Lekh L’kha! — Some Torah Comments from Chavi, the Amateur Torah Scholar
The Torah portion for this week (Sept. 19-20) is Lekh L’kha, the title translation of which has been read a few different ways. Perhaps the most often noted way is “Go forth” with the Midrash “Go forth to find your authentic self, to learn who you are meant to be.” G-d issues this to Abram, and Abram, Sarai, Lot and other set out on a journey (for the first time, not one of exile, but one of seeking).
This Torah portion (Gen. 12:1-17:24) is significant for those searching for themselves within Judaism — both Jews by Choice, Jews who have returned, and Jews who are trying to find their place within such a beautiful way of life and belief. Abram’s quest, which is cited by Zornberg as “a response to a divine imperative” is what each of us could perhaps say for ourselves. Touched by something divine, we set out on a journey to learn who we are meant to be (perhaps we have always been, yet only now or at the point of its discovery within ourselves).
In Gen. 12:5, Abram, Sarai and Lot set out with all of “the persons that they had acquired.” The literal translation of this, rather, is all the persons that they had “made,” and a Midrash understands these people as converts by Abram and Sarai. Of course, this is how we derive the tradition of converts being ben/bat Avraham v’ezrat Sarah (their names, of course, which are changed later in this portion from Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah). Judaism starts here, really. It starts with Abraham and Sarah, and that is why when we who choose Judaism also start here; it is as if we, too are starting on the same journey of the patriarch and matriarch.
In the Torah, Abram leaves his land, his home, his people, his culture — all to begin anew in Eretz Yisrael. When we think of converting today, in few cases today does it become necessary to leave everything behind, but even then it is a choice. There are those like me, who have little to really “leave behind.” If I moved to Israel, I suppose there would be some repercussions within my people, but most certainly I would not be leaving behind any real culture, as I was raised with a simple, Midwestern sensibility with few familial traditions or special things that tie me to any group of people (recall the European mutt background, which more or less left me a blank slate for cultural adoption). There are others, though, who choose to convert and find difficulty in the change — whether they happen to be a person of color, perhaps a Catholic or a Muslim, or even someone who was raised with a deep sense of pride in family traditions as benign as they might seem to outsiders. I suppose in this respect, I was lucky. Abram and Sarai and Lot left their entire way of life behind to begin anew, to find that who they were meant to be. But does that mean I had it easy? Definitely not. Few have it easy, but it can be a more fluid transition for some than others.
I’d like to conclude these brief parshah comments by saying that, for me, perhaps the most powerful portion of the Midrash I initially mentioned is the “to learn who you are meant to be.” For me, when I chose to pursue Judaism with all my heart, mind and soul, it was the knowledge that I was learning who I was meant to be, that it was who I had been all along, was the most powerful thing. It wasn’t that I was becoming something or someone, it was that I was finding that person who I had been meant to be all along. It wasn’t changing or discovering something new, in fact, it felt like digging out an old doll or photograph that was filled with the most beautiful and meaningful memories and emotions.
Note: I’m about 98 percent sure that Zornberg is meant to be Aviva Zornberg!
Very nice post Chaviva. You’re quite talented at pulling meaning from Parsha. As a JewByBirth (JBB) we weren’t really taught to do that. Granted I grew up in a reform shul in the 70’s and 80’s. The reform movement is quite different now. Anyway, it’s great you can find meaning and connection. I think you described the parsha beautifully. So I thank you.
That’s the part I like best, pulling out meanings from the Parashah. I have a different blog where I do that Her Delight Is In Torah. This is the blog I like best and someday hope to blog totally in this area and no others…
But, back to the post. Leaving is tough sometimes, me I was thrown out of my family so that took care of it all at first. But, time goes on and people mellow. Now I’m slowly building a relationship with one sister. Another sister died several months after my conversion so I never had the chance with her, something that I’m sure will cause me pain forever. I always thought when my father died my siblings and I could reconcile, but even that dream had to go by the wayside.
Someone contacted me about putting my conversion story in a book they want to publish, I told them I’d think about it, but I’ve decided not to. Conversion stories are so complicated. Who can peel back all the layers? Who wants to! On the surface I suppose my story looks like a good story, but it’s a painful story as well and I’m not up to replaying that old beat up record again.
Our story is kind of like Terah and Abraham. Terah started the journey that Abraham was able to complete. We give Abraham all the credit but forget it was his father who made the real break. I started the journey for my kids. My dream is for them to finish what I cannot. And watching these kids makes me think it will happen.
