Lech Lecha: What Drugs Were Abram on Anyway?

This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27), arguably one of the most interesting in the Torah.

Lech Lecha begins with the famous line, “The Lord said to Abram, Lech Lecha, Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) Abram (not yet Abraham until later in this portion) not only listens to this voice in his head but also convinces his wife, nephew, all his family and everyone who depends upon him to go with him to this unknown place.

Many years ago Lech Lecha was my son’s Bar Mitzvah portion. In preparation for his meeting the with rabbi, he wrote an interesting and thorough Dvar Torah (sermon) but felt that that wasn’t enough. You see, when his older sister had had her rabbi meeting she had decided to inject some humour into the situation. So she printed out her entire Dvar Torah in 4 point print. When she handed it to our rabbi, he was bemused. What was he supposed to do with this?

Now, it was my son’s turn. He decided to also take the humorous route and wrote a fake Dvar to hand in. The title was, “What drugs was Abram taking anyway?” The premise was that Sarai, his wife, had a sleeping problem and had been prescribed sleeping pills from her doctor. One night Abram could not sleep and did what we all know we should not do – he took one of his wife’s pills. As a result of the strange reaction he had to the medication he heard a voice in his head telling him to leave everything he knows and go to an unknown place.  The rest is history.

My son’s story was asking a question for today – where are today’s prophets? What would happen today if someone turned to their family and said, “I heard a voice telling me we needed to leave all that we know and go to some unnamed destination where we will ultimately be rewarded but I have no idea when?” Today that person might be considered at best to have an untreated delusion or to have had a bad reaction to medication, and at worst to be on drugs. If he convinced others to follow him it might be considered the beginning of a cult.

So where does this leave us? I’ve written before about that still, small voice within us. The story of Lech Lecha and Avram’s journey is another example of trying to figure out when to listen to that voice and when to ignore it. Avram was lucky – his still, small voice was that of God.  Today it’s harder for each of us to identify and name that voice within. Sometimes we follow it and it turns out it was a purveyor of good advice. Other times… we aren’t so lucky.

May we all be blessed to read from our Torah, our history and internalize the lessons that we find within. May we be fortunate enough to identify that voice within. May we have the courage to follow our dreams – shared or not.

  

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbah Arlene