Go Forth! Be a Life-Giver.
The Lord said to Abram, ‘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…
And in you all the families of the earth
Shall bless themselves by you.
(Genesis 12:1-3)
‘Lech Lecha!’ (‘Go forth!’) God’s call triggers an extraordinary adventure for Abraham and Sarah and their descendants; and for us as well.
As I ponder this briefest of Hebrew phrases - Lech Lecha - in the context of the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch), I am struck by its inherent call to life. I submit that, in the language of Torah, to ‘go forth!’ is another way of saying, ‘Go, give life!’
The gift, and giving, of life – both physical and spiritual – is a recurring theme in the Bible. It leaps from the opening words of Genesis, as an unformed earth takes shape, as ‘plants yielding seeds’ and living creatures ‘of every kind’ abound, and as the first man and woman are told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’.
At the other end of the story, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses stands at the edge of the promised land and exhorts us to ‘Choose life!’ This is no wellbeing slogan. Scripture spells out its context and meaning: covenant, ancestry, gift and responsibility:
‘I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life - if you and your offspring would live - by loving the Lord your God, heeding His commands, and holding fast to Him.' (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
From start to finish, God’s word is a call to go ‘beyond’ oneself and bring forth ‘more’ of the gift of life received. Thus, Genesis is the story of the birth of a people, of sexual unions and pregnancies, of births and child rearing, of the joys and challenges of being a family called into the service of God, for the blessing of all the nations of the earth.
It is not an easy story. Giving life never is. Time and again, the Bible tells of barren women, childless couples, difficult pregnancies, warring siblings, families threatened. And yet, still, life goes on, God’s promise finds a way.
The summons is particularly surprising in the story of Abraham and Sarah, called to bring forth countless descendants, yet childless until their old age. Their story continues to inspire and nourish our own efforts to ‘give life’. Like this pioneering couple, we are sent into the fray of earthly complexities, with all its difficulties and deaths. It is precisely here that we are to be life-givers, bearing witness to God’s presence amid joy and sorrow, laughter and tears.
Whether this entails physically bringing forth children and grandchildren, or being generative in myriad other ways, to hear ‘lech lecha’ is to hear a summons to live life to the full, making the most of every God-given opportunity to be a blessing; to leave the world, not simply as we found it, but with ‘more’ than it was, because we were here.
Scripture: JPS.
Image of tree: © Daniel Andres Forero. Used with permission via Media from Wix.
© Teresa Pirola, 2024. lightoftorah.net. Reproduction for non-commercial use permitted with acknowledgement of website.
Light of Torah is a Sydney-based initiative encouraging Christians to reflect on the Hebrew Scriptures with the help of insights from Jewish tradition. More... The reflection above refers to Parashat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1 -17:27), the Torah portion read for this Sabbath in the Jewish liturgical cycle. Shabbat shalom!
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