{"id":65370,"date":"2019-11-07T08:48:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T06:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=65370"},"modified":"2022-02-20T12:22:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T10:22:54","slug":"parashat-lech-lecha-opening-up-to-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/parashat-lech-lecha-opening-up-to-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Parashat Lech Lecha: Opening Up To The World"},"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":[368],"acf":{"old_id":"65370","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"1069","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Neither closed in, like Noah, or trying to go back, like Lot, Abraham goes forth, and forward, into the wide world","content":"

When God ushers Noah into the ark, the verse reads, \u201cAnd God closed him in ‘for his sake’\u201d (Gen. 7:16).\u00a0 By contrast, when Abraham is given a command at the beginning of this week\u2019s portion, it is not to close himself up, away from the world, but the very opposite, to journey forth.<\/p>\n

Abraham is worthy of being the first Jew, the ancestor of all Jews, and the one by which all converts to Judaism are dubbed “child of Abraham,” because of this very ability to go forth, to look outwards, with openness to the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sense that this week\u2019s parasha, about choosing a place to go as being forward-looking, can be seen in the choice of Lot to go to a place that is \u201clike the garden of\u00a0the Lord, like the land of Egypt\u201d (13:10). Lot\u2019s \u00a0choice, to go backwards, to the garden of the Lord, presumably Eden, rather than forwards to Canaan like his uncle Abraham, shows why it is Abraham and his line rather than Lot who will be the progenitors of the Jewish people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sense of being able to go into a new place, into the world and be vulnerable is manifested most clearly in the command to circumcise enacted in chapter 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, I had the privilege of attending two different circumcisions. I asked Rabbi Yisrael Altein, the father of one baby, now bearing the name Yehezkel ben Yisrael v\u2019Chana, what the ceremony meant to him, particularly the lines, \u201cIn your blood you live\u201d (Ezekiel 16:6).\u00a0He explained that it is the commitment to be willing to give up our lives for the sake of God, meaning not the blood itself, but the commitment to be able to do this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a Jew, the openness and ability to see God as a \u201cliving and seeing God\u201d (Gen. 16:14) as Hagar claims, is not just in the covenant made when male flesh is circumcised.\u00a0The heart (Deuteronomy 30:6 and Jeremiah 4:4) and the mouth (Exodus 6:12) can also become circumcised and participate in the covenant through use of those organs as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lesson of Abraham in the portion of Lech Lecha (“go out”), is not to stay closed inside an unchanging environment like Noah, but to go forth into the world even when that incurs risks.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":68044,"id":68044,"title":"is51-Abraham_Lilien","filename":"is51-Abraham_Lilien.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is51-Abraham_Lilien.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/he-was-only-one\/is51-abraham_lilien\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is51-abraham_lilien","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":68043,"date":"2020-01-01 14:21:36","modified":"2022-03-06 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