- Discussion Plan: Leavings
- Do we all have to ‘leave home’ in order to grow up? Explain.
- Avram took his extended family with him – so what was he really leaving behind?
- Is there a difference in growing up between leaving your parents and leaving your brothers/sisters? If so, what is it?
- If you go away but you still think about people a lot, and text them/e-mail them, have you left them behind?
- If you still hear them speaking to you – telling you what to do – have you left them behind?
- In growing up – do you think the important thing is what you are leaving, or what you are heading towards?
- Are you attached to places as well as people? Describe these places.
- Do you think that places are tied to our identity in the same way as people are? Explain.
- Which do you think would be more difficult – to leave individual people, or to leave your language and culture?
Category Archives: Parshiot
Activity: Circles of attachment
Exercise: Circles of Attachment
What in your life are you most attached to? Think of your home – if you were to leave home, what would be most difficult to leave behind? What not as difficult?
Draw three circles.
In the center put the thing it would be most difficult to leave if you were to leave home, then move out in the circles with things that would be less difficult to leave (from hardest to less hard).
Pick a different community you are part of (school? sports team?) – what would be hardest to leave behind if you were leaving that community?
Leading Idea: Circles of attachment.
Leading Idea: Circles of attachment. (Bereshit 12:1)
When God tells Avram “Lechlecha” 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 (secondary-sources) both offer an interpretation for this.
Some of the exercises and discussion plans in this unit explore these different ‘layers of leaving’.
Leading Idea: Thinking about Journeys
Leading Idea: Thinking about Journeys and Journeying
The books of Bereshit and Shemot are full of journeys. Several ideas are explored here that prepare students for the pieces of narratives that they will encounter. In this regard the first set of discussion plans and activities can act as induction exercises as well as being helpful as tools to explore more deeply questions students raise. Attention is drawn here to three aspects of journeying that can prepare students for thinking about this parashah and the parshiot that follow.
(i) The meaning of journeying – what makes something a journey and what does journeying involve?
(ii) Ancient Journeys – reminding ourselves that journeys weren’t always taken in a car – What earlier modes of transport were there? What reasons led people to travel? What might the journey look like?
(iii) Figuring out the larger context from the details we know. What are some of the plausible inferences we might make given the details we are told?
Activity: Ancient and Historic Journeys
Activity: Ancient and Historic Journeys
On a piece of paper, each person writes down:
- A destination,
- A mode of transport,
- The reason you are going on the journey
- The year the journey takes place
N.B. You must take your journey in the past – some time in the last 5,000 years! (when you set the date, make sure the other details – such as transport – are appropriate!).
To Play:
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Exercise: Journeys
Exercise: Journeys
This exercise strengthens our reasoning skills by asking us to reason toward the best explanation. If someone sets out with these items (amongst others) on a journey, what might you infer regarding:
- Where they might be going;
- What they might be planning to do;
- How they plan on getting there.
- Sunscreen, thick boots, compass, a water bottle and a back pack with a box of worms
- Shorts and T-shirt, a leather jacket, gloves, goggles, a beach towel and book.
- A can of gasoline, bottle of water, spare tire, MP3 player, and horse in a trailer
- A 50ft rope, pegs, hammer, hard helmet, 4 wheel drive
- Iced chocolate cake, change of clothes, a CD wrapped in wrapping paper, train schedule, candles
As a variation, in pairs prepare to tell the story of this journey to the rest of the group.
Lech L’cha (Bereshit 12:1-5) בְּרֵאשִׁית
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| Bereshit 12:1-5 | בְּרֵאשִׁית יב :א-ה |
| 1. God said to Avram, “Go, take yourself from your land and from where you were born, and from your father’s house to the land that I will let you see: |
א וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ ,וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ .אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ |
| 2. I will make you a great nation And I will bless you, I will make your name great. And be a blessing. |
,ב וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל ,וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵה, בְּרָכָה |
| 3. I will bless those people who bless you And those that curse you, I will curse; And all the families of the earth shall find blessing through you [by way of you.” |
,ג וַאֲבָרְכָה, מְבָרְכֶיךָ ;וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ, אָאֹר .וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ, כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה |
| 4. Avram went, as God had told him, and Lot went with him. And Avram was seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran. |
,ד וַיֵּלֶךְ אַבְרָם, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֵלָיו יְהוָה ;וַיֵּלֶךְ אִתּוֹ, לוֹט ,וְאַבְרָם, בֶּן-חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים וְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה .בְּצֵאתוֹ, מֵחָרָן |
| 5. Avram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their belongings that they had gained, and the people they had made their own in Haran; and they went to go to the land of Canaan. |
ה וַיִּקַּח אַבְרָם אֶת-שָׂרַי אִשְׁתּוֹ ,וְאֶת-לוֹט בֶּן-אָחִיו ,וְאֶת-כָּל-רְכוּשָׁם אֲשֶׁר רָכָשׁוּ ,וְאֶת-הַנֶּפֶשׁ, אֲשֶׁר-עָשׂוּ בְחָרָן; וַיֵּצְאוּ .לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן, וַיָּבֹאוּ, אַרְצָה כְּנָעַן |
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Exercise: The Multiple Meanings of “Lech L’cha”
Exercise: The Multiple Meanings of “Lech L’cha”
Read the sentence on the left – which kind of “Go Forth!” do you think is invoked here? You can mark more than one, but make sure you can explain what you mean in each case. If you mark more than one, show which one you think might be more central than the others (if this is the case).
| Go forth – leave where you are (for another place) | Go for yourself! (your own benefit) | Go to your yourself (to greater self-understanding) | Go – to the person you will become | |
| Sam: “The camping trip will be good for you – you should go!” | ||||
| Kate: “I’m going to miss you when you leave, but I know the job in Boston pays a higher salary.” | ||||
| Eli: “I went on this retreat to get in touch with the ‘real me’ – it was very cool. I learned lots about myself. | ||||
| Zaitlan: “Going to summer camp last year was really important – I really became more self-confident and independent. | ||||
| Esti: “We are moving to Israel– I don’t want to go, but my parents say it is the only place we can truly be ourselves. But I am my best self right here. | ||||
| Ronie: “In my head I am such a different person than people around me see – I think the only way I can make that person come out is to start over somewhere else.” | ||||
| David: “Getting up on Sunday morning for Synagogue School is not fun, but I know that I’ll appreciate the fact that I made this effort when I get older.” |
Go back to the Biblical text – for each of these different forms of “Lech l’cha” – how does that change your reading of Avram’s journey?
Activity: Inward and Outward Journeys
Leading Idea: The meaning of ‘Lech L’cha’
Leading Idea: The Multiple Meanings of Lech L’cha
‘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’.
1. Go forth (move forward, leave where you are)
2. Go for yourself (for your own benefit, for your own good)
3. Go to yourself (as an inner journey)
4. Go to yourself (towards the person you will become)
Each of these offers a different understanding of Avram’s journey.