Movement
Thoughts on Lekh Lekha 2018
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Is
there a man who travels and does not know to what destination he travels? (Midrash)[1]
He who
has attained to only some degree of freedom of mind cannot feel other than a
wanderer on the earth – though not as a traveler to a final destination: for
this destination does not exist. (Friedrich Nietzsche)[2]
I love
to travel but I hate to arrive. (Albert Einstein)[3]
We read about Avraham’s initial
journey at the end of Parashat Noah:
And Terah took Avram his son and
Lot son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of his
son Abrahm, and he set out with them from Ur Casdim toward the land of Canaan… (11:31)
His travel contrasted with the
Torah’s preceding episode of Migdal Bavel:
…And it happened as they
journeyed from the East they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled
there … And they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower with its top
in the heavens that we may make us a name, lest we be scattered over all the
earth.” (11:2,4)
Unlike his surrounding society’s
attempt to settle, Avraham was determined to move.
Parashat Lekh Lekha continues the story of Avraham’s journeys, as God then
commanded that he “Go forth” from his familiar habitat toward a land which He
would show (12:1). Avraham’s life as a journeyman had thus begun. He soon
descended to Egypt during famine (12:10), fulfilled God’s repeated commands of
“Rise, walk about the land” (13:17) and “Walk in My presence and be blameless”
(17:1), and ultimately rose to the occasion of “Go forth to the land of Moriah”
(22:2). Significantly, it was upon these very paths that Avraham encountered
God. In a constant search for the Almighty during his lifetime, Avraham would
find Him – learning about God’s ways and understanding His essence – along
those desolate trails of his travels.
How did Avraham’s “journeys into
the unknown” lead him to God?
Consider the recurrent theme of movement
in many of our common expressions regarding thought: We “let our thoughts wander,”
while “thinking on our feet” and “arriving at a
conclusion.” John Kaag explained: “These are no simple figures of speech, but
reflect a type of mental openness that can be achieved only on the move.”
Noting the words of the eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
“I never do anything but when walking, the countryside is my study,” Kaag
remarked: “The history of philosophy is largely the history of thought in
transit.”[4]
By marching away from the world
that he knew and into one that he did not, Avraham’s eyes and mind were opened
to a greater understanding of God and His world. R. Zvi Grumet elaborated:
Abram’s search for the place is not a test of his obedience to
God, it is an essential element of how he will become who he will become. The
search for, and ultimately the discovery of, the land, is empowering. Abram is
not shown the land; he must figure out how to discern it.[5]
Indeed, even prior to any
specific instruction from God, he had detected the mistake of the builders of Migdal
Bavel. He understood that their passion for stability would lead to a
stagnant life of stunted growth. And so, he began a life of discovery through
movement.
Avraham’s life teaches us about the
importance of constant movement in our lives. It shows that the hidden aspects
of life can only be found upon the paths of our personal journeys of lekh
lekha.
[1] Tanhumah: Lekh Lekha 3.
[2] Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (Cambridge,
UK, 1986), pg. 203.
[3] Recalled by John Wheeler, in Albert
Einstein: His Influence on Physics, Philosophy and Politics (Braunschweig,
GE, 1979), pg. 202.
[4] John Kaag, Hiking with
Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are (New York, NY, 2018), pg. 27. See there,
as well, pg. 132-4.
[5] R. Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to
Covenant (New Milford, CT, 2017), pg. 134.