Maybe from that angle I could write my conversion story, where it’s more about a family converting and less about me personally? I would have loved to have read stories of family conversions when I was thinking about it. So many people told me it couldn’t be done, not unless my kids were really young. My sons converted at 13 and 10. The older one? I think you’d have a hard time picking him out as someone who wasn’t born Jewish. You know, I think I just might work on that story awhile and see how it goes….
Thanks for your post, Chavy. I think you might have inspired me to do something useful…Another journey in the works? LOL There is always value to hearing each others’ stories. Part of that collective memory thing I suppose…..
Hey Chaviva great! I for one love your Parsha commentaries!
Your wrote:
If I moved to Israel, I suppose there would be some repercussions within my people, but most certainly I would not be leaving behind any real culture, as I was raised with a simple, Midwestern sensibility with few familial traditions or special things that tie me to any group of people (recall the European mutt background, which more or less left me a blank slate for cultural adoption).
Take out the Midwest reference and thats me you are talking about! You pretty much summed up one of the main reasons why I converted. It’s not that I didn’t have a sense of history just that it was extremely fragmented and incomplete. Anyhow again nice post, so thanks for sharing.
Thanks, all. I want to be able to bring a little bit of the Torah side to the JBC/JBB blog. There are bits in each of the parshahs that so very definitely aid in the idea of the “stranger,” as so much of Torah is geared toward treatment of the stranger (ger).
Hey Chaviva, I for one welcome your Torah commentaries! It think you have a real talent for it!
Chaviva:
Thanks so much for your d’var Torah on Lech Lecha. It’s one of my favorite parshas as Abraham is my favorite character in the Chumash. I personally find it very difficult to glean meanings from the Torah except on the most basic, surface level. So I’m always grateful to get the thoughts of others, and yours gave me plenty of food for thought.
I’m writing however, about you feeling as if you grew up without any specific culture or tradition. I pulled this quote from your post:
“If I moved to Israel, I suppose there would be some repercussions within my people, but most certainly I would not be leaving behind any real culture, as I was raised with a simple, Midwestern sensibility with few familial traditions or special things that tie me to any group of people (recall the European mutt background, which more or less left me a blank slate for cultural adoption).”
I’ve heard this same kind of thing from other “European mutts” who felt envious of Jewish tradition and culture, feeling they never had any of their own. I’ve never understood this and perhaps you can explain it to me. Because from where I’m sitting, “European mutts” are heirs to the greatest tradition of culture the world has ever known.
Just at random, let’s take just one example: Brahms. Brahms was a great composer, who produced beautiful music that will live forever. But he’s just one and not even the greatest of the European composers. There’s Mozart and Beethoven and Hayden and Verdi and Stravinsky and Bach… and that’s just in the field of music and thats not all of them.
What about Socrates and Plato and Aristotle? What about Pythagoras and Galen and Galileo and Newton and Bohr? What about Boccaccio and Dante and Shakespeare and Goethe and Shaw and Faulkner and Hemingway? What about…well, you get my point. Don’t they count? Isn’t that a tradition, a culture?
White Europeans have created the greatest culture in the history of the world. They have given the world its most important concepts and some of its noblest ideals. Perhaps because Europe’s contributions are so ubiquitous they can’t be seen, like a fish not noticing the water he lives in. But European culture is a colossus, and it has shaped who and what I am as much and maybe more than Jewish culture. European tradition and culture is as deep a part of me as my blood and my bone.
Don’t you feel the same way about it?
But Yankel, there are no traditions. That culture is not something that was carried down. I have no identifiable traits or traditions that connect me to anything European. I am a white, no-accent, Midwesterner. There were no holiday traditions, no cultural traditions, nothing that bound me to anything but being a generic “American.” Everyone wants something to cling to, and everyone hopes for traditions. I had a friend who used to do this neat thing with eggs on Easter as part of a family tradition that came down through the centuries. There are plenty of European traditions, I just had none of them.
I don’t connect to Europe. I never have. There’s nothing there that exists now in my life that says “You were born of European heritage.”
Does that makes sense?
Chaviva:
I suppose it makes sense, but I just can’t believe that life in the Midwest can be so blank and sterile. How is it possible that Christian Americans of European descent are so denuded of heritage and tradition? Is it true of white’s in the South? I don’t think so. Does tradition and culture only stick out when you are some “other” in a larger society? If that’s the case, why don’t the Chinese of China, or the Japanese of Japan, or even the French of France feel as culturally bereft as you and others I have talked to?
I’m not denying that what you say about your experience is true because, as I’ve said, I’ve heard this same thing from others. I just don’t understand how this can happen.
