Lekh Lekha / Go To Who You Are
Lekh Lekha / Go To Who You Are 5783
Poetic notes on parashat Lekh Lekha*
Go!
When Abram was young
he lived in a spiritual jungle
a land of rebellion against God
He lived on the outskirts
of a country which its citizens named, Normal Babylon
When Abram was young,
God came to Abram in that spiritual jungle and said,
Go Abram!
Go to your self,*
Go to yourself when you are one hundred years of age,
Go to when you will be your true self
Go to when Isaac will be born*
Young Abram believed in eternal Abraham
God found him in the place of exile,
where his first father, Adam, was lost
The voice of God said to him,
Go to who you are in God!
Abram believed in God’s Abraham
Go to who you will be when you are
Abraham upon the Eternal Earth,
when you are Abraham in the eternal heavens,
when you have forever inherited
the Eternal Holy Land!
Abraham went to the land
that God would show him
Abraham went to himself,
to where he was with God
He came to the mountain of God
and saw forever
Standing with God on the heights of the land
Abraham saw himself going down
into the land of Egypt,
to bring up a wealth of holy sparks from there
What was redeemable in the Egyptian desire for Sarah?
They sensed the Shechinah, the Presence of God, was with Sarah
They desired to dominate the Shechinah
The Shechinah in their midst would reveal their failure
to live up to their having been created in the image of God
They heard rumours that Abraham would be the father of the Jews
Let us simply murder the father of the Jews,
they said to themselves,
then the Shechinah will be a lost princess,
who we can rescue and marry and dominate
Tell them you are my sister, Abraham said to Sarah
It is true, the Shechinah is the sister of the Jewish soul
They will not see you then as a lost princess
They will see you as a high an elevated princess,
who is only on a journey through their lands
They will fear you and see their own unworthiness to touch you
They will then fear me also,
for they will recognize that it is me to whom you are promised
And so Abraham left Egypt with great wealth
There were holy sparks of spiritual wealth in the land of Egypt,
holy sparks within the desire of the Egyptians toward the Shechinah
Sarah revealed this about them,
although they had suppressed this truth through their unrighteousness
Come, let us go with Abraham to ourselves,
to where we are with God
I believe with a complete faith in the coming of Israel’s Messiah
Leave behind the house of idols,
where once Adam built you dreams
Leave behind your old self that only wanted
to pretend and make believe
Come to a land that God will show you,
where in the eternal morning all is Messianic
A little one will come and devour the world that was
In the glory of the redemption of all things,
in the unveiling of the world that is forever a little one will come
This is Benjamin, the son of Jacob, the son Isaac, the son of Abraham,
Benjamin will devour the old and reveal the new,
simply by being saved in Judah,
by being saved from world famine for the word of God,
by embracing the neck of his brother Joseph,
in the land that God will show you
In the evening of the morning Hashem will begin to divide the treasures
at the feet of battle-weary Jerusalem,
in the land that God will share with you
Raise up your eyes to the everlasting hills
These hills are Leah and Rachel,
the mothers of the land where you are going
Come to the land of faith and trust in Hashem your God
In the land of faith,
eat freely of all the trees of the Garden
In the land of faith,
the commandment is once again given to you
Melchizedek went out to meet Abraham,
to meet Abraham returning from the battle
He went out with fear of the most reverent kind
He brought out bread and wine
How should he administer these?
How should he serve the One Master?
God had just made it clear
that all blessings will be vanity except
blessings that begin in blessing Abraham?
Hear Hashem your God, oh Israel!
Hashem is one!
Melchizedek knew that few of his ancestors would understand,
Fewer yet of his descendants would understand
when he blessed the servant before
he blessed the Only Master
Who would ever understand?
He would lose the priesthood
He would lose his testimony
The reversed order of his words
would pass the priesthood to Abraham
Only Abraham’s offspring could be worthy of the priesthood
It was the word of Hashem, not Melchizedek’s
He only acknowledged it
Because he did so,
it would be as though he had no father or mother
He would be like a newborn abandoned in the world
His only hope was to be adopted in the tent of Abraham
He was to be a beggar king in Salem
His only wealth was in his blessing himself
through his blessing of Abraham
Melchezidek brought out the bread and wine,
an offering of hospitality brought by a beggar king
He felt all four winds blowing in joy
He felt the light of all worlds upon his hands and face
as he blessed Abraham
His spirit danced with the four winds
All were thinking of the coming glory of God
They were feeling the love of angel's wings
Footnotes and Attributions
Footnotes:
*Go to yourself — the interpretation of the Hebrew, לֶךְ־לְךָ֛, as given by Kli Yakar and other sources.
*when Isaac will be born — as found in the commentary of Kitzur Baal HaTurim.
Attributions:
*Lekh Lekha — being a reflection on the parashah and on a related class given by Rabbi Baitelman on how to understand Abraham's wealth and the question of wealth as understood in Judaism.
In addition for 5783 — being a reflection on a Torah class on Lekh Lekha from Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, as delivered by Rabbi Baitelman of ChaBaD of Richmond, B.C., Canada. And together with this concepts and understandings have been taken from a class on a Talmudic perspective on the weekly parsha by Rabbi Bitton of Vancouver, B.C. Neither Rabbi Baitelman, Rabbi Bitton, nor the JLI have reviewed or approved of the content of this post.