The Rewards of Faith
D’var Torah for
Parashat Lekh L’cha
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
As this week’s portion,
Lekh l’cha (Genesis 12:1—17:27), begins, Abram is called upon by God to set
out on a journey.
We are never told why God tells Abram to leave his homeland
and family and strike out for another country altogether, a country he would
call home but where he would never be at home.
Was it out of desperation?
Was Abram as rebellious a child as the Midrash—rabbinic literature from
the 1st—5th centuries—paints him? If so, he only grew worse, because God’s
call, “Lekh l’cha” (“Go, you!”) comes
when Abram is 75 years old. His nature,
so at odds with the prevalent culture around him, finally forces him to leave
everything and make a new start elsewhere.
And if not from desperation or boredom, what would he be
looking for at that age?
Whatever the reason, it was an irreversible step. Abram was leaving behind everything he knew, and
it was going to be forever. It was a
sacrifice to abandon his comfortable existence; a sacrifice to leave his
family, knowing he would never see them again.
So why do it?
Partially, the answer is as the Midrash proposes. Aware of the unity of God from the age of
three (some rabbis say 13), as a child Abram went around smashing idols and
mocking idolaters who would offer food and prayer to wood and stone
statues. Ultimately, Abram incurs the
wrath of the local tyrant, Nimrod, who imprisons him and orders him burnt alive
in a furnace. Saved by angels, it is
then for his own protection that Abram receives the call from God to leave.
But there are also other answers for why Abram merited that
call.
Unlike Noah, who abandoned to the raging waters of the flood
all but himself, his immediate family, and a chosen select few from the vast animal
kingdom, Abram always concerned himself with the welfare of all those who lived
around him. Leaving his homeland, he
takes with him not only his own family and household, but others as well,
others who somehow had come under Abram’s magnanimous protection.
And, too, Abram had faith.
His belief in the one God he had discovered so long ago gave him the
courage to follow God wherever God would direct him.
Immediately after the call to leave, God holds out a promise
for Abram: God would bless and protect
him; Abram would become a source of blessing in his own right. All who bless Abram would be blessed by God,
all who curse him would be cursed. It is
armed with this promise, holding this candle out before him, protecting it from
the elements, that Abram agrees to leave his homeland and go in the vague
direction God tells him (“To a land which I will show you”). It is his faith that God would not lead him
wrong, that God would always be there for him and with him.
It is in recognition of Abram’s faith that God sends him out
to seek a new home for his family, to become there the father of a great
nation.
It’s a faith that will be tested time and again. At one point in the portion, Abram has to
claim that Sarai, his wife, is actually his sister. True, his action endangers Sarai: It was the custom of the ancient noblemen and
royals that any beautiful woman they saw and desired they could take for
themselves; if she was married, they would kill the husband. This way, with a little white lie, at least
Abram and Sarai had a chance…
But it was Abram’s faith that strengthened them both at that
moment—faith that God would protect Sarai, and that through this sacrifice
Abram would fare well too.
Not everyone around him had such faith. Abram’s nephew, Lot, separates from the
Abram’s household and gravitates towards the evil cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah. Captured in war, Lot and his
family are carried off by the victorious kings of the north. At hearing the news, without a moment’s
hesitation, Abram goes to the rescue. In
this case, Abram knows, Lot’s faith alone was not sufficient to bring about
Divine intervention. In this case, human intervention was called for, and off
to the rescue Abram goes.
In yet another test of his faith, Abram is shown a
frightening dream. In a terrifying, dark
vision, he is told that his descendants, children of his own children, would be
exiled from their land, turned into slaves, and that they would suffer terribly
for four hundred years before God redeems them.
Now, it’s one thing to leave one’s past behind, even for the
sake of vague promises held out for some distant future. But it’s another thing altogether to now be
told that this future, for which Abram already had sacrificed so much, would be
filled with yet so much more suffering.
It isn’t every person who would be willing to go through with
such an offer. There is a limit to what
we can agree to, particularly when it comes to our children and children’s
children. Sorrow isn’t something we
would wish for them, certainly not for four centuries.
Yet Abram’s faith is strong.
He knows with unquestioning certainty that God’s plans of redemption
would come real, that in due time Abram’s descendants would be rewarded beyond
all measure. It is for the sake of that promise
that Abram agrees. Enacting a ritual called b’rit (“covenant”), Abram places the people who in
time would come to be known as Israel in a direct, personal, relationship with
God, much as he himself was for his whole life.
As Abram knows, it would prove a successful bond, one that would bring the
people unimagined rewards and blessings.
It is at this point, with this victory of his faith, that
Abram’s name becomes Abraham, the added “h” symbolic of God’s presence in his
life and in the life of all his descendants.
Standing for God’s name, it stands for the promise of Redemption, a
promise that, if only we hold fast to our first forefather’s faith and if we
carry on his deeds of righteousness, God would continue blessing us, our
children, and our children’s children, and that we, in turn, would be a
blessing to all who know us.
It’s a reward well worth the wait, even the suffering that
might come with it. It is the ultimate
reward of our faith, and one we have seen come true in every age since
Abraham.
© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman
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