Shabbat Lech-Lecha 5785

Sermon delivered at Westchester Reform Temple, Friday, November 8th, 2024

Dear Samson,

I wouldn’t blame you if you’d rather think about sports or music or video games or even school, anything but the Election of 2024.  

Still, I hope you’ll indulge these few words.  2024 is the last time you will be a bystander to a Presidential Election.  Today you are a sophomore at Mamaroneck High School.  In November 2028, you will (presumably) be a sophomore in college.  I also voted in my first Presidential election my sophomore year, in 1992, and I remember how thrilling it felt to participate directly in the project of American democracy.  It still thrills, whatever the outcome.  I’m excited for you to experience this in just a few years.  

Between now and then, I hope you’ll give serious thought to what it means to be an American Jew, and how you will grow into this identity, because that’s who will cast his vote in 2028. An American Jew.  

I believe it is an extraordinary privilege to be an American Jew.  It is a heritage that came to you not by choice, but which you must now affirm for yourself.  This is the essential promise you made a little over two years ago when you spoke about Jewish adulthood, maturity, responsibility, blah blah blah—all the stuff every Bar or Bat Mitzvah says, but which remains a promise only partially fulfilled until later in life, if ever.  In any case, if the history of human adolescent development is any indication, I feel confident that the next four years will prove formative for how you will choose to show up as a grownup in a reeling world.

I’m writing this letter the week of Parashat Lech-Lecha, so, naturally, I seek guidance in these words of Torah.  Our portion revolves around the figure of Abraham: his journeys, his family, his adventures and trials.  Mostly, though, this is a parasha about self-discovery, character formation, and moral courage.  

God’s first words to Abraham are Lech-Lecha which give the portion its title.  Idiomatically we translate Lech-Lecha “go forth” but the Rabbis read the words literally:  Lech, “Go,” L’cha, “unto yourself.”¹  God sent Abraham off to discover a new land, a new religion, a new people, yes, but also to discover Abraham.  After self-discovery, everything else would follow. 

You too are entering an age of self-discovery.  With adolescence comes the realization that not every adult can be trusted or believed; not every authority should be followed; politicians, professors, parents, and even well-meaning uncles who happen to be rabbis may have their own interests and agendas that are not in line with your emerging moral sensibilities, values, and priorities.  I am not recommending dismissing these voices out-of-hand because, in the main, I like to think that the grownups in your life have your best interests at heart.  But, increasingly, you’ll have to decide for yourself what is best. 

And as you do, as you make your own introspective Lech-Lecha journey, I hope you will center your heritage as an American Jew in your emerging character and as a source of moral courage.  I hope you will invest time and thought and effort to study our history, tradition, and moral priorities, which anchor our experience as American Jews.  I hope you will internalize that your Jewish heritage is not an old scroll to be dusted off and paraded around for ceremonial purposes but rather an Etz Chayim, a living tree of immense beauty, wisdom, and spiritual nourishment.  

I hope you will remember that you are part of a people whose story runs 3,000 years deep, as wide as the globe, and whose roots are planted in the soil of Eretz Yisrael, our Biblical homeland, which, for all its difficulties and dilemmas, is still home to half of your global Jewish family, whose destiny is inextricably bound up with your own, and whose thriving as a vital, secure, and democratic Jewish state—essential to the Jewish future—is up to us. 

And I hope you will remember that your American heritage has allowed your Judaism to thrive in a country founded on the precept of religious freedom for all.

Your American Jewish heritage confirms that immigration is a source of national strength and pride.  Your ancestors, all of my great-grandparents, came here because to be a Jew in Russia at the turn of the 20th century was either a dead end or a death sentence.  They came here to escape antisemitic mistreatment and violence.  Your great-grandfather, my Pop-Pop Acky (he was Grammy’s father) fought as a combat medic with the First Marines in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, believing, rightly, that there was no dissonance between being a devoted Jew and a patriotic American, no matter one’s political party. 

Your family continues to demonstrate that civic engagement is a Jewish value. Aunt Kelly spent Election Day as a poll-worker, her small contribution toward ensuring the free and fair elections that stand as the cornerstone of American Democracy.  She told me how moving it was to see parents taking their kids to vote, how a number of first-time voters, some of them advanced in age, proudly cast their ballots.  She heard tons of different languages, saw people of every skin color and cultural background, each bringing their own distinctive voices and values to their votes.  

