October 23, 2026

Lech Lecha. Go forth.

If there are two Hebrew words that every reader of the Bible should know, they are these. The opening words of God’s call to Abraham and a summons that changed not only biblical history but our understanding of what it means to be human.

The plain meaning is straightforward. Plucked from obscurity in Mesopotamia, Abraham is commanded to journey to Canaan, where God promises to make him a great nation and a blessing. Peoplehood, blessing, and yes, land – the constitutive elements of Jewish identity from the very beginning, whatever some today would have us believe.

But the rabbis, being rabbis, were never satisfied with the straightforward. God’s call, they intuited, was more than a biblical precedent for Waze. After all, in the prior chapter Abraham had already set out for Canaan with his father Terach. Lech Lecha must mean something more than geography.

Some commentators understood it as a summons to abandon the idolatry of his ancestors and embrace monotheism. Others saw it as a call for Abram’s goodness to spread throughout the world, while still others read the words as “Go toward yourself,” an inward journey of self-discovery.

One interpretation, however, offers an insight as original as it is sublime.

Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, the nineteenth-century Hasidic master known as the Sefat Emet, taught that Lech Lecha is a command to remain forever in motion. A person must always be a mehalech — one who walks, who advances toward new understanding and fresh perspectives. Whoever ceases to grow, he warns, becomes captive to habit and nature.

God’s call was undoubtedly a summons to a new land, a new faith, and an inward exploration. But at its core, the Sefat Emet teaches, it was a charge to go through life never ceasing to see ourselves and the world anew. Never to mistake who we are for all that we might yet be. Never to allow the experiences of yesterday to foreclose the possibilities of tomorrow.

This teaching illuminates a turning point in the biblical narrative itself.

The stories preceding Abraham, Genesis chapters 1 through 11, are among the most memorable in Scripture: Eden, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Tower of Babel. But their protagonists are largely static. Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise, but we see little evidence of moral transformation. Cain murders his brother, is condemned to wander, but never visibly becomes a different person. Noah survives the destruction of civilization and emerges into a world made new. Yet the last time we see him, he is drunk and exposed in his tent. The circumstances of these early figures change, so far as the narrative reveals, their characters do not. They may travel, but they do not grow.

Until Abraham. Until Lech Lecha. Until the Bible introduces a new possibility: that the greatest journey is not from one place to another, but from who we are to who we might yet become. Not that Abraham’s moral development follows a straight line. Far from it. The same Abraham who courageously rescues his nephew Lot twice puts Sarah at risk out of fear for his own life. The same Abraham who welcomes strangers with extravagant hospitality sends Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. The same Abraham who challenges God to spare the innocents of Sodom remains inexplicably silent when commanded to sacrifice Isaac. Steps forward and backward. Abraham’s development is anything but linear. But his character is not a fixed portrait. His life is an unfolding story.

The literary critic Erich Auerbach, in his celebrated comparison of Homer and the Hebrew Bible, illuminated a related distinction. The heroes of Greek epics are presented with relatively static identities. Odysseus returns to Ithaca after twenty years, still recognizably the man who departed. Biblical characters, by contrast, emerge through the unfolding drama of their lives. Jacob wrestles with angels, his past, and himself, emerging with a new name. Joseph begins as a self-absorbed braggart and matures into a man capable of forgiveness. Esther moves from royal beauty contestant to courageous defender of her people. Their tomorrows are different from their yesterdays.

Contemporary psychologist Carol Dweck offers a useful vocabulary: the distinction between a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset.” The former assumes that our abilities and qualities are largely unchangeable; the latter recognizes their capacity for development. The possibility for growth lies at the heart of the covenantal life.

As a congregational rabbi, I am privileged to be privy to the quiet stories of people’s lives. These pastoral conversations are among the most sacred dimensions of my work. I think of adults whose painful childhood encounters with Judaism continue to shape their relationship with faith. People carrying the wounds of betrayal, struggling to trust again. Traumatized souls emerging from failed marriages, wondering whether love can be approached without suspicion or fear.  Different experiences, different burdens, but a common question: Will what happened yesterday determine who we are tomorrow?

