Voices of WRJ: Lech L'cha

No two words resonate more deeply within the Jewish psyche than Lech L’cha. God’s injunction to Abram to “Go forth” from his father’s homeland involves much more than a physical journey. Abram’s wanderings with Sarai, Lot, and their household present problems, resolutions, and, ultimately, the supreme declaration by God of a particular covenantal relationship with Abram and Sarai’s progeny. God promises to Abram land, wealth, and numerous descendants. As the journey winds its way toward the Negev, Abram builds altars where God instructs Abram that the land will one day belong to his progeny. The second promise of wealth is fulfilled through Sarai’s help. We read that Abram entreats Sarai to participate in a deception with the Pharaoh for two reasons: to prevent Abram from being killed and to increase his material wealth. Through God’s final promise of progeny, Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. Abraham and Sarah’s journey has a meaning and a purpose. From our first patriarch and our first matriarch, we have been enjoined to move forward. This is revolutionary! God intervened and our fate was marked by Avram and Sarai placing one foot in front of the other and marching inexorably and steadfastly on to where we sit today. Most assuredly, the Jews have kept walking and adapting to new surroundings, customs, peoples and situations. We have never stood still in time nor in history. As an example, on May 25, 2010, a plaque was unveiled in Berlin to mark the bicentenary of Rabbi Geiger’s birth and now the patron of his eponymous college which was founded in 1999 to train rabbis for European Reform congregations. Abraham Geiger could not appreciate the deep significance of the emergence and success of such a school in the late 20^th century.  The Berlin of 2014 exhibits in museums and memorials its barbaric Nazi past and yet, in the midst of it all, is a flourishing Reform Jewish college in which rabbis and cantors are now being trained. WRJ supports this school with scholarships to students as well as the WRJ Music Library because we understand and value the risk takers in our midst—those who “go forth” and create a meaningful life for others out of a wilderness of nothingness. My daughter, Laura, attended a school in Toronto that has as its motto: “Keep Well the Road.”  My hope is for all of us to keep well our roads steeped in our faith in our sisterhoods, in our congregations, in our broader communities, across North and South America, Europe, South Africa, the Former Soviet Union, and, of course, our blessed Israel, Avram and Sarai’s promised land. May our journeys and roads be peaceful and praiseworthy.