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October 18, 2002/Cheshvan 12 5763, Vol. 55, No. 8
Courage necessary to break with past
Torah study
RABBI NEIL GILLMAN
Lech Lecha/Genesis 12:1-17:27
My maternal grandmother influenced my life in countless ways. What I recall with particular relish are some of the seemingly casual comments she used to make about life. One day, she remarked, "Neil, never work for partners." I must have seemed puzzled because she quickly added, "When you work for partners, you never know who's the real boss who you have to please."
That piece of advice has never left me. It came to mind again this week as I reviewed the opening verses of this week's Torah portion.
This passage tells us about Avram, soon to become Abraham, who was commanded to depart from his land, from his birthplace and from his father's house, and travel to another land that God would show him. We can legitimately ask: What went on in Abraham's mind at that moment?
What impelled him "to break with his past and set out on an epic journey, setting in motion a process that was to be sustained throughout the entire course of biblical history?"
That formulation is E.A. Speiser's, in his introduction to the Anchor Bible edition of Genesis. We may even expand Speiser's question, for what Abraham set in motion was not simply biblical history, not only the entire course of Jewish history, but the history of Western civilization.
Speiser acknowledges that any attempt to answer his question is speculative. First, he notes that what Abraham was leaving behind was not only his father's house, but also the culture of Mesopotamia in the first half of the second millennium, which he describes as "a cosmopolitan, progressive, and sophisticated civilization," nothing less than "the most advanced land in the world."
Yet Abraham left it all behind. Why? Because, Speiser suggests, this rich cultural accomplishment concealed a fatal spiritual weakness. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic. "No one god was a law unto himself. ... All major decisions in heaven required approval by the corporate body. ... The upshot was chronic indecision in heaven and consequent insecurity on earth."
The Bible traces the beginning of the monotheistic idea to the age and the person of Abraham. Speiser's description of the world that Abraham was leaving behind helps us understand why the text uses the threefold emphasis: "your land, your birthplace, your father's house."
The heart of the monotheistic idea is the conviction that the world is ruled by one, unique, transcendent, all-powerful God, whose will governs all that transpires in heaven and on earth. To say that God is "one" is not simply to say that God is not two or more. In fact, it is axxa claim that all of history and nature constitute one complex system, governed by something akin to what contemporary physicists call an elusive "unified field theory."
Abraham was searching for a reframing of how he made sense of the totality of his experience in the world. It was a multi-dimensional step: psychological, social, cultural, political and spiritual. And it stemmed from a profound dissatisfaction with the foundation of Mesopotamia's polytheistic culture.
Like my grandmother, Abraham realized that to work for partners could only lead to a chronic insecurity that infected every corner of his life experience.
Abraham's break with his past constituted a radical revolution in the intellectual history of Western civilization, and it required unparalleled conviction and courage. But it has enjoyed a singular success and has endured to this day.
Rabbi Neil Gillman is professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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