Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlem Okon, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:09] This week we continue with Parshas Lechlecha, and we're going to really get introduced to Avraham Avinu, to Abraham and the Parshios. The Torah portion each week is really going to start moving through the history and the lessons of the Jewish people.
[00:00:31] And I can't wait to share each and every week with you, God willing.
[00:00:36] And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, just would like to say hello.
[00:00:45] Don't be shy.
[00:00:46] Feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomokon kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you just to give a quick overview of Parshas Lechlecha.
[00:00:57] The Parsha really jumps us in to the midpoint in Avraham Avinu's life and Abraham's life. And really, it doesn't discuss all the background. The midrashim really give us the background of Abraham, of Avraham Avinu.
[00:01:13] And the midrashim tell us that Avram started off trying to figure out how was the world created. And he tried every single idol and God, and it didn't make sense to him until he came to realize that there is a God in the world. There is Hashem, the creator of all, and he is one. And it was Avramavinu, uh, who instituted this idea to the world, who introduced this idea of monotheism, that there's one God who is, was, and always will be.
[00:01:51] And, um, the Midrashim, it's very fascinating. I think in other years I've discussed the background of Avramavinu, how his father sold idols and how he did his best to really. And he really spread this idea to the world that, uh, monotheism is the correct way, that there's only one God.
[00:02:14] And it's actually very fascinating stories there with Avraham Avinu, who's thrown into a burning furnace because he believed in Hashem, he wouldn't bow down to idols. But the Parsha jumps into here with Hashem speaking to Avraham Avinu after he's already come to the realization of G D that there's Hashem.
[00:02:34] Hashem tells him in this week's Parasha Lechlecha to go. He comes to him, and he comes to him in a prophecy, and he tells Avramavinu to leave his homeland, to move.
[00:02:47] And Hashem promises him children and wealth and all the good things.
[00:02:52] And of course, Avraham Avinu listens. And also just to really, uh, give a little background, this week is also the beginning of the 10 tests of Avramavinu.
[00:03:02] The 10 Nisyonos, the 10 challenges that God gave to Abraham, and I believe also maybe a different year as well. He discussed this idea of tests. Why did God give tests to Avraham Avinu? But you can go look back at those episodes from previous years.
[00:03:20] And the Parsha continues with Avram leaving his homeland, going to Canaan. And when he gets there, there's actually a famine. And from there, Avraham Avinu has to go with his wife Sarah to the land of Egypt. And his wife gets captured by Paro. She takes his wife and holds her captive. He wants to marry her, but Hashem strikes the Egyptians in Paro's house with a plague until he realizes what he had done and returns Sarah to Avramavinu. Avramavinu continues to return to Eretz Yisrael. And the Parsha tells us of the splitting between Avraham Abraham and his nephew Lot. Lot was one of the students. He was also the relative of Avraham Avinu, his nephew, who had come with him when he left, um, his homeland. And at this point, Avramavinu and Lot have to split because of a dispute between the shepherds of Lot and the shepherds of Avramavinu. The Parsha continues with the war of the kings that Lot gets captured, and Avram wages war against the kings who are holding his nephew and defeats them. The Parasha continues with the Bris ben Habisarem, the Covenant of the Parts. Hashem comes to Avraham Avinu and he tells him that the land of Israel, which is now known as the land of Canaan, it will be given to Avraham Avinu and his offspring forever. It's theirs. He tells Avram Abraham about the Egyptian exile and the eventual redemption, which Avraham, uh, Avinu ratifies. The Parsha concludes, the Parsha also tells us of the story of Hagar and Yishmael. Avraham Avraham, on the advice of Sarah, takes Hagar as a wife to bear children, because at this point they don't have children, and she gives birth to Yeshmael. Finally, we finish off with Hashem commanding Avraham Avinu to circumcise himself, which he does. And the promise that Hashem makes to Avraham Avinu that he will have a son from Sarah, his wife the first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the parsha. So the parsha is called lechlecha. If you read the first verse, Vayoma Hashem elavram lech lecha me' arzecha meladotecha mi beis avicha el ha' aretz ashe'. Areeka. Hashem said to Avram, go for yourself from your land, from your relatives, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.