Perhaps it has something to do with the basic American experience. We are a nation of immigrants, which means, to a certain extent, a nation of exiles. I don’t think anyone has ever properly dealt with the pain of immigration, the pain of leaving everything and everyone you know and love behind to follow a dream or escape a horror. I’m certain that the various European lands that make up your heritage (let me guess, some mix of English, Scottish, German, and something else), all had their traditions that got carried over and perhaps even survived for a generation or three. But then they got lost over time, or perhaps jettisoned by an ancestor eager to be a “real” American, and the new host nation had nothing with which to replace them. At least nothing that resonated with you.
Exile and displacement are major themes in the Jewish experience. Cut off from their roots in a Jewish homeland, Jews felt they had to remake that homeland on foreign soil or else disappear. Then Emancipation came, and Jews, especially in America, rushed to dump old ways in order to participate more fully in the larger society. Every second-generation American of the early 20th century, and not just Jews, tried hard to be real Americans, not “greenhorns” like their parents, and to do that they gave up the old ways as soon as they could. I know that was true of my father. Perhaps that’s why so many of their children, myself included, have rushed back to the fold with such a vengeance.
Alienation, as the song goes, is a permanent condition that the wretched modern world endures. And it’s sad because it causes so much pain. But we are human beings, and above all else human beings create culture and traditions. We can’t help it, we do it everyday. So why settle for the bland homogenization of culture we see going on around us? Why can’t we make new traditions? It happens, you know. The piñata used to be a strictly Mexican artifact. Now it is a staple of most kids’ parties across the country. This is a new tradition in America and a really nice one.
So how can we make Purim it into a secular American holiday that is celebrated by millions?
Yankel said:
So how can we make Purim it into a secular American holiday that is celebrated by millions?
I for one have no interest in doing that! I’m happy just being a Jew and along with that is having my/our own way of relating to life. Including Purim, which incidentally is not my favorite holiday! Ultimately I do believe in Universalism but not at the expense and or exclusion of my uniqueness as a Jew.
I can’t speak for Chavy but I think I understand where she is coming from because it sounds like the same place I have come from. At least in terms of our mythic narratives.
Maybe this issue here is less about why she (and I) may feel that we come from something of a cultural void or at least in my case a cultural of Junk food. One IMO devoid of any real sustenance, meaning and spirituality. Maybe you’re difficulty with all this is more rooted in the fact that you are unable to see for yourself what it is we see in Judaism. And maybe this is why you don’t understand why some of us choose to leave (albeit assumptively) our cultural flatlands for what we see as the higher lands of Judaism.
I for one love the view from up here!
Maybe (and what do I know?) to you its all flat or not maybe not flat but somehow the same? Some how identical?
Again what do I know? However, I can say this, these two landscapes look nothing a like to me and I’ve placed my money on the higher ground.
Be well!
In the Midwest, people cherish being a plain, down-home American in a very different way than in the South. The South has a rich tradition of foods and cultural experiences that are deeply embedded in the way they see themselves as Americans. They are patriots who bleed red, white and blue. To those who immigrated there, they may have assimilated, but in the process they created an entirely new form of Americanism that would not have been born had it not been for the Civil War.
In the Midwest, however, it was entirely about assimilation. When you talk about foods of the Midwest you see corn, meat and potatoes. But the way of being an American is one of being completely assimilated, so much so, that there is no history, no culture, no traditions. You are just American. You have a house with a car and some kids and a job and that’s that. There are no grandiose ideas of where you came from and the type of people you derived from. It’s almost like people come to the Midwest to forget, to shed the skin of wherever they came from.
Here, it’s about being plain.
My family comes from French Canada, Germany, England, etc. etc. Nebraska, where I spent about 11 years of my adolescence and early adulthood, is a state that is defined by its Christian values. Its history was once rich with German history, but during WWI that all changed. There used to be schools that taught German, but those disappeared during the world wars. This was because of suspicions about the immigrant population from that part of the world. As such, the traditions went with it. If you were to go to Nebraska, you would find it to be incredibly commercial, very plain, very typical. An Applebee’s and Starbucks on every corner. It’s just plain.
Thanks to Chaviva and Avi for making this clear to me. I don’t know, maybe I’ve lived a sheltered existence, or maybe I just don’t want to believe that most of America is a cultural wasteland. I don’t want to believe it, but I grew up in New York City, not (God help me) Nebraska, so what do I know?
If it is true, its kind of sad, don’t you think?
LOL Yankel!
OK maybe “objectively” its not a wasteland but “relatively” form my POV it sure seemed that way!