TORAH PORTION
YAD EZRA
feeding the lewigh Hahgry
presents
Travels Of Abraham
And Modern Society
A tribute to
RABBI A.
IRVING SCHNIPPER
L. DAVID FEDER
Special to The Jewish News
T
To Benefit YAD EZRA,
Detroit Area's Food Pantry
Serving The Jewish Needy
Sunday, November 17, 1991
at
Congregation Beth Abraham Hillel Moses
Tickets: $50.00
Tables of Ten: $500.00
Hors D'oeuvres: 6:30 p.m.
Dinner: 7:30 p.m.
Dinner Chairperson
AL BRICKER
Honorary Co-Chairmen
IRVING NUSBAUM
DENNIS DEMBS
Featured Speaker:
JAMES MACY
Executive Director-Food Bank
of Oakland County and
Yad Ezra Board Member
For ticket information,
please call (313) 557-FOOD (3663)
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48
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1991
he Eternal said to
Abram, 'Go forth from
your land, the place of
your birth, 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. I will bless those
that bless you And curse the
one who curses you; and all of
the families of the earth shall
bless themselves by you! "
So begins our sedra for this
week, Lech Lecha, and so
begins the saga of the Jewish
people.
According to at least one of
our classical commentators,
Don Isaac Abarbanel, this is
actually the third and most
specific story of the origins of
Israel. The first, the creation
of Adam, and of humanity in
general, is comparable to the
biological origins of the life of
a people; with the renewal of
humanity in the days of Noah
we witness the emotional
development of a people; and
finally with Abraham we en-
counter the formation of the
distinctly human intellectual
aspect of a people.
Just as Abarbanel notes the
gradual evolution of the
Jewish people, tradition also
notes the stage-by-stage
development of the character
of Abraham, which is usual-
ly discussed in the context of
the 10 trials of Abraham.
Many consider this to be
the first test of Abraham,
while the binding of Isaac is
the 10th and ultimate test.
These trials and gradual
transformations, which mark
the origins of the Jewish peo-
ple, remain constant in the
everchanging, yet still some-
how changeless parade of
Jewish history. The nature
and content of each
metamorphosis varies from
age to age, but the fact of
their existence remains
uniform.
The journey of Abraham
from the place of his birth,
from his father's house, is one
that we know very well in our
own mobile age. In his own
day, this was a remarkable
journey. No one permanently
left the security of home and
of clan for an uncertain future
unless he or she absolutely
had to.
Today, that journey is far
more common. We are ac-
L. David Feder is a rabbi at
Temple Emanu-El.
customed to travel great
distances just to acquire or
complete our education.
Employment frequently
demands that we journey to a
strange and new community
in order to work in our chosen
professions.
Children no longer live in
the same neighborhood as
their parents, aunts, uncles,
nephews and cousins, or even
in the same city, and fre-
quently, not even within the
same time zone. Grand-
children, instead of consider-
ing grandparents' homes to
be their own, actually have
the opportunity to visit their
grandparents, at best, only a
few times a year. A sense of
rootlessness and of being
alone is far more common in
Lech Lecha:
Genesis 12:1-17:27;
Isaiah 40:27-41:16.
the present, than it was a
generation ago.
Abraham's journey then, is
one that many of us ex-
perience and that all of us can
learn from. Abraham learned
that he had to establish his
own community wherever he
traveled, that he had to seek
out like-minded souls over the
course of his wanderings, as
Scripture teaches, "Abram
took his wife Sarai and his
brother's son Lot, and all the
wealth that they had amass-
ed, and the souls that they
had acquired in Haran; and
they set out for the land of Ca-
naan."
Tradition teaches us that
the "souls that they had ac-
quired" refers to those people
whom Abraham and Sarah
found shared their belief in a
single God. These people at-
tached themselves to
Abraham and Sarah, and
Abraham and Sarah to them.
We learn from this that a
sense of community is not
something that we find ready-
made, but something that we
must strive to create. The
responsibility to create that
atmosphere exists on both
sides. Not only must
strangers and newcomers
seek out like-minded in-
dividuals — in the form of
friendships, congregations
and other organizations, but
we must also create warm
and friendly atmospheres as
individuals, as well as in
those groups in which we
take part, in order to embrace
the newcomer. The transient
nature of our society makes
this more than just a nice