[00:05:59] And Hashem promises him, ve' es chala gedo vavar cheka va gad la shemecha ve' yey bracha.
[00:06:08] And I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.
[00:06:15] Now we see in the. In the Parasha, Hashem commands Avram to leave his homeland.
[00:06:23] Now it doesn't just say he should leave where he lives.
[00:06:26] The Torah is very specific.
[00:06:29] Me artzecha, uh, meiladecha umibesavicha.
[00:06:38] From your land, from your birthplace, from your father's house, to the land that I will show you.
[00:06:45] And Rashi tells us that Hashem spoke out all these different steps in the commandment to Avraham in order to make, to give him greater reward, that by endearing the place he was going, from telling him it was his homeland, where he was born, his father's house, it would give him greater reward when he actually did this mission, completed the mission and followed the order of Hashem to leave.
[00:07:19] And Rashi quotes that Hashem also did a similar thing. We see the psukim when he told Avraham um to bring Yitzchak to bring. Bring Isaac to the Akedah to bind him as a sacrifice, right? We know Hashem was testing him. What was the commandment that Hashem gave to Avram? It says, es Bincha, es yechidcha, asherahavta es Yitzchak.
[00:07:40] Right? And furthermore, the posseh also tells us, it says to one of the mountains that I tell you to bring him to to sacrifice. Hashem said, you know the your son that you love, your only son Yitzchak, to the place that I will show you. He didn't even tell him to the mountain that I will tell you to go to. He didn't tell him where to go. And similarly, we see over here, right?
[00:08:06] Hashem didn't tell Avraham Avinu where he's taking him to either.
[00:08:10] So to make everything to give him more reward. And by the Akedah as well. Right.
[00:08:16] Hashem wanted to give Avramavinu the most reward possible.
[00:08:21] And obviously, this was a test. That's a different discussion of why we have tests. I'm not going there right now. But the point is that Hashem wanted to make it that Avraham Avinu should maximize this test and get the most reward possible. And there's a concept in the Talmud, it's called as much as the effort is the reward, that the more effort a person puts into something, the greater the reward is.
[00:08:47] Now, it's very, uh, fascinating that it's brought down in the midrash that when Avraham Avinu was bringing his son Yitzchak Isaac, to the altar, and this is going to be next, um, week's parasha, he did everything. He followed the commandment of Hashem with diligence and with speed. He did everything quickly. He did it without even thinking, of course I'm going to do this.
[00:09:14] But the midrash tells us that when he was about to sacrifice his son, as he's about to prepare, he's preparing everything.
[00:09:23] He was crying.
[00:09:24] He was crying. Uh, emotions were affecting him.
[00:09:30] And the question that's asked by the altar of Novardic on this midrash is that we know Avraham avinu.
[00:09:37] He had 10 tests. He overcame all his tests. He was a great individual.
[00:09:43] You know, he overcame enormous things in his life.
[00:09:48] So this great Tzadik Avramavinu, why couldn't he use his trait of overpowering his emotion to suppress those cries, those tears that he was crying, that he was about to sacrifice his son?
[00:10:05] Right. Shouldn't he, you know, went into those superhuman reservoirs of strength within himself to overpower it and to sacrifice his son without the tears and without the crying? And the answer to this that's brought down from the altar of Slobotka is that it's not the divine wish that a person should be devoid of emotions.
[00:10:31] Uh, Hashem doesn't want us to be droids, to be robots.
[00:10:36] He wants us to have emotions.
[00:10:39] But we need to be able to overpower them, to master them, to be in control of them.
[00:10:48] That's what we need to do.
[00:10:50] And I think this idea as well, you know, taking it back to our parsha, is that Hashem was giving Avraham Avinu a test.
[00:10:59] He wanted him to get the most reward. Hashem, ah, always in his kindness, he tests us. True, he does test us.
