לֶךְ-לְךָ
Lech Lecha / Go For Yourself
Genesis 12:1-17:27
Haf Torah Isaiah 40:27-41:16
Brit Chadasha Acts 7:1-6
Go Forth – lech lecha literally means ‘betake yourself’. Go forth and find yourself in Adonai. Find the one you truly are in YHWH, the one you are meant to be. This is what Abraham did as he was commanded to and in doing so he received the inheritance. Rashi interprets it as: “Journey for yourself.”
When God calls us into covenant, we have to give up our past in order to acquire a future with Him. Abraham was about to say goodbye to the things that mean most to him and us – land, birthplace and parental home, the places where we belong. He was about to make a journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar. And this involved trust. This trust is reiterated in Hebrews 11.
This parsha opens with “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse…” Genesis 12:2.
The promise that Abraham’s descendants shall be as the stars in the sky is found in Genesis 15:5. God continues to declare to Abraham that he will inherit the land that God is giving him. Abraham’s response is so typical of how we live our lives, “How shall I know that I will inherit it?” Genesis 15:8. We know that God is sovereign; we know that He is the Alef and the Tav, we know that He created all, and yet we still doubt.
God cuts a covenant with him in Genesis 15:8. A covenant is an agreement usually between two parties, and usually binding on their descendants as well. It is either conditional or unconditional and requires a sign which is the visual.
This covenant is between God and Abram and the unconditional promise is that Abram’s offspring will be more numerous than the stars in this sky. God gives the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael to Abram’s descendants. The sign of this covenant is circumcision found in Genesis 17:1-27.
God calls of Abram, the beginning of a mighty nation, and continues with Abram in Egypt and in chapter thirteen Abram and Lot separate. In Genesis 14:18-20 Abram has the encounter with Melchizedek:
‘Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Psalm 110 speaks of Melchizedek; ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” 2 The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
3 Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power; in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth. 4 The Lord has sworn and will not relent, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.” 5 The Lord is at Your right hand; He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath. 6 He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries. 7 He shall drink of the brook by the wayside; Therefore He shall lift up the head.’
לֶךְ-לְךָ
Lech Lecha / Go For Yourself
Genesis 12:1-17:27 Isaiah 40:27-41:16 Romans 3:1-26
Cross Over…
Genesis 12:1-3 ‘Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God’s call to Abraham, “Leave your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house” – was a call to chart a new and different path, the most fateful and at the same time the most hopeful in the history of mankind. It was a call to freedom, given by faith, encouraged by faith, fueled by faith, and won by faith.
God laid out an almost impossible foundation for Abraham: leave your land, leave your place of birth, and leave your father’s house. In the next Parsha, Vayera, we see that God chose Abraham specifically for a great calling: ‘For I have chosen him so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.’ Genesis 18:19.
Abraham was to start over with a faith that did not worship the idols of his people, but rather the God of Creation. It was the calling to be different, to step out with faith in the God that called Him, understanding that it was God’s calling, God’s vision, not his own.
Genesis 15:6 ‘Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.’
Romans 4:3 ‘For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Hebrews 11:8-9 ‘By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.’
Hebrews 11:17 ‘By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son…’
Lech Lecha translates into exactly what Abraham was called to do, ‘Go Forth’ ‘Journey for Yourself’ ‘Betake Yourself’ ‘Go and see what I have in store for you…’ ‘Go with yourself…’
The sages teach that Abraham was commanded to leave his place to witness the existence of a God not bounded by place – Creator and Sovereign of the entire universe. How do we do that as mere humans? We cannot accomplish that without the existence of the God we serve, and that is our faith in His faithfulness.
This is a faith meant for us to leave behind, to change, to address the idols of our hearts, and to move forward. All too often we cling to what is comfortable, as did the Israelites longing to return to the cool cucumbers of Egypt.
Luke 9:62: ‘But Yeshua said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’
Abraham crossed over, becoming the first Hebrew, known as Abraham Ha’Ivri, Abraham The Hebrew. Abraham earned this title for his faith in God, which ran against the culture of his place of birth. To cross over with faith, to lean into the way and calling of God means that we have to be willing to take on and take down the idols of our day, our hearts, and our lives. To be a Hebrew means to possess the courage to stand apart, and dare to be different, and Abraham is the example.
In chapter thirteen, Abram and Lot separate, with another promise from God to Abram, ‘And the Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” Genesis 12:14-17.
In chapter fourteen, Lot is captured, and rescued, and Abram meets Melchizedek. The Covenant is cut between God and Abram in chapter fifteen, with the promise of children. ‘And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Genesis 15:17-21. In Genesis 16 Ishmael is born to Hagar.
Lech Lecha ends with the dramatic conclusion of the covenant of circumcision and the prophecy of the son to be born to Sarah and Abraham. ‘Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” 22 Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.’ Genesis 17:19-22.
Abraham was a Hebrew because he crossed over from a culture of idol worshipers, (Joshua 24:2-3) from Ur of the Chaldeans into a promised l and. The children of Israel are also called Hebrews - Genesis 43:32, Exodus. 2:6, and Exodus 2:13.
Abraham crossed over into a new life and covenant with God; he did not cross over into a religion. To be joined into the covenant of God is a way of life, neither with man’s boundaries or bondage, but rather with the freedom to live life to its fullest, a redeemed life with the Most High.
