Rabbi's
Sermons
Shabbat Lech Lecha
Shabbat AM, November 8, 2003
I had the honor of offering the invocation at the Faithful Lives dinner. Henry Winkler was the featured speaker – he told about his difficulties in growing up with dyslexia, he was never a good student but able to succeed through perseverance in the entertainment world. He spoke about his kids. He offered listeners two rules - don’t lie and admit when you are wrong. He permitted his kids to express their own opinions – something that he was not allowed to do growing up. His children are now grown. His daughter took 7 years to graduate college, never heard the words The professor said - not the best student. Yet today she is a preschool teacher. His son informed him he is going to film school. Despite the fact that he raised his children to be independent and in a fashion different then he was raised, they still have similar traits.
If you ask most children would they want to be like their parents when they grow up, they will make a choking sound Yet Harold Kushner once confided to rabbinical students, “if parents don’t try too hard to mold their children, the children will become a lot more like their parents, than the parents ever wanted”.
The relationship we have to parents is found in competing midrashim and commentaries on this week’s parasha.
Our parasha begins with: “God said to Avram Go you forth from your land and from your kindred . . . and I will make you into a great nation.”
But examination of preceding verses (end of Parashat Noah), reveals the beginning of the journey narrative. Terach is the one who initiates the journey from Ur of Chaldeans. Even more, we are expressly told that his goal is the land of Canaan: “Terach took Avram his son . . . and they went to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to Harran, and settled there . . .” (11:31). In other words, the beginning of the passage from Ur of Chaldeans to the land of Canaan was a Terach initiative; Avraham continued his plan.
This is confirmed in the opening verses of Lech Lecha: "And Avram was five years and seventy years old when he went out of Harran. Avram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, all their property that they had gained, and the persons whom they had made their own in Harran and they went out to go to the land of Canaan”.
Commentators of the Middle Ages grappled with this question and suggested modes of understand the family’s journey.
Ibn Ezra (Bereishit, Chap. 11)
In keeping with his consistent exegetical stance that the Torah does not always observe strict chronological order, Ibn Ezra reads the commandment to Avraham “Go you forth” as the beginning of the narrative. God commanded Avraham to leave his land, and Terach, together with all his family, joins him, as described in the previous chapter; Terach, however, decides to stay in Harran.
This explanation is inconsistent with the text, “Terach took Avram his son and Lot son of Haran . . . and they went with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan”, indicating that that Terach was the active figure in departing Ur of the Chaldeans.
Abarbanel explains that Terach’s origins were, as per the plain meaning of the text, in Ur of the Chaldeans, and his son Haran died there in the prime of life. Furthermore, his son Avraham was childless, and therefore he was concerned lest the family line be discontinued. Terach thought that the roots of the sad problem lay in his dwelling in Ur of Chaldeans, and therefore he decided to change venue and move to Canaan “which had good air because of its being a land of mountains and hills; its great climate produced the sons of the giants”. When he reached Harran, however, he saw how that land, too, was good, and he settled there with Avraham. Therefore it was necessary for God to command Avraham to move on.
Rashi – follows a different midrashic approach in which Terah is wicked and Abraham must make a clean break from his past. He adduces proof to Terach’s wickedness from the very fact of Abraham leaving Harran. Calculation of the years shows that Avraham left Harran while his father Terach was yet alive. How, then, could Avraham leave his old father and go on his way? Rashi cites the midrash “and Terach died in Haran” (verse 32) – after Avram left Harran and came to the land of Canaan he was to live for more than sixty years . . . he had many years of life ahead. Why did Scripture place Terach’s death before Avram’s departure? So that the event not be publicized, lest people say that Avram did not respect his aged father, leaving him behind, therefore Scripture refers to Terach as dead, for the wicked, even in their lifetime, are called dead.”
In these midrashim we detect the making of Terach into a demonic image; we do not see the father setting out for the Promised Land with his son.
The rabbi’s suggest that Abraham in following God’s call spurned the evil of idolatry and its culture. One is responsible to turn from evil even if it is taught in one’s home.
A different approach to the relationship between Abraham and Terah is offered by Philo of Alexandria (about 100 years before the destruction of the Second Temple).
Philo: “The exodus from Ur of Chaldeans for Harran was not to teach us a chapter in history, but to give us a lesson for life, and what is that? The Chaldeans were stargazers, who read the heavens, whereas the inhabitants of Harran were concerned more with the senses. The Holy Spirit wished to teach man that he should not indulge in matters of the universe; he should not boast that he touches the boundaries of the universe [this after the story of the Tower of Babylon]. but he should investigate himself. (Philo, “Regarding Dreams” 1:47-48) Investigation should begin with one’s self” [Know thyself].
Eliezer Schweid suggests, “In other words, there are different levels in which human research is engaged. The Chaldeans (inferior people, to Philo’s way of thinking) are the astronauts, the stargazers. They represent those who deal only with the sensual, with the external world alone.
Terach, on the other hand, represents occupation with man. Therefore Harran (as per Philo’s explanation of the name) is the place which represents this occupation. Terach, then, progresses from dealing with the outer world to the inner world, to “Know thyself". According to Philo, Terach was the first “Socrates”. “One who walks on this path is called by the Hebrews ‘Terach’ – Tar achar re-ach’ – ‘seeks after fragrance’. The Greeks termed such a type ‘Socrates’ who, throughout his life, studied “Know thyself”.”
According to Philo, Terach lacked the ability to be full with understanding; he was only able ‘to scent it.’ The man who had the ability to continue and advance on the basis of Terach’s study was Avraham. “Avraham who traversed this path and had learned all the teachings of the senses was able to advance—to leave Harran—and to acquire supreme knowledge. The more man perceives himself, he becomes aware of his nothingness and that of all creatures, and is able to perceive his creator.
Schweid’s point: children do very much follow their parents, not as exact copies but we bring something of our parents into our own self creation.
Rabbi Melanie Aron writes in a d'var Torah, that the verses that point out that it was Terah who started the journey changed her perception of Abraham and his father. Perhaps Abraham learned more from Terach than we have previously imagined. The Midrash states that it was because of his idolatry that Terach couldn't complete his journey. He became stuck in Haran, where he had stopped for a temporary rest. Terach couldn't go the distance, but he did succeed in transmitting to Abraham a passion for the journey.
But Abraham was able to break through his father's limitations. His thoughts went off in new directions, but he was also building on what he had experienced as a child: a willingness to adventure, to leave the settled areas and head off to new places.
Reading her d'var Torah I thought about my own experience. My mother once asked me, where did I go wrong that I produced such a traditional Jew? We weren’t traditional? Of course the edge in her question was, if you are not like me Jewishly, perhaps I failed. Our household was lacking values and you had to find them outside of our behavior patterns. But I told my mother it was because of their parenting that led me to observance. Their values and commitment to right and wrong, to kindness and compassion, their commitment to values such as loyalty and self honesty as well as my father’s almost neurotic compulsion to routine, helped me to grow into the observant Jew I strove to be.
Rabbi Aron ends her d'var Torah thusly, I discussed Lech Lecha with a class of Hebrew school students and asked them whether they thought they would grow up to be like their parents. Many insisted that when they grew up they would be nothing like their parents -- and every parent hopes that their child will have the opportunity to do and be things they themselves never could. But as young people grow older, those lines of continuity in their lives seem more important. In ways we don't understand as teenagers, the teachings of our parents lay the groundwork for the journeys we will undertake.
