Lech Lecha 5784 ~ October 2023

As parents, we often find ourselves making every attempt to comfort our children when they experience a traumatic or troubling moment. In Jewish tradition, we often are reminded of several statements of hope such as gam zeh ya’avor, this too will pass, or gam zeh l’tovah, this is also for good. When, on November 17, 1977, President Anwar Sadat traveled from Cairo to Jerusalem to address the Israeli Knesset, Israeli songwriter David Broza added another expression in a song of hope that he wrote and which has been a classic in Israel and around the Jewish world. Its title is “Yehiyeh Tov,” “(know that in the future) it will be good.”

A friend writes: “Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin z”l (whose yahrtzeit went pretty much unnoticed this week) once stated that the two most dangerous words in Hebrew are “yehiyeh b’seder, it will be alright. He said that thought leaves us unprepared.” 

In our Torah reading for this Shabbat, Abram (who will be blessed by God with a name change to Abraham) is provided with reassurances as he experiences traumatic events in his life. In his homeland he was challenged by the leaders and even his father for his beliefs that went against the norm. In one midrash (rabbinic legend), Abram is placed in a fiery furnace by the leaders of the city-state in which he lived. Only through the miraculous hand of God was he able to escape. As our Torah reading begins for this Shabbat, God instructs Abram that it is now time that he needs to leave for his own good (Lekh lecha) from the land of his birth to the land that I (God) will show you.  His nephew, Lot, finds himself held hostage and captive during battle. Abram learns about his nephew, and, together with other kings and men whom Abram had befriended, he is able to free his nephew and the others who were held captive. We pray the same for the Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Abram, as a reward for freeing the captives, receives in two visions assurances from God that everything will be alright: “Fear not Abram, I am shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.” (Genesis 15:2) In a second vision God promises, “I will make you exceedingly fertile, and make nations of you; and kings shall come forth from you. I will maintain My covenant with you, an everlasting covenant throughout the ages… I will assign the land you sojourn in to you and your offspring, to come, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting holding….” (Genesis 17:6-8)

The questions that are asked this Shabbat are: Can we rely on the assurances from God at this moment when Israel is in a war not only in Gaza, but is also preparing on the borders of Lebanon? Should Israelis and Jews around the world fear that Hamas and Iran have thought this terrorist and military campaign through on a greater level that can possibly be imagined? What are the consequences of Israel’s military drive into Gaza? Will the defeat of Hamas complete the task or will it unleash a greater war that will include Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and others? We already are experiencing a changing world view from that of horror, as they witnessed  the atrocities committed by Hamas, to that of the dehumanization of Israel as a State without ethical boundaries in war. What will constitute the ambitions of a new leadership in the Gaza once Hamas has been destroyed?

Major General (res.) Yitzhak Brik offered these thoughts about what may happen in the near future. He served for 10 years as the Commissioner of the Israeli Military Ombudsman. His job was to examine the IDF’s preparedness for war.  As one Israeli colleague stated, “I don't know him, and I don't know if he is correct or not, but what he says is worrying.” He stated: “… from your desire to enter Gaza today and quickly, you’ll fall into their trap and you won’t be able to complete the mission of destroying Hamas and you’ll have to pull out of Gaza before completing the mission. You’re going to set into motion a whole series of events that you’re not prepared for.” “You need to do right now things that for 20 years the state neglected in order to be ready on the most minimal level for this threat.” His views are quite troubling, but important that we contemplate.

What I have witnessed around the globe is that while we are experiencing a great deal of fear, despair, and hurt, we are also experiencing a great deal of resilience and hope.  Jews around the world have joined in to support Israel and what it means to us. And I am impressed that some who do not believe in the State of Israel as a political reality still are unifying to bring much needed aid and monies to Israel to support Am Yisrael, the People of Israel. (You might have noticed it in their words, when speak they say Israel, and never say the State of Israel.) It is the fact that Jewish people are clearly coming out to express that they are Jewish, to express their solidarity with the people of Israel and the State of Israel, that there is hope.

Rabbi Rachel Timoner, a Reform rabbi from Brooklyn said to her congregation one truth to consider:

“…we live in concentric circles of love, in concentric circles of care, in concentric circles of obligation. And that is okay, it is human, it is right. It is good, to care first and most about those closest to you, and then outward in widening circles, and it is o.k., to prioritize our own group’s grief, before we focus on the grief of others. It is right to rise to save our own people before rising to save others.”

This evening at services we will read a most moving poem by an Israeli mother who is seven months pregnant.  Her words bring comfort amidst the fear. Tamara Lia Baz on Facebook writes:

Seventh month, my little boy

This is not how I thought it would look

I imagined us in nature and streams

That your coming birth would fill our lives

We were wrapped in excitement and comfort anticipating your arrival

arranging, dreaming, nesting

I didn't imagine that that pastoral imagine, little boy, would be replaced by

sirens, missiles and shelters

by sorrow that has spread like a blanket over the days and nights

Endless concern for family and loved ones

And an earth that trembles from its encounter with a brutal evil

that we didn't want to believe existed

My womb hurts from the horrors, my little boy

Do you feel it, too?

I'm trying to take a deep breath for you

"You must rest, let go"

But how do you let go of grief, explain to me

When children are dying every day

And children of another mother are in the hands of animals?

This week I asked you, my little boy

if you are sure

This is where you want to come.

To this world, to this earth

I told you that you have time to change your mind

And I will completely understand you, and I will have no complaints

And then I felt you—you smiled at me

And you explained it to me well

that you do know where you have chosen to come

that you have no misgivings, and that there is no mistake in the address

You're coming to this land.

I understood at that moment, my brave soul

whatever you need from me

It's not inventing a perfect world for you

nor a womb that does not shrink in the face of horrors

Or a body and heart that are not overwhelmed by sorrow, anger, and pain

You need me to trust you

and me

that you know to where you are coming

And that it won't always be easy here

That you have insight, a plan and intent

that my role in your life

is to be by your side, but to let you experience

And not to push humanity into a corner

which includes sorrow, pain, disappointment and oversight

So I promise you today and always, my child

Not that when you grow up there won't be more wars...

Only that I will always be here for you

To embrace, contain, soften and nurse

and to pour love and light into every crack and fracture

When you're in pain, when the tears come

When reality tempts you to get tough

And your senses will seek to submit and become numb

Mom is here with you

all the way

And in whatever path you choose to walk.

This world isn't perfect, child

And neither are we

And I can't really guarantee you that we will succeed

in creating a different, better reality here

But I promise you with all my heart,

That we will never stop trying.

Shabbat Shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

And let us pray that Yehiyeh Tov, as God promised to Abram, “there will be good.”

Rabbi Kideckel