Lech Lecha

Go forth …toward the stranger, the migrant, the worker, the prisoner, the person whose voice is routinely dismissed. And go forth knowing that we may not have the whole map. Abraham didn't. But he went anyway.

If the tent, our home, is truly open on all sides, there is an understanding that each person is continuing onward on a different journey. Our Torah is blessing us to be just as supportive in saying goodbye as we are in saying hello.

We are not only here to receive blessings but to redistribute them, to share them with others. In a time of profound global instability, we must remember that true blessing is found in the act of blessing others.

Land, for Jews and all peoples, equals safety, security, and sustained fruitfulness. It is home. May we always be grounded in the knowledge that the gift of land and the blessing of home hinges entirely on the choices we make, day after day, to co-exist peaceably with others, as neighbors, as family.

Of all the places I have served in a rabbinic capacity, the maximum-security prison where I serve now is the most religious.

A D’var Torah for Parshat Lech Lecha by Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin “It’s time to torch those Jewish monsters. Let’s go. 3pm.”  On August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, I stared at the screenshot in horror, witnessing a direct threat to the Jewish community. Hundreds of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists had marched carrying torches the night...

In our own time and place, we are wise to recognize the danger of allowing any single land to confer sanctity on any single people. Abram’s comings, going, and sojournings remind us that it is the covenantal blessing of our community that holds us together, regardless of where we came from or how we got there.

A firsthand account from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T'ruah Executive Director, of the joint T'ruah-HIAS border delegation, November 2019.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson shares the Torah of her own family's Lech Lecha moments and the value of meeting people across difference that she has learned from all of them.

Commentary on Parshat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1 – 17:27) Our third and youngest child started college this fall. She left her city, her birthplace, and the only house she has lived in. At least once a day, someone asks me, “How’s the empty nest?” The answer is complicated, because I’m not in the nest anymore...