This Shabbat’s Torah reading begins with G‑d’s words to Abraham: “Go forth from your land…to the land that I will show you.” This is the first communication between G‑d and Abraham, the first Jew, which is related in the Torah. With this instruction G‑d also transmitted to Abraham an important foundation of Judaism, lesson number one which every Jew must study and implement.
Every human being has goals and aspirations. While sometimes we may temporarily stall in the course of this journey, our aims always simmer in the recesses of our minds, eventually boiling over and propelling us onwards.
As Jews, our aspirations also include a natural desire to become more spiritually attuned and thus draw nearer to our Father in Heaven. In this area everyone’s ambitions are “personalized;” reflecting his or her understanding and appreciation for Torah and mitzvot.
G‑d instructed Abraham, and indeed every one of his Jewish descendants, to embark on a journey. Interestingly, G‑d did not inform Abraham of his final destination. He merely instructed Abraham to keep on traveling until he would receive an indication from Above that he had reached the “Promised Land” and his journey had ended.
Having a defined goal is beneficial in other areas of life, but only serves as a handicap in a person’s spiritual life-journey. It is certainly wise to carefully plan the next segment of the journey, but the destination itself must remain open-ended. G‑d is infinite; the divine essence of every Jewish soul is infinite; so why place limitations on the heights one wishes to achieve?
At the outset of his divinely ordained voyage, seventy-five year old Abraham had no clue what lay in store for him when he arrived at his eventual destination. It is safe to assume that he never dreamt of arriving in a land “flowing with milk and honey,” a land which would be bequeathed to the descendants of a child who would be miraculously born to his barren wife Sarah. He had no idea that as a result of this journey his descendants would be chosen by G‑d to be His ambassadors to this world, chosen to have the privilege of illuminating the globe with the light of Torah and mitzvot.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” We too have the ability to accomplish far more than we can imagine in our wildest dreams. But the first step is embarking on an open-ended journey – “the sky’s the limit”.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Raleigh Resnick