What’s up, I mean, Shabbat Shalom!
I’m really glad to see you all here.
My portion, Lech Lecha from Genesis, is about when God commands Abram to leave home, the place he was born, where his family is from, and go to a new place and create a new home. Lech Lecha means “going forward.” It is unfamiliar. It is scary but Abraham chooses to trust.
But why? Why should he trust in going forward?
How can I learn from Abraham and from the Torah’s story about Abraham how to face hard choices in my life? We all have to do that at one point.
There are lots of ways to go forward. By moving. By changing schools. By changing how we think. And right now, for me, I also need to change how I learn. I recently found out that I have dyslexia. For those of you who don’t know what dyslexia is, it’s a unique way of how you think and take in words and language. I don’t like it and I think of it as an error in my brain. Sometimes it makes me angry—it’s something I didn’t know about and has been a secret from myself and the family for about 13 years.
I am about to “go forward,” Lech Lecha, into the unknown, the unfamiliar, and start learning in a new way with new methods.
It does not mean I want to, but I have to play the deck of cards that I have. Honestly, I’m not scared, I’m more annoyed. But I am trusting it will work because I have no other choice but to trust.
To me, Lech Lecha, “going forward” should be done with clear sight even if the ending is not clear. I do not like the idea of being blinded. I don’t think Abraham was blinded because just like if my dad told me to do something, I would trust him enough to go ahead and do it because I know that he wants the best for me.
Another example: Because of ANTIsemiTISM, my Great Grandpa Doc had to take a boat all the way over here from RoMAYnia when he was only 14. Because his parents told him to! That’s a lot of trust!
By the way, I’m wearing his Tallis today. His real name was Isadore, and I was named after him, Leo Isadore Trant.
But you can’t trust everything. For example, I feel many people blindly follow religion. Rabbi Perkins, a local spiritual leader, thought of religion as a source of comfort. I don’t feel that way. In fact, I don't really like any religion for myself, it makes me feel uncomfortable. Not in a bad way but in a “not my kind of thing” way.
I DO agree, however, when he says, “sometimes we shouldn’t continue the work of our parents…we should do our own work.” I am thirteen now and excited to try new paths. I know that my parents and teachers believe in specific causes and I’m curious as to what *I* really care about. Like climate change to make a cleaner environment. Like getting rid of gun violence so innocent people do not get hurt or killed. I want to figure out how to make the world a better place because it is kind of a mess right now. I want to create my own path and still go forth and be a blessing.
I also know that a lot of the old ways do not work anymore. Rabbi Toba Spitzer said in her book called God Is Here: Reimagining the Divine that “Judaism certainly has its share of painful teachings that reflect a world of the distant past with assumption about women, about queer people, about those who are not Jewish, about people with disabilities, and more, that range from ignorant to actively harmful…and must now be either removed…or changed…”
I want to create a new map, a new life, a new going forward. Thankfully, I am not alone, and my community also agrees with this.
As Rabbi Rami Shapiro says, “Judaism challenges you to drop the known and step into the unknown.”
Abraham did this by dropping everything.
I won't lie, this is hard for me to understand. I get that those in the Torah are supposed to have this great connection with God, but I haven’t found that.
BUT still,there are always things to bring along with you on your new journey, for Abraham too. For instance, Kindness. When people were scared, Abraham stayed calm and kind to them. This included being kind to strangers and giving them food.
He also brought his bravery, leaving a place he was comfortable in but still going to the unknown with no idea what the place he was headed for was like.
He also stayed true to himself—he knew that trust in his own values would carry him through any new kind of challenge. I like the idea that it is important to “do what is right simply because it is right.” This goes to show that being yourself is the best thing to do at all times. Unless you're not kind, then don’t be yourself.
But best of all, oftentimes going forward brings us to a place of relief. Maybe even more than relief. Maybe to be happy and to feel proud. From the online journal The Heroism of Ordinary Life it says: “At the end of it…Abraham would discover that he had achieved something he could not have done otherwise…to live by that voice and create something new in the history of humankind. ‘“Go for yourself.”’
Doing this Bar Mitzvah is a form of LechLecha for me and now, hopefully after today, will be a relief. I’m not sure how it will be an important part of my life. When I am done with today, I wonder how much I will even think about it. I know I have worked hard; I know I have not enjoyed all of this work. This has been a big unknown for me. I also know that I really want to overcome staying away from hard work and prove that I can accomplish something big. I am hoping today I will prove that to myself.
Thank you all for coming!
I want to take a moment to thank Tracy Rich, my tutor, for helping me prepare for my Bar Mitzvah, I couldn’t have done it without her. She is a 10 out of 10 teacher.
Thanks to my HBT classmates for giving me a push to do this. This took a lot of work and a lot of perseverance.
Thank you, Rabbi, for caring about me so much.
Thank you to my little sister for supporting me and eating some pie. (I don’t get that joke either, but she will!)
Thanks to my mom for typing out 90 percent of this here d’var Torah and my dad for always staying calm,
And thanks to my dog Ramona for sleeping through this whole thing (except at the dinner table).
Thank you to all my friends and family for coming from both so near and far. Thank you, Grandpa (both of them), and thank you Bubby.
I am really happy to see you.
I am also thankful to feel the presence of my other grandma (Nicky) today.