{"id":36275,"date":"2018-07-29T17:06:10","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T14:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=36275"},"modified":"2022-02-20T11:30:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T09:30:37","slug":"should-he-stay-or-should-he-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/should-he-stay-or-should-he-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Should He Stay or Should He Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,430],"acf":{"old_id":"36275","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"12","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Parallel, plural truths in reading the Torah and in life.","content":"

In this chapter, Abraham hears and acts and on God’s call to leave his father’s house and go on a journey to the Land of Israel. Through this journey, Abraham will be blessed and will fulfill his destiny as founder of the Jewish people, as well as father to the great monotheistic faiths. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yet right after Abraham arrives in the Land, he leaves! Impelled by a famine, he and his family move to Egypt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was he right? Rashi (1040-1105) thought that Abraham had no choice but to leave, commenting, “the famine was in the land<\/span> of Israel <\/span>alone<\/span><\/em>, to test him as to whether he would question the words of God, who commanded him to go to the Land of Canaan <\/span>and now he was forcing him to leave it<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/i>” In this reading, Abraham’s faith was tested by the impossibility of staying in the land God had promised that Abraham had set his heart upon. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rashi suggests that leaving was unavoidable, and implies that the stay in Egypt was essential, and integral to the blessing that Abraham was promised.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ramban, (1194-1270) remarkably, says no. Abraham sinned by leaving the land where God had explicitly told him to go. “He should have trusted in God to save him from famine.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I am obsessed and awestruck by the stories of the pioneer settlers to Israel in the late 19th and early 20th century who suffered untold hardship, starvation, disease, violent death, and horrific infant mortality to establish a foothold in the Land. For some, like Fishel Salomon of Yesod Ha’amalah, their resilience was rooted in unshakable faith: “God has brought us here, and nothing else make us leave,” he said, channeling the Ramban. Many others however did leave, to the Americas or Europe. Despite their dedication and idealism, they felt forced away by unbearable privations, like Abraham in Rashi’s reading. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel that this history echoes both Rashi and Rambam’s readings and shows the possibility of parallel, plural truths in reading the Torah and in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can I deny or discount the blessings many of those who left and their descendants have gathered in their journeys, some still ongoing, to other lands? \u00a0Yet, without the stubbornness of the settlers who stayed in the face of unimaginable hardships, and without the suffering and sacrifice of those who continue to defend it, there would be no Jewish state today.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":102210,"id":102210,"title":"-62120a27b0913--62120a27b0914gen12-parallel tracks.jpg","filename":"62120a27b0913-62120a27b0914gen12-parallel-tracks.jpg.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/07\/62120a27b0913-62120a27b0914gen12-parallel-tracks.jpg.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/should-he-stay-or-should-he-go\/62120a27b0913-62120a27b0914gen12-parallel-tracks-jpg\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"62120a27b0913-62120a27b0914gen12-parallel-tracks-jpg","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":36275,"date":"2022-02-20 09:30:15","modified":"2022-03-23 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