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Parashah (portion) Lech Lecha – What We Are Called Upon to Do
Genesis 12:1 – 17:27

Ramban, Rabbi Moses Nachmanides (13th century Spain,) comments at length on a verse in the Torah which does not seem to hold much importance in the early unfolding of Abraham’s narrative, as he leaves Haran after heeding God’s “Lech Lecha,” God’s calling, and eventually journeys to the land of Canaan. There, the text continues:

Abram traversed the land as far as the site of Shechem, as far as Eilon Moreh. The Canaanites were then present in the land. [Genesis 12:6]

Why does the Torah record so precisely all of Abram’s stops as he wanders through Canaan? Ramban answers by instructing his reader to take note of a critical principle in reading Torah to be learned from this verse. He writes: “Everything that occurred to the Patriarchs is a sign [omen] for their descendants.” Shechem is mentioned, he explains, because it will be conquered not only by Jacob’s sons in retaliation for Dinah’s defilement, but also by Joshua later on. Eilon Moreh is the region where Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are located, atop which the Israelites will later pronounce blessings and curses as Moses commanded (Deut: 11:29) as they begin the conquest of Canaan (Joshua 8:30-35.) The mention of the presence of the Canaanites refers to the four-generation delay in the conquest of Canaan because, Ramban interprets, the Canaanites had not yet sinned gravely enough as a people in the eyes of God.

How much of this intergenerational principle holds true for the myth–the Torah–of our own life? What is the weight our elders, our patriarchs, hold in our life? How many generations of repeated “sinning” will it take before the Universe removes us from the play? This is a conversation that has been at the forefront of our national and global debate. The international ecological disaster, or the legacy of financial irresponsibility we are leaving future generations, have been caused by behaviors we have inherited from our elders, from truths we have learned, habits of over-consumption and greed we have formed, in an era that was still mostly unconscious of the long-term consequences of such behaviors.

But this is also true at the personal level. What were the patterns of being that our parents inherited from their parents, which we continue to express through our own lives? What are the “truths” our parents and grandparents inculcated in us that we have integrated without questioning? Are we aware of the ways we resemble our parents? Do we care to even admit it? Part of the process of spiritual evolution begins with making conscious how we show up in our lives, the ways we act out our conditioning. One avenue available to us to become aware of that conditioning is to see, reflected in our parents’ ways of being, our own character traits. Abraham’s lech lecha was about leaving behind his own family narrative altogether, breaking away from polytheistic theology and idolatrous worship practices. If Ramban is correct and “Everything that occurred to the [p]atriarchs is a sign for their descendants” then we owe it to ourselves to be able to read these signs on the Torah of our own family narrative, for it points to critical aspects of who we are. We can only transcend/heal what we are aware of. If we heed Ramban’s principle, we begin to take seriously our interconnectedness and responsibility; it then becomes clear what our own lech lecha is–what we are called upon to do.

Torah Reflections © 2011 Rabbi Olivier BenHaim. All rights reserved.