Lech Lecha - Stand Alone
Lech Lecha - go for yourself. This is our introduction to Avraham Avinu, the father of the Jewish people - go for yourself. Rav Hirsch points out that this is the most significant principle defined at the beginning of Jewish history - the command to be willing to go one’s own way, go it alone, stand in opposition to everyone around you. When Avraham went for himself, he was going against the prevailing society which as we know from Migdal Bavel was all about centralization. Migdal Bavel stood against the notion of individualism and the recognition of the worth of any single person. Each individual was only a brick in the structure of a centralized community - of no personal significance. Then Avraham Avinu came along with the principle “Lech Lecha” - even more important than the community is a person’s responsibility for his own conduct. When the principles of society don’t reflect Hashem’s will, each individual must “Lech Lecha” go it alone. Of course, this is where Avraham got his title, “HaIvri”, the one who crossed over”. The medrash beautifully describes Avraham standing on one side and the entire world standing on the other. Avraham stood alone, but he wasn’t really alone. “Ani v’ata neged haolam”, “You and I, against the world”, said Hashem. The Torah introduces us to Avraham with this command of Lech Lecha. Stubbornness and courage combined with the clear awareness of his inner convictions and beliefs is what allowed the Jewish nation to begin with one person standing alone and it's what powers our nation to continue down to this day. I believe that we all can draw chizzuk from Avraham and Lech Lecha. Because as much as Jewish mothers around the world are united in our goals, we each have to stand alone to raise our children. Every mother finds herself having to reply to the inevitable, “But everyone else’s mother lets them”, and we each have to stand up to our own insecurities when we look at what everyone else seems to be doing, but know that our children need something different. Lech Lecha. Building a family, and in Avraham’s case, building a nation, requires standing alone. We’ve discussed before why the Torah doesn’t give us detailed mitzvos for chinuch. We have hundreds of details on every mitzvah, books and books delineating exactly how to keep kosher, and yet the most foundational mitzvah in the Torah, to pass on the mesorah to our children, is left vague and open-ended? Why? The answer is fundamental - the Torah can’t detail for us how to do chinuch because it is different for every single child. We are united in our goal of raising children to reflect their Godly potential, but practically how do we do it? That has to be unique. The parents of each family, of each child, need to stand alone, figure out only for themselves, what is needed for the chinuch of their children. Lech Lecha. Right at the beginning of our history we are taught this principle because it is so crucial. We have to be able to stand alone. But it isn’t alone as you remember. Ani V’ata, neged haolam. We are standing with Hashem, and as each one of us mothers, stands with Hashem to partner and build our families, we also end up standing alongside one another. Not together, we do each have to build our families alone, but united nonetheless. And, unlike Avraham, who was the only one to stand alongside Hashem, we have each other. And even though the details of how we each need to raise our children will be different, we feel connected, encouraged by each other, and strengthened by our connection through all of us standing with Hashem to build our families. Conversation Point: How do you balance both the connectivity and individuality of mothering?
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