Lech Lecha

Welcome to my Jewish Geography blog! Last semester at my internship, I taught a course called "Jewish Geography," which looked at the geography of the Hebrew Bible and Judaism. On this blog, I will share my favorite teachings from that course along with other interesting tidbits as I continue to learn along my path to the rabbinate.

First, is there a better place to start our geographical journey than with lech lecha, the words God used to start Abraham, the first Jew, on his journey to establish our tradition?

Genesis 12:1-3

1: The Lord said to Abram, "Go forth (Hebrew: lech lecha) from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.
2: I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
And you shall be a blessing.
3: I will bless those who bless you
And curse him that curses you;
And all the families of the earth
Shall bless themselves by you." (JPS translation)

Here are two of my favorite quotes about that journey and our own journeys...

"Abraham wandered circuitously. But all the places he stopped on his journey, all the fits and starts, the misadventures and misdirection, were sacred. They were all part of the process. There is no straight line to spiritual growth, in genuine seeking, in the journey. We don’t have to be angry with people who are still in places that we have stopped along the way, but from which we have since moved on. There is also no reason to feel ashamed of the places from which we come. If we had not made those stops along the way, we would not be where or who we are now." You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield

"Thus, the very first words God utters to the very first Jew are lech lecha - get up and move...But that journey will not be easy - not for Abram, not for us. God tells Abram to leave his homeland and the land of his fathers, the land in which he is comfortable and where he may feel he belongs and go to a land that is not yet his, about which he knows little and that might provoke tremendous fear in him." God Was Not in the Fire, Rabbi Daniel Gordis

My own journey to this point in my life has been quite circuitous yet I feel that that life journey has prepared me well for what is to come next. Thank you for reading; I look forward to learning with you.