Lech Lecha
Genesis 12:1-17:27
Lech Lecha marks the beginning of the Patriarchal story in the Book of Genesis. We have traveled through the confusion of Creation and the Flood, and now we are about to embark on our spiritual journey as the descendants of our mythical ancestral fathers and mothers. And right away, this parashah calls us to appreciate the deeper significance of what it means to harken to the voice of Spirit within. It begins with Abraham receiving the divine call to “go forth”:
The Eternal One said to Abram, “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1)
What is this place that Abraham is asked to leave? The concept of “birthplace” is symbolic of a place we know well, the place that nourishes us and supports us in our growing, the motherly place where we are loved and cared for. Our “father’s house” might be the archetypal expression of a place where we feel protected, a place from which we draw strength and courage, learn values, lineage, and direction. This was a formative sacred space Abraham was asked to leave.
To me this pithy verse captures the essence of personal growth and spiritual evolution. The image is that we are spiritual travelers, evolving from one level of consciousness to the next, while preserving the essential attributes of the levels we are called to “go forth” from. Some spiritual teachers call it the evolutionary impulse at the heart of Creation. Like Abraham, we need to let go of the sacred spaces where we have been because staying there, no matter how comfortable, safe, and predictable they have become, would stifle our growth. Staying there would transform those sacred spaces into places of enslavement where we would begin to feel stuck, unhappy, constrained. We, too, are called to move beyond the confines of such a place in consciousness and venture into the unknown of who we might evolve to become next.
But before we are able to take our first step on such a potentially trying journey, and before we are able to let go of it, we need to firm up for ourselves what this sacred space is in our own life.
Why? To start with, before we can embark upon the next stage of our evolution, we need to know where home is. We first need to find our motherly “birthplace,” the place where, time and again, we can be reborn, nurtured back to life, where we are able to hold ourselves in love and compassion. We need to know that archetypal “father’s house” of safety, groundedness, and purposefulness. The work ahead might prove to be extremely difficult, emotionally and psychologically destabilizing even. Venturing away from home, we also must take it with us. There we can find the resourcefulness we need to successfully face the challenges ahead.
But there is another reason. There is no point trying to grow beyond the level we are currently at, before we have first found balance and healing at that level. Whatever the motherly “birthplace” or the fatherly “house” we currently inhabit, with all the positive attributes associated with this space, there’s bound to also be some amount of clean up required before we can leave. With all the light, also comes some shadow. There are broken life-pieces still scattered in the shadowy corners of our current home that need mending. Not caring for them now means that we will carry them with us on our journey. They will weigh us down, trip us up, and might even derail our forward progress if left unattended and unhealed.
This is the preliminary work, I believe, God was inviting Abraham to do: ahead of venturing out onto uncharted paths, know this place you now inhabit well; “your land, your birthplace, your father’s house…” Take it with you. Mend its broken parts and know it as your inner place of strength when the journey toughens. May we all heed the fullness of God’s call.