Lech Lcha 2008

In the year 1420 the Christian mystic Thomas a Kempis wrote the famous line “Man proposes, but Gd disposes.” This means either ‘Don’t bother making plans,’ or ‘Don’t worry, Gd has everything under control, or perhaps merely ‘We don’t know what will happen in the future.’ 

Providence, not the town in Rhode Island, is the idea that Gd is controlling everything that happens. This is a concept with which Christians sometimes seem more comfortable than Jews. However, during the Middle Ages, many prominent Jewish thinkers believed that Gd controlled every raindrop and every flower. There are theological difficulties with this belief. If you spill your coffee, does that mean Gd does not like you? If your team wins the football game, does that mean they are more moral than the other football team? If, Gd forbid, someone you loves dies in an accident, is that somehow part of Gd’s plan?

Jews generally reject this notion that everything is part of Gd’s plan, if for no other reason, at least because it makes the idea of free will meaningless. Judaism works on the mitzvah system, the list of 613 commandments we are obligated to perform. Without our ability to choose to obey or disobey a commandment, the system is meaningless. So Gd must let us make our own decisions, and get into trouble all by ourselves.

And yet.

Is there no time at which Gd takes control of our lives, and gets us to do one thing or another? Sometimes we do wish that Gd would step in and tell us what to do. Sometimes we do wish that Gd would fix a problem, or bring things back to the way they used to be. Does it ever happen?

This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lcha, begins with a command from Gd: וַיֹּאמֶר יי אֶל־אַבְרָם לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ

Gd said to Avram “Go! from your land, from the place of your birth, from the house of your father, to a land that I will show you.”

There are a lot of confusing things about this first verse of the parasha. Why Avram? Why in that order, leave your land, the place of your birth, your father’s house? Wouldn’t the opposite way make more sense? Why does Gd want Avram to got to the land of Canaan? Couldn’t he just make Haran, where Avram is living, the Promised Land? Or if Canaan is really important, why doesn’t He just pick someone in Canaan? And why does Gd tell Avraham go to the land that I will show you, and not tell him where? It is not such a big secret. Four verses later the Torah says “Avram went to Canaan.”

Some of these questions have been answered by the ancient rabbis. Some have not. But one thing is clear, that this is a case of providence in action. It is not hidden providence. Openly and blatantly, Gd is making a huge change in Avram’s life. Not to say that if Avram is seventy five and still living in his father’s house that maybe it’s time to move out.

But Gd takes Avram in hand and makes his decisions for him. He tells him where to live, He changes his name, He advises him to have a little surgery done, and He even helps Avram and his wife have a baby. Gd is in control!

Or is He? Surely Avram is only great because he does have free will. Gd tells him what to do, but he chooses to do it. Because of this, Avram becomes Avraham, the father of a great people, the newest full member of which is sitting right here, Benjamin Maas.

So I ask you Ben, are you here because Gd called you to be a Bar Mitzvah? Is this a case of providence in action? I am not asking if you actually heard the voice of Gd. I’m asking if you are here because Gd wants you to be here. 

You might say that Ben is here because of all of us. We are here, and Benjamin is here to join us. But then, why are we here? Did Gd call us all at Sinai? Lechu L’cha! Go from your home, go from Egypt, go from what you know and what is comfortable.

Lech L’cha is a challenge to all of us. There is something Gd wants us to do. It is not always as clear as it was for Avram. Benjamin might not know exactly why he had to spend so much time studying, missing out on TV and track and normal life. But I think he knew he had to be here. He knew there was a call.

One of the fascinating things about this parasha is what comes right before it. When Gd tells Avram to leave the land of his birth, he isn’t in the land of his birth. He is in Haran, but he was born in Ur. The fascinating thing is that Avram’s father takes the family out of Ur and leaves, not for Haran, but for Canaan. Only he never gets there. He stops halfway, in Haran. 

Gd does call us, but there is always the danger that we will stop halfway. Because Gd never really tells us where we are going until we get there. Benjamin has worked hard. He is where he is supposed to be. But his Jewish journey is not over, and neither is ours. I ask Benjamin to keep trying to figure out what Gd wants of him, and to do his best to do that, not halfway, but all the way. To the land that Gd will show him. And that is also the challenge for each and every one of us. 

This Shabbat is a Shabbat of joy, as we see a boy become a young man. May Gd bless us with journeys that lead often to such joys.