One of the most salient misconceptions about God’s call to Avram in parshat Lech Lecha, translated as “you go forth,” is that it was a one-time invitation.
It’s easy to envision the opening pasukim (verses), as purely a logistical and circumstantial move:
God said to Avram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2).
Commentators like Ibn Ezra emphasize that Avram’s move from Haran to Canaan was an existential one; it’s crucial for him to move beyond the walls that raised him and the idolatrous traditions of his father. Others, like the Chizkuni, suggested that this journey for Avram and his family was one with legal weight, as he himself was a rightful descendant of Shem and therefore had a claim to the land into which he was moving.
I want to offer a third option, one rooted in the wisdom of our Chasidic masters: Avram’s Lech Lecha journey to Canaan was a deeply spiritual call. R’ Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, or The Sefat Emet, writes:
“Lech lecha [means that] we are forever to be walkers toward what God shows us, always through new perceptions. To be human is [to] be on the move. For anyone who stands still without renewal will immediately be overruled by routine” (Sefat Emet, Lech Lecha 1903)
For the Sefat Emet, Avram’s journey wasn’t one of simply moving from place to place, nor was he commended simply for obeying God. Rather, Avram was heeding the call that God makes of each and every one of us: be willing to embrace a life of constant spiritual striving.
We need to acknowledge that the divine Lech Lecha—the “you go forth” moment—is also one that demands we transcend and go beyond even our very selves, embracing the spiritually wandering souls we truly are. These moments can be life-altering, chaotic, and terrifying. They can also be exhilarating and deeply heart-opening. In this understanding, God’s desire for Avram and, by extension, all of us as his descendants, is to cultivate ourselves as spiritual beings.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), French philosopher and Jesuit priest, wrote, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
May our journeys—be they geographical, existential, practical, or spiritual—transform us into a people who continuously walk toward the Divine.