger’s journey was a different kind of journey; it was a journey through memory as he went through all of his journals and his recollections of this incredible figure over many, many years. And of course the title of the book is Witness, and witnessing which was a very important theme in Eli Wiesel‘s life. Wiesel teaches us that witnessing something implicates you in the story of what you witnessed. Witnessing is not a passive act. It’s a call to action, an invitation. 

At the end of the program with Ariel Burger, there was this special moment during the Q&A. Maybe I’ll re-create it when we have Burger speak here. Somebody said, “You’ve told us why are you found Elie Wiesel to be so meaningful and inspiring and such an important teacher; what do you think he saw in you? Why did he choose you to be his teaching assistant?” And Ariel Burger was kind of stunned by the question. It took him a while to answer and he ultimately said he didn’t know. He couldn’t know what it was that made Elie Wiesel choose him and take him under his wing. And that feeling of not knowing why you’re chosen – I think there’s something really important about that. Sometimes, you know why you’ve been chosen for a particular journey. Sometimes we have no idea. Sometimes circumstances just arise in our lives and, all of a sudden, we are on a path. We figure it out as we go along. And that’s how I think of the beginning of Avrum’s story. In our parsha this week, Avrum is chosen out of nowhere. God has been basically silent, for 10 generations, since the destruction of the Tower of Babel. Now, this parsha opens with God calling to Abraham: 

Lekh lekha me’artekha, me’moladet’kha, m’veit avikah.  

Go from your land, from your birth place, and from your fathers house and go to the land that I will show you. 

Out of nowhere. Unlike Noah, we don’t already know that Avram is righteous in his generation. We have almost no information about Avrams’s childhood, that’s why there are so many midrashic stories about it, such as the smashing of the idols that some of us may be familiar with. None of that is in the Torah all – it is all imagined to help fill in the gaps because we have trouble understanding why this incredibly important person in our story, and our tradition, really the beginning of our story as a people, has no background, no backstory. And that phrase, Lekh Lekha, there are some confusing things about that phrase. About that command. First of all, let’s look at Lekh. Maybe you’ve already learned that I have a thing about language and grammar, which if you come to my Shakespeare and Torah class later today, you’ll get another taste of that. That first word lekh is the imperative, the command form of the verb lalechet, which means “to go”’ or “to walk.” OK, so that we understand.

And what does the second word Lekha mean? It means “to you,” or “for you,” or maybe “with you.” It’s a little bit confusing because we almost never see that preposition with the verb Lalechet. It’s very unusual. In fact, that construction only appears one other time in Torah. Anybody know when? It happens right before the binding of Isaac. This is also a story about Abraham. It’s a few chapters after this, God says to Abraham, Lekh Lehkha: go to that land of Moriah and there you’ll take your son and we know the rest of that story. Only these two times do we hear lekh lekha. There’s something else strange going on here: Let’s look at the rest of the statement. 

“From your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house.” 

There are many confusing things about that statement, too. First of all, they’ve already left Avrum’s birthplace and their native land, Ur Chasdim. They are in Haran. And then the last part: “Go from your father’s house.”  Abraham was 75 years old. I know some parents hope that their children will always want to live with them. But Avrum was 75: It’s time for him to go already. It’s time for him to leave his father’s house. So, what was the point of this statement? Oh, and by the way, the rest of the statement: “to the land that I will show you” … Well, that’s Canaan. There’s no mystery here about where “the land that I’ll show you” is, they already know where they are going. And they do get there. (And then they leave, but that’s another story.) The Mishnah tells us that God is going to test Abraham many times. There are going to be 10 trials in Abraham’s life to test his devotion. There are several versions of the list of 10, but this is the first big test in Abraham’s life – to go from his father’s land. Another one of those big tests is the binding of Isaac. Another Lekh Lekha moment. 

But why is God testing Abraham? Well, again, we don’t know anything about Abraham at this point. His name is not even Abraham yet. These two acts – leaving your father’s house and being told to sacrifice your beloved son — these acts will cut ties with the generation that comes before you and the generation that comes after you. This puts you by yourself on your own path. Another one of Abraham’s tests is to expel Ishmael – another way of cutting off the generation that comes after you. The nature of a test yes to not demonstrate a quality that you know you already have, a test is to find a limit. It’s not the floor, it’s the ceiling that is being tested. If you take a math test, you’re not going to see easy math questions to which you already know the answer. A good teacher will find the limit of your ability. They’ll ask you harder and harder questions until you find what that ceiling is. We learn later that Abraham is a paragon of hesed, of lovingkindness, and of emunah, faith. These tests – being told to leave his father’s land and being told to sacrifice his son – will be tests of the limits of that hesed and that emunah. But God already knows this about Abraham. So why is God testing him? Maybe one of the reasons is so that Abraham can learn the lesson for himself. One of the clues we see in that that superfluous lekha is that Abraham is taking this journey not for God’s sake. Abraham is taking this journey to learn something about himself. To discover who he is. 

