Go Forth
Do you remember the dreams and aspirations that drove you when you
were growing up? I remember vividly
daydreaming about my future when I was a child.
And in all the dreams I remember, I pictured my future, adult life as
large and significant. Even though my
parents’ accomplishments were nothing that great, I remember being caught up in
a mindset that anything was possible.
When my siblings, my friends and I shared our dreams for our futures,
there was never any marginality in them.
We dreamt big: big
accomplishment, big material wealth, big satisfaction. The hallmark of my generation was the notion
that we could ‘have it all.’ The lives,
upon which we were then embarking were lives of promise. Lives of adventure. Lives whose conclusion could not be
predicted.
Two weeks ago,
I spoke about the idea that just as God at some point began creating the world
from stuff which was already there, at some point He began creating the
person I would become from the stuff that was already there. And of
course, I was only using myself as an example – the one example that I know
most intimately! – to make the point that God creates of each one of us a
unique person. Every one of us is
touched by the Creator, and not just in the sense that the life-force is
breathed into us. Each one of us is
given the unique message that, if heeded, will result in a life which fulfils
his or her potential. Each one of us
receives a Calling. And that calling, as
given to Abram, is summed up in the opening words of this week’s Torah
reading. Lech Lecha.
Lech lecha. Go thee
forth. Go for yourself. To put it differently: Get the heck out of dodge. Because Abram’s unique calling required
that he separate himself from his parents and his parents’ way of life. It could not have been fulfilled in the place
where he was then living, the great city of Ur.
It required a relocation to a new land.
There are several reasons floated as to why, but mainly what Abram was
to accomplish required his leaving the familiar environment.
Each one in turn is given the message of lech lecha. And each message is unique, yet there
are common themes that unite many of our quests. Not every one of us must cross over to a new
land. Many of us are given a calling
that does not require our physical relocation.
Some of us are able to move into the me we are to become without a long physical journey. On the other hand, for many of us the journey
to our destiny does involve a long journey. When I
think of some of you and how you came to be living in Australia, I hear the
strains of lech
lecha.
Because we have a tendency to take the Torah literally – if at all – we often have a hard time relating to
the experiences of the important figures who loom large in the narrative. Probably few of us have ever experienced such
a clear-cut message as the one represented as emanating from God to Abram
personally. Get out of your land, your home, your inheritance, and get yourself
to a place that I will show you. And
there you shall be a great and mighty nation and a blessing to all
humanity. We read these words and we do
internalise that the Torah is asserting that Abram’s call came in this way
verbatim. Well I’m here to tell you that
it didn’t. It came, written on the slip
of paper in the fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant.
Okay, of course it didn’t come via fortune cookie! But maybe the message was still a bit
subtle. Maybe it came in a dream or perhaps
in a feeling that suddenly washed over him, such that he experienced it as
God’s true message. Maybe it was
‘delivered’ in the voice of someone close to him, who said something audacious
in which he received his calling.
That’s how I received my calling to the rabbinate. A rabbi friend, at whose home I was spending
the weekend, looked at me thoughtfully across the breakfast table. And then he said: So, Levy, when are you going to stop screwing around with your life
and become a rabbi? Now I was, at that moment, a little more
than halfway through a military career.
Military careerists, when they pass the tenth anniversary of their
service, tend to begin imagining what they will do ten years down the road when
they finally retire. If they’ve got
their act together, they’ll decide early and start preparing for it. I had already thought about what I would want
to do after the military. Rabbi had been
one possibility I’d thought about, but I hadn’t up to that point done anything
to research it. This was, after all,
before Google!
But when my friend posed his audacious question, I just knew that I was supposed to become a
rabbi. The message was so clear to me,
that I was unable to fight it.
Some of you once received a message of similar clarity, and you heeded
it. Or perhaps you didn’t. Perhaps it doesn’t satisfy each one of us
intellectually to receive a message in such a way and to hear it as
authentic. Or perhaps the content of the
message we received was not what we’d hoped to receive. So we fought it.
One of our families here tells of how they happened to come to
Australia when they knew they had to leave Egypt. After being educated in England, they felt
the best bet was a Commonwealth country, and they
went to make an enquiry at the Canadian embassy. The Canadians didn’t have the time to talk to
them. Then on impulse they happened into
the adjacent Australian legation and asked if anybody could talk to them about
relocation to Australia. Not only did
the Australians have time for them, the ambassador himself had time to sit with
them. When that happened, they knew they
were supposed to come to Australia.
Perhaps they don’t see God’s hand in all this. After all, it was not an overtly ‘religious’
message. Or was it? Move to Australia, because that’s where
you will fulfil your destiny. I
suppose that there is nothing overtly religious in that
message. But I think it is a mistake to
divide the realms of ‘religion’ and ‘secular.’
If we are religious on some level, then ideally there is no such
division between the compartments of our lives.
To put it differently; if we believe in God, why would we believe that
God only cares what we do when in the synagogue? Would He not have a stake in all the aspects
of our lives? If so, then why would God
not charge us with decisions that are not ‘overtly’ religious after all, the
major decisions we make, even when religion is not a particular consideration
in making those decisions, do impact the identifiably ‘religious’ aspects of
our lives.
So each one of
us, in a way that is uniquely individual, receives God’s summons. And it is our challenge to listen for God’s
voice in whatever means he uses. And to
recognise the truth of that calling we’re given. And take it seriously. And allow it to excite and motivate us.
The Torah is
the blueprint for Jewish life. Within
its text we find the wisdom that establishes the rhythms of Jewish life. Within it we also find the teaching of moral
and ethical principles. But just because
we have the Torah doesn’t mean we should discount that each one of us is given
a unique destiny to fulfil. And the
calling to that destiny can be delivered by any method, and through the agency
of any individual. Mine came over the
breakfast table from a rabbi friend.
Abram’s came in the fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Okay, maybe not! We’re not told what media was
used. But we are told Abram’s
reaction. He accepted his calling. He went forth. May each one of us be listening for the voice
that will deliver our own calling. And
when we recognise it, may we too have the courage to go forth.
How many of
you, young and full of the promise of life, knew that you would need a larger
place in order to live a larger life?
How many of you made decisions that changed the course of your lives,
that were entirely out of character with the plans you’d been making up until
then? How many of you, having a sudden
clarity of your destiny, not only changed course but did so with an incredible
confidence? I’m guessing that many of
you did.
As a child
growing up in Miami, I had no idea I would spend years in the shadowy world of
military cryptology. And then more years
in the world of Jewish faith and practice.
Had someone told me I would live in Turkey, Greece, Israel, Great
Britain, Germany, and Australia along the way, I would not have believed them. Me!!?
I hardly stray from home. I’m not
the kind to globe-trot. But I did.
Most of us in
this room tonight are not in the springtime of our lives. We do not have out entire lives ahead of us. But we do have the rest of our lives.
In other words, our adventure is not yet
over. There is more to unfold, and
nobody can predict exactly how it will unfold. My recommendation? Listen for that voice telling you what might
be in store. Whether it comes from a
rabbi friend. Or a fortune cookie. Okay, probably not a fortune cookie! Still, one never can know. Shabbat shalom.
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