There are no easy answers, no quick fixes. The wounds we carry are real. Healing takes time, sometimes a lifetime. We cannot simply decide to forget our histories or wish away their consequences. But neither are we condemned to remain forever the people those experiences made us.

Abram was seventy-five when God called him. Sarai was sixty-five. Rabbi Akiva was forty when he began studying Torah. Moses was eighty when he confronted Pharaoh. At every age, at every stage, the possibility of becoming remains.

The heroic stories of our people are not measured merely by riches amassed or battles won. They are found in the quieter, sometimes harder work of transformation: the courage to begin again, break a habit, admit a mistake, seek forgiveness, learn anew, love anew, trust anew.

That is the promise of Lech Lecha. The promise of what it means to be a descendant of Abraham. No matter how long we have lived, no matter how far we have traveled, the most important part of our becoming may still lie ahead.

Lech Lecha. Go forth. The journey is not over. Neither are we.

At the beginning of “An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Daniel Rynhold tells the following anecdote:

“Sometime in the 1990s, a philosophy department with which I was involved held a meeting at which candidates for admission were being reviewed. A colleague noted that a young woman who had been admitted believed in God, prompting another member of the department to retort: ‘Well, we’ll soon knock that out of her.’”

Rynhold quotes Bob Dylan in his assessment of that meeting: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Faith is disappearing. A 2022 Gallup survey found that 68% of adults aged 18–29 said they believe in God, compared with 81% of those aged 30–49 and 88% of those aged 50–64.

This reality is true throughout the Western world, but it is a sharp departure from the rest of the world. Joseph Henrich coined the acronym WEIRD, which stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The very culture of WEIRD societies fosters a bias against religious belief. Charles Taylor explains that the modern self is “buffered”: separated by a clear boundary from everything beyond the individual, including family and community. This boundary prevents people from reaching beyond themselves and experiencing authentic spirituality.

People in WEIRD societies no longer search for transcendence; God loses meaning when individualism and materialism reign.

Abraham grew up in a culture not so different from ours; his entire community was pagan. As Maimonides describes it, “He had no teacher, nor was there anyone to inform him. Rather, he was mired in Ur Kasdim among the foolish idolaters.”

But Abraham found faith on his own. How he did so is a matter of debate.

At what age did Abraham arrive at monotheism? In the Midrash there are two views, and even a millennium later, two medieval rabbis continued to debate this question. Maimonides writes that “Abraham was forty years old when he recognized his Creator.” The Raavad, Rabbi Avraham ben David of Posquières, immediately points out in his commentary that “there is an aggadic tradition that he was three years old.”

The views of Maimonides and the Raavad are autobiographical. They reveal how each approached faith. One can search for God as a philosopher or as a poet, through logic or inspiration. Maimonides was a philosopher. His Abraham is a wise forty-year-old who searches for the truth. Maimonides draws on a rich midrashic tradition to depict Abraham as someone who studies physics carefully and wonders how a world could be in constant motion on its own. He debates pagans about the absurdity of their beliefs. He preaches to others about what he has learned.

Maimonides’ Abraham is a mature man who finds God through logic.

But a three-year-old isn’t a philosopher. When the Raavad cites the tradition that Abraham was three, he is pointing to Abraham’s heart as the foundation of faith.

This debate remains relevant today, because we are all Abrahams again. We cannot take faith for granted, even in our own community. When I was growing up, a relative who was a highly accomplished academic always had some interesting things to say about God at the dinner table. In every synagogue I have led, congregants have approached me to declare their non-belief. Even colleagues have shared with me their own struggles with faith and doubts about God. They are all people I love, and some are genuine heroes. These encounters have both challenged me and shaped my understanding of faith.

So how does a contemporary Abraham find his way?

First, we need to think about the topic of God seriously. Sam Lebens, a professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa, wrote “A Guide for the Jewish Undecided.” It is a rigorous philosophical exploration of Judaism. More books like this are desperately needed.