That’s why it’s important to notice what kind of journeyer Abraham is. Is he obedient all the time? Does he ever push back? Does he ever challenge? Yes. Our tradition is full of stories in which Abraham is not just a passive journeyer, but rather he takes an active role. He challenges God when God says that he will have children as plentiful as the sands in the sea. Abraham challenges God by asking how he will know. In this parsha, Abraham says “how will I know when I possess the land?” Later, in a few chapters. we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah when Abraham actually argues with God, actually intercedes, and says, “No this is not the way things are supposed to go.” And he tries to convince God to recant. 

To me, this is what Chancellor Eisen, Marty Brounstein, the author of Two Among the Righteous Few, and what Ariel Burger, the author of the book about Elie Wiesel, are all doing. They are going on a journey, but not as passive observers. They are engaging with what they see. They are witnessing – and this is not a passive act. This is what Elie Wiesel modeled in his own life. This is why he chose to devote his life after his liberation from Auschwitz to writing, teaching, and speaking – so that he could be an active participant in the journey that he was on. 

When Avrum, not yet Abraham, and Sarai, not yet Sarah, set out from Haran, they take all of us with them. That’s why the text points out just a few lines later that they left ?? with all of the souls that they made in Haran. What does that mean that they “made souls”? Well, some commentators take a very simple approach. They say they took the household, they took the maid and the cook, the babysitter … well, they didn’t need a babysitter yet, but they took whoever was around. But Rashi says that (Hebrew words) means that they “brought those people under the wings of the shekhina” – in other words, that they converted people. Now this is a little bit of retrojection; they weren’t quite Jewish yet so I’m not sure what they were converting people from or to. But still, it’s a beautiful thought that so early in their relationship with God, so early on that journey, before they really set out to do anything, they were already telling people about it. They said, “Come on, we’re going on a journey, come with us. We’re not going alone.” They didn’t keep it to themselves. And that’s what makes their test so personal. They have personal stakes because they shared their journey with their community. They brought people along. 

So, what is testing us right now? What is testing us individually? And what is testing us as a community? And what is testing the Jewish people, the American people, what is testing humankind? How would we know if we’ve passed that test? This is one of Abrams’s questions – he asks, “How will I know when I possess the land?” Each of us will answer those questions differently. The important part is that we do answer them. And not only quietly to ourselves, but rather, we must answer them in the way that we live our lives. And that’s what it means to bear witness. That’s what it means to be part of that great covenant that God made Arvum, Sarai, and all of our forebears. Elie Wiesel and Ariel Burger teach us that listening to a witness makes you a witness. 

When we hear the story of a witness, whether it’s a witness of the Shoah or witness of other atrocities or abuse, either in our own country or in other countries, it implicates us. It makes us witnesses, too. We are called upon to share that story. That’s what we do when we engage with our Torah. When we listen to the story of our people, we are bearing witness to it. We are bearing witnesses to our own beginning. 

And the final thought I’ll share you today is about that second Lekha in Lekh Lekha. The commentator Kli Yakar understands it this way: that lekha means lekh l’atzmo – go to your true self, your essence, your selfhood – that’s what Avrum was being asked to do: not just to take a physical journey, but to take a spiritual journey as well. A journey into his soul. A journey into the true essence of who he was. Go find yourself. And Avrum can’t do that in his father’s home. He can’t do that in his birthplace. He has to physically remove himself from those familiar comforts in order to see something new. At 75 years old he takes that journey. 

So for us, “going to our true essence” might not entail upending our lives. It might just mean moving through the world a little bit differently. What are we avoiding seeing right now? What are we closing our eyes to? Eli Wiesel could have stayed silent after the Holocaust. We know many survivors did and we can’t fault them for the decisions they made. Trauma affects each of us differently. Wiesel himself made a vow not to write anything at all about his experience for 10 years after his liberation. For 10 years he was silent. Like the 10 generations of silence before Avrum. And after that period of reflection and healing he wrote a magnum opus – hundreds and hundreds of pages in Yiddish detailing everything he could remember, an account of the war, his survival, and his liberation. And he whittled that account down smaller and smaller into his book Night. His first act of bearing witness. Eli Wiesel knew that, at least for him, survival obligated him to share his story. Like Abraham, his legacy was realized in the effect that he had on those that came after him, like his student Ariel Burger, who now is our teacher. 

So, it is incumbent on us to go on the journey – whatever that means to us – with our eyes open. To engage with the journey, to argue if we need to argue, to push back if we need to push back, and then to return and speak about it. Because once we witness something we are then implicated in that story. Once we become witnesses, we have the opportunity and the obligation to share what we’ve learned so we can continue the legacy of change that these people have given us. Shabbat shalom.