Two Minute Torah Podcast

Lech Lecha 5768 by Itamar Kremer

Shalom, my name is Itamar Kremer, and I’m the Aliyah Shaliach for the Conservative Movement, serving on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Israel and MERCAZ USA, the Zionist arm of the Conservative Movement. Welcome to KOACH’s Two-Minute Torah, a project of the College Department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

This week’s parasha is Parashat Lech Lecha, which begins with the famous words that the Lord speaks to Avram, "Lech Lecha MeArtzecha, oomimoladetcha oomibeit avicha el HaAretz asher Er’eka – Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Avram is ordered to leave behind everything with which he is familiar in order to start a new life and a new people in a new land.

Starting a new life is not easy when one is young, but Avram was already an old man when he was ordered to set out on the journey and here he is, having to deal with all sorts of new challenges, like hunger and enemies, and all without the use of cellphones and emails!

Interestingly, the word "eretz" which means "land" appears 19 times in this parasha. The first time, it refers to the place where Avram was born, Ur Casdim. All the rest refer to HaAretz, the Land of Israel, the Land par excellence. It is thus no accident that HaAretz, the Land of Israel, is the true focus of this parasha because, as the number 18 implies, it is the Land of Israel, HaAretz, that gives life to the Jewish People. It is the place from which we emerged as a people, it is the place to which all generations of Jews have turned their eyes for all time, and it is the place, which, I hope, many of you will consider moving to in the months and years ahead.

But what is it that put the Land of Israel, HaAretz, into the hands of the Jewish People. Is it just the promise by God? I would say that the divine promise may have been the beginning of the process, but this promise by itself is not enough to make the land ours. Rather it was HaMaaseh, the action that Avram was prepared to take in the land and for the land that made it ours.

What was this action? Was it the war that Avram fought against the Mesopotamian rulers, the act of aliya, returning from Egypt when there’s hunger in the Land of Israel, the altars he built, the covenant with God he made? All these acts are important, but beyond everything else, in my opinion, that which made this land belong to Avram and to his descendants for all time was the simple act of walking the land, getting to know it inch by inch, kilometer by kilometer.

Arriving in the land, Avram doesn’t simply settle down, he starts to know the land to which he has been sent. He passes to Shechem, the city that many know better by its Arabic name Nablus; then moves to the hill country east of Bet-El, the same Bet-El which today as back then is near Ramallah, and then journeys down toward the Negev – all this upon arriving! Even before the Lord tells Avram Kum Hit’halech BaAretz, Up! Walk about the land, through its length and its breadth, for I give it to you – Avram’s feet are making an impression on the land which he is coming to possess.

But this is just the beginning. Returning from Egypt, Avram retraces his route up from the Negev back to Bet-El, then south again to Mamre, which is in Hevron, then north beyond Dan to Damascus and then back to Jerusalem, where he meets Malkizedek, Priest of El Elyon who blesses him. Each day, each year, another part of the land is discovered, another part of the land becomes known.

We might even say, when we get to the end of the parasha, to chapter 17, when Avram is 90 years old and the Lord appears to him to re-iterate the covenant He is making with Avram, that it is no accident that the verb God uses to signal that Avram has proved himself worthy of the covenant, the verb "Hit’halech" meaning to walk before God is the exact same verb that God spoke to Avram so many years before when he arrives in the Land, Kum, Hit’halech HaAretz, "Up walk about the land." In other words, how did Avram prove that he is worthy to walk before God in a covenant? By having walked the length and breadth of the land for so many years before.

This brit, the covenant that was entered into on that day, between God, the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, this covenant that took place 4000 years ago and which exists to our day, it is brit which each of us needs to make our own, and how? By getting to know the Land of Israel as our ancestor Avram did, seeing it up close, getting up and walking the land, knowing its hillsides and valleys, its plains and high places.

Once you’ve seen the sun rises over Asa Mountain, which is located some miles north of Eilat; once you’ve seen the view over Mitzpe HaYamim near Zefat, you not only know the land, you feel this brit.

So, the next time you’re in israel, take a hike, go to a high place- look in all the directions- it is all yours to experience- just go!

and I will establish My covenant with Me and you – the reason that AvramBut we know This parasha brings us to the land of israel- the same land we learn to love from age 0, the same land we demand our birthright on, the same land we advocating for, and the same land that most of us visited, and we all fell in love with.

When god told avram- go! Leave everything behind and show you the best place on earth- he went. He came to the land, a land that avram had to make his own.

But avram wasn’t up to it- when it was hard he immigrated to Egypt- there he found out that the former option was better- And than we are witnessing the first aliyah, as written- "vaya’al avram mimitzraim" –and avram went up from egypt (made aliyah and went up are the same in Hebrew translation for VAYA’AL)

When avram came back to the land, god reminded him of his promise- he took him to a high place, showed him the land, and said- go! Experience- walk through this land – kum v’hithalech ba’aretz - stand up and hike in this land!

Later, god and avram making this brith - this covenant - again, by korban, by mila, by the name, and by the akeda all steps on avram road to the brith. But here, in this high place, lays the brith that demands avram to do- to go, to hike, to be Israeli- to make this land his- god said- look avram- where ever you go, whatever you see from here, it is all yours- go, avram!