‘Lech l’cha’ is generally taken as an expression meaning “Go forth”. But this isn’t the only way of reading it. While Lech l’cha on its own is a command (like sit! or stop!), lech on its own means ‘go’ and l’cha’ on its own generally means ‘to you’. What might these mean when put together?
In this unit we explore the following different readings of the phrase ‘Lechl’cha’.
Go forth: move forward, leave where you are (pick up your tent and go pitch it elsewhere)
Go for yourself: for your own benefit, for your own material good (financial, social, etc)
Go to yourself: discover yourself – go to greater self-understanding (as an inner existential journey – become aware of who you currently are, get in touch with yourself)
Go to the person you will become: Go toward you’re the person you will one day be (eg, your ‘better self’ or your destiny, or the person you are striving to be – as in the joke that has a mother describing her 6yr old son as ‘my son the doctor’) – this captures the idea that we are all on a journey of self-formation, and we become who we are over time.
Each of these offers a different understanding of Avram’s journey. The resources here both provide voices from within our tradition that speak to these interpretations and resources for students to apply the distinctions in their own lives and thus to come to internalize the different meanings as resources for making sense of different kinds of ‘Lech!’ in their own lives.
19. When you hold a siege on a city for many days, to wage war against it, to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them, for you may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Is the tree of the fielda man, to go into the siege before you?
For a person is the tree of the field. Behold “ki” serves as a language of ‘perhaps’: is a tree a person such that you should enter into a siege to afflict it with famine and drought like city residents? Why should you destroy it?
ג)כי האדם עץ השדה. הרי כי משמש בלשון דלמא שמא האדם עץ השדה להכנס בתוך המצור מפניך להתיסר ביסורי רעב וצמא כאנשי העיר, למה תשחיתנו:
For a person is the tree of the field. A great Spanish grammarian said that a letter “hey” is missing, and so it is read like this: Is a tree a human? This explanation is incorrect in my eyes… In my opinion there is no need for all of this, and the explanation is as follows: “for you shall eat of it and not cut it down, for a person is the tree of the field” – the meaning is that a person’s life depends on the tree of the field [for food]…
א)כי האדם עץ השדה. ומדקדק גדול ספרדי אמר כי חסר ה”א וכן הוא הכי האדם עץ השדה וזה הטעם איננו נכון בעיני… ולפי דעתי שאין לנו צורך לכל זה וזה פירושו כי ממנו תאכל ואותו לא תכרות כי האדם עץ השדה והטעם כי חיי בן אדם הוא עץ השדה
When God tells Avram “Lech lecha” he mentions three kinds of leaving:
Leave your country
Leave your birthplace
Leave your father’s house
Several scholars have noted that it seems strange to list the circles of attachment in this order. The text from Nechama Leibowitz and the commentary Haktav Vehakabala both offer an interpretation for this.
This next set of exercises and discussion plan explore these different ‘layers of leaving’.
Haktav Vehakabala Nehama Leibowitz: from Studies in Bereshit, pp.113
“לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ” “get you out of your country, and from your birthplace, and from your father’s house…”
Scholars have spoken about the unusual order of ‘leaving’ here. The verse should have read, in the ordinary way: “מבית אביך, ממולדתך ומארצך” (from your father’s house, your birthplace and from your country.”) This is the logical sequence, since a person first leaves home, then his place of birth and then his country.
The commentary הכתב והקבלה (Haktav Vehakabala)* suggests that there we are referring to a spiritual rather than physical withdrawal, beginning with more distant connections and ending with the most personal. Leaving your place of birth is not so hard as cutting the connection to your family. First, therefore, Abraham was told to cut his connection with his country, then his city and finally the most intimate bond, that of home.
*Haktav Vehakabala was written by Rabbi Yaakov Tzevi Mecklenburg, a German Jewish scholar of the 19th century. Rabbi Mecklenburg served as Rabbi of Koenigsburg, East Prussia for 35 years (1831-65). Haketav Vehakabbalah was first published in 1839.
Nehama Leibowitz -1905-1997, was a famous Israeli Bible scholar who developed a particular style of Bible study that was very popular around the world.
This is the way Kohanim hold their hands when giving the priestly blessing – the fingers form a Shin to represent Shaddai (God’s name.) Can you hold your hands this way? Look up the blessing Bamidbar 6:23–27.
Dogs grow up fast. I heard that one dog year is the same as seven human years. If a dog lives to be 17 it is like he is 120 in human years. Gigi, my dog, was born on March 7th, and every year we give him a special birthday treat to mark that date. But if our year is like seven years to him, maybe we should be giving him special treats more often – first on
March 7th, and then again on April 28th, and then again on June 19th and so on. Imagine having seven birthdays every year! Today I was thinking – if he is growing seven times faster, then maybe one day feels to him like a full week feels to us? Imagine if the sun only set once a week – seven days of sunlight in a row. No wonder he sleeps so much during the day! But all this thinking makes me curious – how old is he really? Is age about the speed we grow up or about the how many years we have been alive?
“Shuli, what are you thinking about?” Ari is sitting with me on the step. “I’ve been thinking about growing up.” I tell him. “It’s about time!” he replies. I laugh. “No not like that – I‘ve been thinking about what growing up feels like and its connection to time.” Ari looks interested. “Sometimes I wonder why some people grow up more slowly, and whether growing up is something we do or whether it just happens to us,” he said. “You mean like Dvir?” I ask him. Dvir is in our class but he doesn’t do the same work as the rest of us. We take turns to help him. “Yes, I wonder what growing up feels like for him.” “Good question” I say, “we should ask him.”
Tal comes and joins us on the step. “Why do we say “growing up” anyway? “, she asks. “Maybe some things grow down – like mountains, or pebbles in a stream, or even problems. The older they are the smaller they get “. “You mean they start out big and rough and end up smaller and more refined.” Ari says, finishing off her thought. Meanwhile, I’m thinking to myself that maybe it isn’t so clear with problems – sometimes they grow bigger over time, not smaller.
“Trees are in between – they grow up and grow down at the same time”, Tal continues, “I wonder if the roots start growing down every spring at the same time new shoots are growing upwards?” “Imagine celebrating Tu’Bishvat each year not as the time trees send out new shoots and blossom, but as the time they send out new roots?” I add. “We’d all be told to come to school dressed in brown clothes with tree roots in our hair.” Ari would really like that!
Ari and Tal go inside but I stay sitting on the step. I’m still thinking.
I’m thinking that growing up is also like walking backwards. Walking backwards on the beach you can see where you’ve come from by looking at your footprints, but you don’t know exactly where your feet will be next. That is how I feel in life – all the things that have happened to me up until now and all my memories tell me who I am now – but I am not exactly sure who I will be tomorrow. An almond tree will grow up to be an almond tree, but I could grow up to be anything.
Leading Idea: Growth as the Realization of Potential
Another way of thinking about growth is as self-actualization – the realization of inner potential. This idea is also linked to Tu Bishvat. Situated at the midpoint of winter, Tu Bishvat is seen to symbolically mark the transition in trees from a period of dormancy to one of growth (and the coming of spring) in which they come to ‘realize their potential’ by sending out new growth, flowers and producing the next year’s fruits. This concept of growth as the realization of potential has led Tu Bishvat to be symbolically linked to such diverse endeavors as education (the laying of corner tones of universities), the building of Israel as nation and as a time to attend to our spiritual growth as human beings.