One point Lebens makes at the outset is that one doesn’t need a decisive proof in order to believe in God. Even arguments that belief is more plausible than atheism are significant. For faith to be a worthy option, it need only be more plausible than the alternative.

For faith to be a worthy option, it need only be more plausible than the alternative.

Lebens then offers several such arguments. The laws of physics seem fine-tuned to allow the universe to support life; the odds that the cosmological constant would be finely tuned to the single point that allows life to arise are one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion. Yes, one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion.

In addition, the very notion of an orderly universe is far from a given, considering the other possibilities. As Einstein put it, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” We can expect the laws of nature to continue unchanged. We know the sun will come up tomorrow, even if we have absolutely no proof that it will do so.

Religious philosophers raise many other arguments, from the mystery of human consciousness to the riddle of why humans evolved into a philosophical species instead of simply becoming clever predators.

When we consider all the elements that are necessary for our world to be as it is, the question is obvious: What are the odds of all this happening on its own?

If Maimonides were alive today, these are the types of arguments he would make.

But the Raavad’s Abraham deserves our attention as well. Even a three-year-old can connect to a faith that begins in the heart, with the inner intimations of the divine.

One example lies in our intuitions about morality and love. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sees this idea as the foundation of Abraham’s faith. Sacks quotes the following Midrash:

“Rabbi Yitzchak said: This may be compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace in flames. He wondered: ‘Is it possible that this palace has no one to look after it?’ The owner of the palace looked out and said to him: ‘I am the owner of the palace.’ So too, because Abraham our father wondered, ‘Is it possible that this world has no one to look after it?’ the Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said to him: ‘I am the Master of the World.’”

Like the palace, the world has enormous beauty. And like the palace, the world is in disorder. Evil reigns, ready to destroy all that is good.

Man is called to fix the world. As Sacks puts it, “Judaism begins not in wonder that the world is as it is, but in protest that the world is not as it ought to be.”

Abraham’s journey to God begins with his moral consciousness.

Our instinctive sense of morality is a foundation of faith. Without God, all is permitted; morality has no firm anchor. This argument also goes in the other direction: There is something about love that is so transcendent that it gives us a glimpse of the otherworldly.

Belief also arises from the experience of awe.

Dacher Keltner, in his book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”

Experiencing awe is still possible if we open our hearts. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about the importance of wonder, of being able to find the transcendent hidden in the mundane. He writes: “Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation … What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.”

This search for wonder starts at the beginning of the day: Upon waking each morning, we recite the short Modeh Aniprayer, which thanks God for granting us another day of life. We begin amazed by the blessing of our very existence. This brief prayer opens the door to wonder in the hours that follow.

Keltner notes there are many sources of awe: nature, love, beauty, intellectual epiphanies. Some people feel God is with them when their children are born. Others experience a moment of transcendence on seeing the beauty of nature. There are times during prayer when many feel an encounter with something greater than themselves. Most people feel a profound sense of awe when witnessing “moral beauty,” the courage and kindness of heroes.

Even Jewish history can be a source of wonder. Blaise Pascal wrote, “For whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy … of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify.” Pascal knew a long shot when he saw one. He recognized that the very survival of the Jewish people is a statistical wonder.

But it is lonely to be a long shot. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik describes Abraham during his early years, before God appeared to him:

“The Almighty did not immediately respond to Abraham. … Cynical pagan opponents asked: Why doesn’t the Almighty answer you? Why can’t He prove His existence to us?…Abraham exposed himself to the worst of all tortures: ridicule …

“Abraham believed in an invisible, unapproachable, silent Being. … The pagans could not grasp it! They ridiculed Abraham’s irrational loyalty to God. Their lack of understanding turned into hostility, and they began to persecute Abraham.

“However, Abraham’s faith was not affected.”

So many lonely Jews today feel the burden of this very same ridicule. But we carry on, ignoring the trolls and hecklers, pursuing goodness and inspiration.

Just as Abraham did.

---

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.