by Rav Haggai Londin, Rosh Yeshivat Holon, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.
The weekly Torah portions of B'reshit and Noach dealt with a pre-historic world: Creation, the Garden of Eden, lifespans of hundreds of years, a great flood, the Tower of Babel, and more of the like. These portions and the descriptions of the first steps of mankind provided a measure of inspiration, but did not really touch upon life as we know it. From Parshat Lech Lecha, however [this week's portion: B'reshit 12,1-17,27], the Torah deals with man and his personality, traits, and struggles.
In Lech Lecha we meet Avraham Avinu, the Patriarch. The world has already undergone all the events listed above, and Avraham's world is new and different. A careful study of the verses in B'reshit and Noach shows that Avraham was born in the year 1948 after Creation, meaning that it took nearly two millennia for mankind to actualize its potential to internalize that which is Divine; only then was Avraham able to appear in history.
The Medrash teaches that the history of the world is divided into three periods: 2,000 years of chaos (tohu va'vohu, B'reshit 1,2), 2,000 years of Torah, and 2,000 years of Messiah. The first period was one of disorder and unrestrained forces. During the course of Parashat Noach, these forces settled down somewhat: The flood softened the world; the center of strength that supported the construction of the Tower of Babel was dispersed throughout many nations; and even the shortening of man's life expectancy attested to the transformation from a world with no strict limits to one of more moderation and calm.
The appearance of Avraham on the world stage was a major turnabout in the history of mankind. His name at first was Avram, literally meaning "exalted father" of mankind. G-d later added the Divine letter heh and changed his name to Avraham. The new five-letter combination is alluded to in the verse, "These are the chronicles of the heavens and earth when they were created" (2,4), from which the Sages derived homiletically that the world was created especially for Avraham. Another Medrash calls him "Eitan HaEzrachi," from the root meaning "shine" – and says that his appearance in history stands for the beginning of the shining of the sun in the world. Thus Avraham's birth begins a new era in history, one of light and rectification.
This transformational stage takes place within every person as well, in his personal development. Just as Avraham appears in the world when it is time for it to advance to its next stage, so too each individual must recognize when he must mature and proceed to shape his life correctly.
THE NEW AGE -"Leave your homeland, birthplace, and father's home, to the land that I will show you." These first words spoken by G-d to Avraham stand for the new character of the new world: Proactivity, walking and doing, as opposed to passivity. Noach's role was to hide out in the face of a world full of evil, but Avraham acts differently: He is always in motion – going, rushing, traveling, hurrying to fulfill G-d's command. Mankind has once again become proactive, but in a positive way.
We find Avraham walking throughout Parashat Lech Lecha: First he goes to the Land, and then he goes down to Egypt because of the famine, where he has a skirmish with Pharoah. After he returns to the Land, he separates from his nephew Lot, fights against the Four Kings, and G-d forges the Covenant Between the Pieces with him. After his son Yishmael is born, G-d and Avraham forge another covenant, that of circumcision. Lots of action in Lech Lecha.
Another attribute of this new era is "independence." Avraham is commanded to detach himself from his childhood home and all that is familiar to him, and to set off on a new path of his own, in a new place with a different culture. Not that he is to change his ways; he is called Avraham Ha'Ivri, because he is on one ever (side) and the rest of the world is on the other ever. What this means is that Avraham is not obligated to anyone or to any "common conceptions;" he shakes off his entire past and begins to make his own way, both physically and spiritually.
Avraham has more than one encounter with kings: First with Nimrod (according to the Medrash), then with Pharaoh, then with the Four Kings, and later (in Parashat Vayera), with Avimelekh. This indicates yet another dimension of Avraham's multi-faceted personage: royalty. If he struggles with kings, that means that he himself is a king, in the sense that he has control and acts with independence. The human culture in which Avraham lived was one of submission to the environment and situation, and he showed that man can control these, and move and advance within them.
FROM NOACH TO LECH LECHA -Pirkei Avot teaches that G-d tested Avraham no fewer than ten times. Tests are not necessarily one-time challenges; a test can also be a period of activity whose end is not certain, nor its measure of success. The number ten, which stands for an aggregate, shows that Avraham was required to pass all the different types of tests and difficulties that the world presents.
This is the process that every person must undergo when he passes from the unripe Noach stage to the developed stage of Lech Lecha. First he builds himself while remaining within himself, but then comes the stage when he must go outward. After he builds his personality, he must then act and withstand tests. That is, the keywords that accompany him from now on are Lech Lecha, "Go!" While Noach comes from the root meaning "to rest," the next stage is that of walking, moving, and doing. The world of tohu va'vohu has prepared the groundwork for mankind to advance to the next level, that of Avraham Ha'Ivri.
Avraham grew up in Ur Kasdim, where the king was Nimrod, "a mighty hunter before the Lord" (10,9). The violent act of hunting characterizes the culture from which Avraham detaches himself. The Sages say that Nimrod hunted not only animals, but also people who opposed his ways; he even threw young Avraham into a fiery furnace, from which G-d saved him. Avraham turns his back on the world of hunting, wars and violent power struggles.
Avraham's next station was in Haran, from the word haron, anger. The Sages say that until Avraham came along, Divine anger reigned. And another thing that Avraham had to abandon was a sense of helplessness and despair: His father's name, Terach, signifies 'tar achar ruach," "aimless searching for meaning." And thus, from a world of hunting, anger, and emptiness, sprouts a person who will lead it to justice, morality, and faith.
We recall that Avraham was charged to leave his "homeland, birthplace, and father's house." Each of these express a framework in which a person grows – and Avraham was commanded to leave them behind. He is no longer to remain in his comfort zones, routines, and inertia; he must get a move on.
"Leave your land" is the call that every Jew hears – must hear – ever since Avraham. We must stand up and head out for the unknown – not for illogical, dangerous missions, but rather for a long and sometimes difficult path, until the goal is reached. One who truly wishes to be a descendant of the Patriarch Abraham does not take refuge in his comfort zone, and does not expect results "now." He is rather open to move and successfully navigate the challenges of life.
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