Lech Lecha

Anna Dyson is the Youth and Community Development Worker at Sinai Synagogue in Leeds. She has an MA in Jewish Cultures and Modernity, and has researched Jewish travel and Jewish identity.

And God said to Abram, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you..." (Gen 12:1)

The opening line of the parsha this week tells the beginning of Abram's journey, both physically and spiritually, as he becomes Abraham; God's partner, and our Patriarch.

However, Lech-Lecha is not the first of Abram's journeys we are told about: In the concluding verses of Parshat Noach, immediately prior to this passage, we are told that Abram's father, Terah, with his family joining him, 'sets out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan' (Gen.11: 31). Abram is a participant, not a leader on this trip and it is his father, Terah, not God, who made the decision to leave Ur. The verb used is yud-tzade-aleph, meaning to leave or exit, which reiterates their purpose for journeying; the emphasis is on their leaving Ur of the Chaldeans, rather than going to Canaan. However, they did not complete their journey; they stopped in Haran, where we are told Terah died, aged 205.

Thus Parshat Noach ends with Abram neither in his homeland nor his destination, but at haran, literally meaning "highway" or "crossroad". It is at this critical point of uncertainty that God spoke to him for the first time, in the first verse of Parshat Lech Lecha, instructing him to move on.

Rashi (11th century commentator) differentiated between the two words in "lech-lecha" in the following way: The first lech is from the verb lelechet, instructing Abram to go. The second, lecha, is the lamed preposition meaning 'to' and the chaf ending meaning 'you'. Thus, he infers, lech-lecha means to go for yourself, for your own benefit.

Journeying is a recurrent theme in the Torah, and throughout Jewish history. Across the globe, the 'Wandering Jew' is a common and powerful motif of the Jewish psyche. Today, another type of wandering has entered Jews' consciousness. Rather than forced wandering, Jews are choosing to wander, travel to, tour, and visit places around the world of Jewish significance, whether that is due to a particular chapter of history, personality of reverence, or for more personal genealogical reasons. One need look no further than the JC to see the variety of experiences on offer.

These Jewish journeys intertwine both the physical and spiritual; a gaze on a significant site not only connects the Jewish traveller to that moment of history, but also develops their own understanding of being Jewish and the role they have to play in the world. One need look no further than the experiences of our 16 year olds who go on 'Israel Tour' to see how life-changing and Jewish identity building Jewish journeying can be. Therefore, the instruction from God to Abram to lech-lecha to 'go to find yourself' can be said to be an instruction for all times, as much as it was for our patriarch Abraham.