Parashat Lekh Lekha: The Divine Perspective

Was Avram a great warrior? What gave him the equanimity to enter the conflict between the 4 kings and the 5 (Gen 14), a conflict that had been raging for some 25 years? Yet Avram does not hesitate, calmly gathering his friends and entering the fray.

There is some greatness to Avram that is beyond the everyday. He exists in the everyday world, suffers hunger, has his wife stolen, his sheep fought over with his nephew, his nephew taken in captivity, but interspersed among all these worldly problems, at regular intervals, he hears the word of God. He hears God tell him things about the future and he has the vision to see them – to look out at the land and see his progeny inheriting it, for generations to come. And it is this vision, this ability to see oneself as a part of a larger history, a larger plan, a larger world, that gives him the strength and the courage to persevere. Fighting 5 kings must seem like nothing to one engaged in divine conversations about eternity.

“400 years. What a long range perspective!” This is what my father said about Avram (to whom God revealed His 400-year plan for the people of Israel) in a speech he gave at my high school graduation. This is Avram’s strength. He is not mired in the problems of the present. The Torah juxtaposes 2 types of looking in this parsha (13:10-17). First Lot looks out at the land, and sees the beautiful gardens of Sodom and decides to move there. Then Avram looks out and God tells him to look north and south, east and west, all the land that he sees will be his and his descendants’ forever and ever. This is a global view – all of space and all of time are suddenly connected for Avram. He is able to adopt a divine perspective.

How do we see the world? Piecemal, like Lot – what seems shiny and bright right now -- or do we have a sense of history and continuity and connection like Avram? Avram’s vision strengthened him, and it can strengthen us as well; as they said in Margalit’s preschool: “God told Avram that his progeny would be like the stars of the sky. You are one of those stars.” Feeling that you are one of those stars means feeling connected to the past and the future, to eternity, to the south and the north, the east and west, being able to see oneself as a part of a whole that is ongoing. With this vision, nothing can stop us, not 4 kings and not 5 kings; we are a part of eternity.