Thursday, October 18, 2007

Parshat Lech Lecha 5768: Out of the Comfort Zone

This week we begin the story of Abraham. While Abram's early life begins at the end of Parshat Noah, it is here that he is told to Lech Lecha, to leave everything behind and go to a new place with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot in tow. When he gets there he finds a famine, and so he ends up in Egypt, tells his wife Sarai to tell everyone that he is her sister, and ends up very rich when the fallout from that happens. From there, he returns to Canaan, gets into water rights battles with his nephew. Lot moves towards Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot is captured and taken hostage in a battle between local principalities, and in order to rescue him, Abram allies himself with Sodom and Gomorrah, and in a guerilla raid, beats the crap out of Lot's captors, saves Lot and the women of Sodom. Abram makes a strange sacrifice of animals and is told of the future of his progeny. Sarai, who has not borne children, then tells Abram to have a child by Hagar her Egyptian maidservant. This child Ishmael causes some contention between Hagar and Sarai. Finally God tells Abram that he will have a physical sign of their covenant through circumcision, and he will have a son from his wife Sarai. Abram's name is changed to Abraham, and Sarai's to Sarah. We end with Abraham, at age 99 and Ishmael at 13 and the rest of the males of his household getting circumcised.

Yet it is the first few words that many have often tried to understand.

1. And the Lord had said to Abram, Get out from your country, and from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you; 2. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; 3. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you; and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed. [Genesis 12:1-3]

Yet it is Abram’s response to this which I think is the key.

4. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy five years old when he departed from Haran. 5. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go to the land of Canaan; and to the land of Canaan they came.

Abram, without objection, got up and left. He had no arguments, no quibbling. Unlike Moses, he didn’t try to squirm out of it. He did exactly as God told him to. Moses, when told to get the people out of Egypt responded with fear and excuses. He didn’t go until God was about ready to lose his temper, but instead told Moses that his big brother Aaron would be there to hold his hand at the scary parts.

But not Abram. Just like the Akedah next week, when God says “Lech Lecha” Abram gets up and does it, even though what is going on is very scary or upsetting. As many modern commentators like to note, this is not just about obedience, but about comfort zones. God is asking Abram to completely change his life – And that is not a bad thing.

All too often we do things out of habit. We go to work the exactly same way every day. We listen to the same radio station or go to the same restaurants. In one sense this has the positive effect of giving our lives structure. It also give us a sense of security that what we will get will be exactly what we expect. I always for example go to Disney World as a solo vacation. I’ve had too many bad experiences as a single person at other destinations. Yet Disney has consistently treated me exceedingly well. So I keep going because I know I’ll have a good time there.

Yet as I wrote two years ago for Lech Lecha, Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida also presents a big challenge for me. You see, I’m afraid of thrill rides. I’m not the first in my family, its something that’s been true in my family for generations, so I never learned to ride a rollercoaster when I was young, so I’m afraid of them. Yet, every time I’ve gone to Disney in the last few years, I work on that problem and try another ride I’ve never done before. Almost every time I get on shaking in fear and by the end of the ride I’m laughing. Almost. A few, like Expedition Everest were too intense, though I keep wondering about taking a second ride. Maybe knowing what to expect in that first dark tunnel, it wouldn’t be so bad. Getting on to that ride was one of the scariest and most uncomfortable things I ever done. But every year, step by step I work out my fear.

Fear is an intense emotion, and so is rather tangible to see such working out of the problem. There are more subtle things which are so much habit or part of our self image that it’s not so easy to perceive such things. One personal example is my trying to ask people for things, be it money for the services I perform or even a woman’s phone number. It’s just not comfortable to do such things. If I magnify that a million times to every comfort I have and every assumption I have, I might begin to think of the weight on Abram’s shoulders when God says “Lech Lecha.” Yet, Abram does it.

That said, there a curious phrase in the Genesis 12:5 that intrigued the rabbis, and sheds some light on what Abram did and why he could do it. We read

5. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go to the land of Canaan; and to the land of Canaan they came.

What does the Torah mean by Souls they had gotten in Haran? What kind of souls can one make? Certainly not children as events in the rest of this portion attest to. In Biblical Hebrew, nefesh, Soul, can also mean people. Rabbinic commentators all believe this refers to Abram and Sarai proselytizing and converting some of the residents of Haran to their new way of thinking. Indeed there is one tradition [Avodah Zara 9a] that Abram was 52 years old when he started to proselytize. He left for Canaan when he was 75 [Gen 12:4] so he was preaching his ideas of God, and people were listening for 23 years before he left Haran. The well known Midrash of Genesis Rabbah 38:13 where Abram smashed the idols may not have been a plucky kid, but a middle age man still working in his father’s business with some inspired event marketing. Most people don’t read is the beginning of the story, where he intimidates a customer:

R. Hiyya said: Terah was a manufacturer of idols. He once went away somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place. A man came and wished to buy one. ' How old are you? ' Abraham asked him. ' Fifty years,’ was the reply. ' Woe to such a man!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are fifty years old and would worship a day-old object! '. [Genesis Rabbah 38:13]

Who could get away with such a statement? Could a fifty two year old man or a teen? As the rabbis mention in regards to another age issue, could we leave a stain of disrespect on Abraham for being rude to his elders, even if Idolaters? How does that age change the meaning? Abraham was an adult when he smashed the Idols – he knew exactly what he was doing. What this all points to is something about Lech Lecha, about leaving the comfort zone.

The first thrill ride I tried at Disney world was Test Track, the second, Kali River Rapids. Both were lightweights in the world of thrill rides. I worked my way up to the really intense stuff. I prepared my self for each ride by knowing the way I enjoyed the rides I did first, and knowing what to expect. There are times when we have radical change in our lives, yet for many of them we can be prepared. Abraham was prepared for that moment of leaving for Canaan for decades. Although he did leave much behind, it was not a problem to do because the parts that were important to him were coming along; they were as ready for the journey as he was. What he was leaving behind was the parts he was already alienated from.

Jewish thought has a deep emphasis on study and questioning, in part to be ready for such things. Even for Orthodoxy, much of the corpus of the Talmud is not applicable to today’s world. No one directly uses the procedures for sacrifice since we don’t have a Temple, nor does anyone execute false prophets, since we don’t believe there are any prophets anymore. But the study of such things brings us to new questions, and new ways of looking at our world. We, like Abraham proselytizing, become ready for change and moving out of our comfort zones, voluntary or not.

We can move out of our comfort zones, and it can even be fun to do so, to grow into even better human beings that we are now. We just need a little home work first.

So enjoy the homework.

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