There is a moment most of us know.
You pack the last box. You sign the papers. You close a door behind you: a new city, a new job, the end of a relationship, the start of something of your own. And somewhere between the old life and the new one, you are not quite sure who you are anymore.
This Shabbat, the Torah begins exactly there.
Leave everything
This week's portion is Lech Lecha. It tells the story of Abram, who will later be called Abraham, the first father of the Jewish people. Until now he has lived an ordinary life in Haran, with his wife Sarai, his family and everything he knows.
Then, with no warning, God tells him to go. And the instruction is almost painfully thorough: leave your country. Leave your birthplace. Leave your father's house.
Three circles, each one closer to the heart. First the place you live. Then the place you come from. Then the people who made you.
And where is he supposed to go? He is not told. Only:
“To the land that I will show you.”
No address. No map. No promise of how long it will take.
Go to yourself
The first two words of the portion are lech lecha (לֶךְ לְךָ). They are usually translated simply as “go.”
But read word for word, they say something more: go for yourself. Or even: go to yourself.
As if the journey outward is also a journey inward. As if Abram had to leave everything that defined him (the place, the family, the familiar) to find out who he was without it.
Anyone who has ever moved, started over or built something from nothing knows this feeling. You think you are going somewhere new. Really, you are meeting yourself.
No map
When I started Oriya, I didn't have a map either. But sometimes you just have to start walking. You learn on the way where to go.
That is the part of Abram's story I find most comforting. He does not wait until he knows the ending. He does not ask for a plan. He packs, and he goes, and the land is shown to him one step at a time.
We usually want it the other way around. We want to see the whole road before we take the first step. Lech Lecha says: the road shows itself to the people who are already walking.
You don't arrive empty-handed
And here is the quiet surprise: Abram leaves his father's house, but he doesn't leave himself behind. Everything he was, he carries with him. Just differently.
The things we leave don't disappear. The language we grew up with, the recipes, the songs, the sentences our grandparents used to say. We take them into every new place, and somehow they become more ours there than they ever were at home.
Two questions for this week:
- What am I being asked to leave behind right now? A place, a role, an old idea of who I have to be.
- Who might I become on the way?
You don't need the whole map. Just the first step.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rivkah
Oriya Jewels is handcrafted Jewish heritage jewelry — pieces made to be worn every day, for people who carry their story with them.