[00:11:06] But even when he tests us, it's for our benefit.
[00:11:10] And the tests that Come our way, we're able to overcome them. And they're for our benefit to the maximum degree. And whatever part of it we're facing, it's all for our benefit. And we see from the parasha that Hashem was challenging Avraham to pick up and go. And he described the places that he's coming from to endear it to him, to make it in essence almost like harder for him to do it so that he could do it and he could accomplish his goal to overcome that challenge.
[00:11:41] And I'm sure Avramavinu had the natural feeling of endearment was emotion.
[00:11:50] It was emotion. You know, we all feel attached to the place that we come from, our parents house, you know, where we're born, just to pick up and leave, to go somewhere we don't even know we're going. There's many emotions in there.
[00:12:02] And Hashem sort of set him up in a way that he would have to overcome those natural emotions.
[00:12:10] And I think the lesson of the parsha is, is that every single person has feelings. We have emotions, we have ups and downs.
[00:12:21] And there's nothing wrong with feeling those feelings.
[00:12:25] And the first idea that I really want to bring out from this is that number one, so we have emotions, what are we supposed to do? We're not supposed to just totally get these feelings out of ourselves. That's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to overpower them, to master them, to be in control of our emotions. And uh, I've talked about this before, but I feel like many times today people go totally with their emotions and their feelings. How are they feeling?
[00:12:55] So like we're saying here, uh, feelings are important, but we have to learn to master our emotion, to not let the emotions be in the driver's seat. Because if the emotions and the feeling, the word in Hebrew is the hargashas that we have are pulling us to do what to do. We're going to get ourselves into trouble. The idea is that the logic, the mind should be overpowering those emotions to master it, to sort of channel it in the right directions. And that's what we're supposed to do here. And that's what Avraham Avinu did. He felt those feelings by the commandment to leave his homeland by lech lecha. Uh, he had those emotions when it came to the akedah, as we see from the midrash, but he overpowered them. He used his logic to control his emotions.
[00:13:42] And I think this is something which is unfortunately missing in society. Today, people forget about this idea that that's our job. We can't let the emotions run wild. We have to use our logic, governed by the Torah, by the mitzvahs, by the commandments that Hashem, uh, has given us to keep our emotions in check for us to do the right thing, God willing.
[00:14:03] Another part of this idea which I really want to speak about when it comes to emotions and control of them, is that we see from the parsha here, and I think specifically this lesson, that it's okay to have feelings. And what do I mean by that? You know, sometimes. And I could speak, you know, myself included, we believe in God, we have faith in God.
[00:14:26] But when something happens that maybe doesn't go the way we want it to go, we feel bad, we upset, we feel upset, maybe we're angry.
[00:14:37] And a lot of times after we go through those emotions, we sort of recalibrate, get back to a point of believing in Hashem 100%, meaning maybe we waver in our amuna for a minute or hopefully maybe even a little longer. Whatever it is, we question, why did this happen?
[00:15:00] But then we go back to what our real feelings are, is that everything's for a reason. Hashem has a plan. And then after we go back, we feel guilty that we had those feelings to begin with.
[00:15:11] And I think we see from the Parasha this idea that if a person has feelings, and maybe, you know, we have those tough moments, but yet the fallback is that we go back to what our true beliefs are, is that we know that Hashem is doing things with a plan, there's a mission. We don't have to feel guilty about the feelings that we have, because sometimes we feel bad that we feel bad, and we shouldn't feel like that.
[00:15:36] Life is, you know, we're here. Takes years to master the trait of bitachon, the trait of knowing that Hashem does every single action for our benefit.
[00:15:47] And I think this, um, idea in the parsha really ties into this very well, that it's okay to feel those feelings.
[00:15:57] But I think it comes with the caveat that we need to gain control over them, to not let them run wild, but rather get back to the point where we're not questioning what happened. We're having that pitachon in Hashem. We're having that trust in Hashem.
[00:16:13] And don't feel guilty that you feel guilty. Right? Don't feel bad that you feel bad.
