This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, opens with God’s stirring command to Abram: “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).
This is one of the most significant and profound passages in the Torah. Abram, as he was known then, is called to become the progenitor of the Jewish people—and, beyond that, the ancestor of the three great Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
What we encounter here, in the words of mythologist Joseph Campbell, is a “myth of calling”: a story in which an ordinary person is beckoned to act in a way that changes the destiny of the world. Across cultures and ages, we find such stories. Moses hears his name called from the burning bush and is summoned to lead a people enslaved in Egypt into freedom. Jonah is called out of his complacency to bring repentance to Nineveh. Odysseus journeys across perilous seas—and into the depths of his own soul. Luke Skywalker, exiled on dusty Tatooine, is called from the ordinary to the extraordinary. And Dorothy, in that great American myth, is swept from Kansas into the Technicolor world of Oz, only to discover her way home.
So what does Abraham’s call say to us—here and now?
Abraham is introduced as Ha-Ivri—“the Hebrew,” literally “the one who crosses over” (Genesis 14:13). From the root l’avor, “to cross,” he becomes the bridge between worlds: leaving the polytheistic culture of Mesopotamia for a new vision of One God. And in our own time, we too are called to cross boundaries—personal, cultural, and spiritual—into an unknown future. We are living through a time of great vulnerability and transition, as a nation and as Jews on the stage of world history. Just as Abraham was called to bring a new vision to the world through his belief in one god, we are each being called to adapt to change in front of us—in our family, community, country, and world. The goal for each of us is not to be Abraham, but to live our own calling—to take a leap of faith and action toward the fullness of who we are becoming.
Before the Call: Abraham’s Life-World Situation
To understand the moment of calling, we must look back to the closing verses of last week’s parasha, which sketch the lineage of Terah:
Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the lifetime of his father Terah in his native land, Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, daughter of Haran, father of Milcah and Iscah. (Gen. 11:27–29)
At first glance, these verses seem like dry genealogy. But look closer: This is a single family—Terah and his three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Yet beneath the surface lies heartbreak. Haran dies young in Ur. The family is bereaved; Terah mourns a son, Abram mourns a brother, and Lot grows up fatherless. This is a story of grief. Many of us, too, know family stories of loss and untimely death.
Then we read another sorrowful line: “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Gen. 11:30). Suddenly the situation becomes a bit more complex. These days, with many couples putting off family building into their late 30s and even 40s, and with various environmental causes impacting fertility, this is not an uncommon story.
In a Midrashic imagination, Abram might speak like this:
Sarai sleeps quietly. Poor woman—this morning I saw her crying in her tent. Infertility has taken its toll. We can hardly look each other in the eye; the passion between us fades. I am angry that God has not blessed us with children. Why? It feels so hard to keep praying to a God who has not answered our prayers.
The next verse continues:
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and lived there. (Gen. 11:31)
Terah and his family have pulled up their tent stakes, leaving Ur behind. Now they are strangers in Haran—displaced, uncertain. Did they miss their home, the loved ones left behind? Were they, in a sense, undocumented immigrants in Haran? This text mirrors back to us the stories we carry of our own immigrant past—our parents’ and grandparents’ departures from the old world and their uncertain beginnings in a new land. Perhaps some of us, even now, are considering emigration, searching for safety or renewal elsewhere.
And notice this: Abram and Sarai have taken their nephew Lot under their wings. They are adoptive parents, reflecting another timeless way families expand through love and responsibility.
What a story, unfolding in just a few verses—and we haven’t even reached Lech Lecha yet.
Then we read: “And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran” (Gen. 11:32).
Terah dies along the way. The journey he began ends in Haran. Abram is left carrying layers of loss: his brother’s death, his wife’s barrenness, exile from home, and now the grief of a father gone. It’s almost too much to bear. Death, upheaval, dislocation—no way back, uncertain what comes next. Does any of it sound familiar? At some level, we all stand under the night skies of Haran, wondering how life changed so fast.
It’s as if Abram is whispering:
Everything once familiar is gone. My father is dead; my brother Haran died so young—he never even got to raise his son. I miss Ur Kasdim: its sounds, its smells, our old home. The whole family—gone. Now it’s just the three of us—grief-stricken, sad, lost.
Hearing and Understanding the Call
Then, in the very next verse, we read: “Go forth from your native land—me’artzekha—from your birthplace—mi’moladetkha—from your father’s house—mi’beit avikha—to the land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).
Out of this grief and dislocation, Abraham is called to a new direction: It is the call to become. If we accept our losses and grief instead of denying them, if we honor the uncertainty of darkness and then pay attention to what stirs within us, we too might hear a calling toward the next step of our lives.
And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed through you. (Gen. 12:2–3)
From the ashes of loss, new life takes root, bringing blessings we could never have imagined. The Hebrew phrase Lech lecha literally means “Go to yourself.” The voice Abraham hears is not booming or thunderous. It’s not Sinai’s commanding roar. That’s not how God speaks in our time, either. Spiritual calling today comes through a higher whisper urging us to redirect our lives. What Abraham heard was the call of the heart—not a voice, but a feeling, a yearning, a restlessness that something is missing.
This calling is the divine breath stirring within the clamour and haste of the world, within the rubble of our grief. To hear the call is to lift our eyes beyond ourselves—to be in touch with the divine voice within us, with spirit, with the infinite.
In the biblical story, God tells an old, childless man that his descendants will be beyond number. For each of us, being in touch with the infinite, with God, gives us the strength to trust that we too can take the steps needed to change our lives.
Just as Abraham went from bereaved refugee to man of destiny, so too each of us, though we encounter pain and struggle, can listen inwardly and begin a process of becoming our best self. The journey will bring challenges: we must separate from old voices, values, and comforts. But ultimately, in responding to the call, we draw closer to God. We grow our souls, serve the evolving needs of the world. And we are blessed.
May we all hear our own Lech Lecha calling this year, and may it bring blessings to ourselves, our loved ones, and the world.
With thanks to Peter Pitzele, Our Fathers’ Well.