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November 6, 2009Rabbi Gila Ruskin’s beautiful Torah commentary “Be a Blessing” on last week’s Torah portion “Lech Lekha” was excellent in terms of her examples of Abraham being a mentsch, for which his good deeds sets the example for us all. But when I read the words “Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives, and your father’s house (birth place) to the land that I will show you. (Israel) This really hit home.
Why? Because I want to make aliyah to Israel with my husband, but we keep making excuses or putting it off due to family concerns. While we read “Lech Lecha” every year, this time I had to wrestle with this issue and question. If Abraham and Sarah had to leave their parents to start a new life, G-d must have had a good reason to urge them to leave because we are also taught in the Torah to honor our parents.
Now it would seem that leaving one’s parents in their older years would not be a way to honor them. Yet, we are taught that Abraham’s father was an idol maker and that goes against G-d’s Torah laws. However, we are not given any information about Sarah’s parents if they were doing anything that would be a problem.
As for our parents, neither of them were or are idol makers. So how do modern day Jews like us in the Diaspora deal with this?
Rabbi Ruskin and the Torah remind us of the tests Abraham had to endure. And how our Sages teach us: “By definition, a heavenly test is one that forces a person to choose between G-d’s will and his own nature or understanding of what is right.” In my “Stone Commentary” of Lech Lecha it stated: “Clearly, it would be no challenge to Abraham, who was the epitome of kindness, to be asked to help the needy, but it would be a supreme test of faith for him to desert his aged father and homeland or give up his cherished beloved son as an offering.”
Will this be our test? Will all of us Jews be tested to some degree? After all, in these more modern times we can still be in touch and love our family from a far. We can write, call or e-mail them daily, send pictures via the internet and/or visit them once or twice a year. Or better yet try to get them to join us.
Also, I love my only living parent, my dear mother, and care deeply about my siblings, brother and sister, and of course we love our daughter and grandson, along with some cousins and relatives and/or friends who are more like family to us. Nevertheless, something in “Lech Lekha” keeps pulling at my heart that we must go. And it’s later than we think. Abraham and Sarah were 65 and 75 when they left Iraq, Lenny and I are senior citizens, too. But Israel needs all of us Jews to be there for them morally, spiritually and financially. These are difficult times when Israel cannot depend on the U.N. or this new American administration and other nations for its survival. Only trust in HaShem will save us.
I read according to our Sages: “Man’s highest goal is to accept the Divine wisdom as the sole truth.” And the truth for me, is not according to the Obama administration’s czar’s goals that go against our Torah or the Acorn organization’s way of doing things.
Well, there you have it; I guess that solves it for me. We all can certainly be a blessing when we do good deeds, but also when we do the hard things which are usually the right things to do even if you have to sever some ties to reach that highest Jewish goal of eternal purpose and Jewish destiny: Total trust and faith in Hashem in The Land of Israel.
I came to this conclusion that if there are Jews who are drawn to the” Lech Lekha” call, then it must be G-d’s will. The difficult uncertain times and changes that are now going on in our world and in America today might well be the G-d of Israel’s wake-up call for Jewish souls to return to Zion where we are most needed to help with Israel’s survival as a truly Holy nation, as it was intended to be—just as American Christians and American Jews and others have been rising to the occasion to help save America’s constitutional laws and its freedom of religious heritage from various new threats.
So too, Jewish Americans need to rise to the occasion on behalf of Israel’s Jewish G-d given moral and ethical laws and its physical and spiritual survival.
Barbara A Bloom
Owings Mills