[00:16:18] You experienced it, you got back to where you are, and now you're, God willing, in the future going to be a better person. You're going to continue working on it more and more. The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the Bris bre nabisaram, the covenant of the parts. Avramavinu is childless.
[00:16:36] He has no children. He has a servant, Eliezer.
[00:16:42] And Avram asks Hashem, who will inherit me.
[00:16:50] And Hashem says to Avraham, Avinu, habet na shemaima usvara koihavim im tukha lispar ESAM um says, look up at the sky. Count the stars. Can you count them?
[00:17:03] Vayerm eloi Koyezarecha. And Hashem says to Avraham Avinu, so shall your children be. Hashem made a promise to Avraham Avinu that his children will be as numerous as the stars.
[00:17:20] Now think for a moment.
[00:17:23] Avramavinu doesn't have any children.
[00:17:27] Hashem says, go count the stars.
[00:17:31] And what does Avraham Avinu do?
[00:17:34] He starts counting.
[00:17:37] What would our reaction be to that?
[00:17:41] Would we just give up before we even start?
[00:17:46] But not Avramavinu.
[00:17:49] Avram had this tremendous sense of optimism.
[00:17:54] No matter what came his way, whatever challenge he had, no task seemed impossible to him.
[00:18:02] Koyezarecha, so shall your children be. That Hashem made a promise to Avraham Avinu that his children would be as numerous as the stars.
[00:18:13] And that's what he knew to be true.
[00:18:17] And Avramavinu, we see in his life time and time again, he had challenges.
[00:18:24] And the different challenges that Avraham Avinu had, he overcame, right? The Torah very much focuses on the 10 Nisyonos, the 10 challenges of Avramavinu.
[00:18:37] And he has this sense of positivity and the fact that nothing can stop him, nothing can hold him back from accomplishing what he wants to do.
[00:18:47] And this trait that Avram Avinu has and had is not something which stopped when he passed away, when the Torah tells us that he died, but rather it's something which is ingrained in the DNA of every single Jew.
[00:19:05] Because we know this concept that what our fathers did is a sign for us. And just like we have this physical DNA, we also have a spiritual DNA.
[00:19:19] And that DNA started by Avraham, by Yitzchak, by Yaakov, and especially the challenges that Avramavinu overcame added to the strand, made us stronger, gave us that sense of optimism, to be persistent and not give up on the things that we want to pursue, and especially when it comes to our spiritual pursuits, to not give up to not think that things are out of our reach, to believe in ourselves.
[00:19:56] And that's what we see from this, from Avramavinu, especially when it comes to the covenant of the parts that he didn't just say, uh, what do you mean? Go outside, look at the stars. I'm not looking. This is ridiculous. I'm not doing that. Avramavinu did exactly what he was told, and he believed it, and it came true. And I think the lesson for us is that when we have things that we want to accomplish in our lives, goals and challenges coming our way, we should believe in ourselves. We should be persistent. And I really want to. It's not just the spiritual, of course. All our goals in life, we should, you know, be persistent and to go forward with and to not let things get in our way. But especially when it comes to our rukhniyis, uh, our spiritual lives of where we want to be in our Yiddishkeit, in our Judaism, and our observance in our Torah learning, we should think big.
[00:20:49] We should think, nothing is impossible now. Sure, take steps.
[00:20:54] Every day we do something small, slowly, slowly, slowly. But things add up very quickly.
[00:21:01] And one small step could really turn to something monumental. You know, you think about all these stories of people where they did one small action and it just mushroomed into something much bigger than themselves. And I think when we think about ourselves, our personal goals, what we want to accomplish in our lives and on an individual level as well, we should not sell ourselves short.
[00:21:26] Think big.
[00:21:27] Think, you know, to the stars. Look to the stars for inspiration. Look up. Don't think that anything is not impossible. Be persistent and keep pushing forward. I think that's one of the lessons that we see from Avraham Avinu in this week's Parasha. So that's going to finish for this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlamokon kohnmail.com have a great day.
