Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3)
‘Lech lecha!’ (‘Go forth!’). God’s call to Avram triggers an extraordinary adventure for Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, and for us too.
As I ponder this briefest of Hebrew phrases - Lech Lecha - in the context of the first five books of the bible (Pentateuch), I am struck by its inherent call to life. I submit that, in the language of Torah, to ‘go forth’ is another way of saying, ‘Go, give life!’
The gift and giving of life – both physical and spiritual – is a recurrent theme in the bible. It leaps from the page of the Genesis creation account, as a formless darkness comes to light and life, as ‘plants yielding seeds’ and living creatures ‘of every kind’ abound, and as the first man and woman are told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’.
At the other end of the story, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses stands on the edge of the promised land and exhorts his listeners to ‘Choose life!’ And lest we mistake this for a ‘wellbeing’ slogan, Scripture spells out its context and meaning: covenant, sacred ancestry, gift and responsibility:
Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Choose life so that you and your descendants will live.(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
From start to finish, God’s word is a call to go ‘beyond’ oneself and to bring forth ‘more’. Thus, Genesis is the story of the birth of a people - of sexual unions and pregnancies, of births and child-rearing, of homemaking and breadwinning, of the joys and challenges of what it means to be a family called into the service of God, so that 'all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
It is not an easy story. Giving life never is. Time and again, Scripture tells of barren women, childless couples, difficult pregnancies, warring siblings, families displaced, livelihoods threatened. And yet, still, life goes on, God’s promise finds a way.
Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures is this paradox more obvious than in the story of Abraham and Sarah, called to bring forth countless descendants, yet childless until their old age. Their story continues to inspire our own efforts and struggles to ‘give life’. Like Abraham and Sarah, we are sent forth into the fray of earthly complexities, with all its difficulties and deaths. It is precisely here that the call is to be life-givers, to bear witness to God’s light, life and presence in the world.
Whether we are physically bringing forth children and grandchildren, or being generative in myriad other ways, when we hear ‘lech lecha’ our response is to live and love as fully as possible, using all our God-given gifts and opportunities to be a blessing, to leave the world, not simply as we found it, but with ‘more’ than it was before we arrived.
The journey to ‘go forth’, ‘to a land that I will show you’ might, literally, entail a geographical land – a home in a new country or the same neighbourhood in which we grew up. It will most certainly refer to a mental, spiritual and ethical landscape. Whatever the 'land' to which one goes forth, the call entails courage, persistence, growth, change, the painful mistakes of maturing and the challenge to boldly and lovingly contribute to one's family, community and surrounds.
As with Abraham and Sarah, the journey will not be smooth, easy or always successful. It is a journey that we entrust to God, knowing that others have travelled this way before us. We are in good company, with Abraham and Sarah and with the whole people of God on a pilgrim path.
Enough said.... Lech lecha!
Scripture: NRSVACE
Image: Shutterstock
© Teresa Pirola, 2024 www.lightoftorah.net
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Light of Torah is a grassroots ministry, encouraging Christians to reflect on Torah with the help of Jewish insights. More... The reflection above refers to Parashat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1 - 17:27), the Torah portion read this week in the annual Jewish liturgical cycle. Shabbat shalom.
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