You are an American Jew, with values rooted in these symbiotic identities.  I hope you remember that when we talk about our “values,” especially as proud American Reform Jews, we mean all of the following, in no particular order:  

• Honoring the dignity of every human being; 
• Protecting the rights of the disenfranchised:  whether of women to bodily and reproductive autonomy, or of refugees to safety and opportunity, or of the poor to health care, or of minorities to equal treatment under the law;
• Recognizing the centrality of Israel to Jews and Judaism; 
• Combating the ever-metastasizing evil of antisemitism, whether here or abroad, whether it comes from anti-Israel activists on the left, or White Nationalists on the right;
• Protecting our precious environment and natural resources; 
• Providing tzedakah for the needy;
• Curbing gun violence and saving lives; 
• Cultivating our education and critical reasoning;
• Laboring for the greater good;
• Living and loving beyond ourselves and our narrow self-interest.

If I had to boil my list down to one line, I’d choose a precept from Pirkei Avot, an almost-2,000-year-old collection of Jewish wisdom:  Ba-makom she-ein anashim, hishtadel lihiyot ish.  “In a place where no one is a mensch, be a mensch.”²  

Still, the way I see it, we Jews ought not be “one-issue” voters because Judaism is not a one-issue way of life.  Of course what we may choose to emphasize from a long list of authentic Jewish values remains a personal choice, but there is no single “best” or overriding Jewish value or priority.  We should never be demeaned for how we vote or which political party we favor, so long as we act with Jewish thoughtfulness and integrity. 

I know that to you, four years must seem, like, really, really far away.  There are a thousand math lessons and English essays and standardized tests to get through, a permit and a license, college visits and applications, prom and graduation, shows to perform, baseball stadiums to visit, and destinations far and wide to explore.  I learned this week that taking out the trash has been added to your roster of household responsibilities, so I would not wish to overwhelm you with too many other grown-up headaches.  Unfortunately for you, and for all of us, the world is an overwhelming place and often the only grown-up choice is to keep striding into the maelstrom, or, at least, down to the curb.

Abraham’s first journey, the journey of introspection, leads to his next journey—the journey of the rest of his life—a journey of moral courage.  

The ancient Rabbis explained this by way of a parable.  An ordinary person, they said, was going about his business, traveling from one place to another, when he noticed a castle in flames, and exclaimed, “Why is no one doing anything?  How can it be that there is no one to look after this palace?”  Just then, a voice called out from the highest balcony—already engulfed in the inferno—crying out, “I am the owner of the palace.”  At that moment, the midrash goes, God selected this ordinary person—Abraham by name—to begin the story of the Jewish people.³  

The Rabbis found that Abraham merited leadership because he saw the fire.  “Why is this happening?” he asked. “Why is no one doing anything?”  

What makes Abraham special is that he could see things not only for what they are, but for the way they could be.  

Sir Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory, who was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, explains:  “Judaism begins not in wonder that the world is, but in protest that the world is not as it ought to be.  It is in that sacred discontent that Abraham’s journey begins.”⁴  

Sacred discontent is what I wish for you, dear nephew.  In the coming days and months and years you will have to wade through endless streams of comments by and about our President-Elect.  What he said, what he did, what he posted online.  I often think you are the smartest member of our family for your comprehensive disengagement with social media.  With that said, this torrent of rhetoric will be unavoidable and you will have to figure out what it all means to you.  You will have to learn how to tune out much of it without excusing the worst of it, particularly the coarse and demeaning language reserved for women, minorities, immigrants, foreigners, people with disabilities like your siblings, Jakey and Shirah, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, political opponents, and the most vulnerable in our society.    

You will have to remember that in those places where hateful speech is permitted to flourish while truth-telling books are banned, where irrational conspiracy theories are amplified while science is shunned, where policies that promote liberty are suppressed while autocratic impulses are indulged, Jews have never fared well.

There will be times when you feel powerless to make a difference.  I know I often do.  These are turbulent and precarious times and I do not know any better than anyone what will happen with Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, NATO or North Korea over these next four years; or what our poor, fractured country will do with all its festering bile and clattering discord.  Personally, I wish each of our political parties and their leaders would take a big, long Lech-Lecha journey of introspection, character re-formation, and moral courage. 

But as for our journeys:  Abraham inspires us not only to hope and pray for a better tomorrow but also to work for it, which is simply another way of saying that we should plan to show up as Jews in the world at a time when the world needs us. You, and me, and all of us. 

Most of all, Samson, you will have to remember that to be an American Jew is not only an extraordinary responsibility but also an extraordinary opportunity, to journey deep within and emerge with Abrahamic character:  morally courageous, and never too content.

May God bless you, and all of us, too.   

Uncle Jon

1. See Genesis 12:1 and Rashi, ad loc. ↩︎
2. Pirkei Avot, 2:5. ↩︎
3. Based on Bereshit Rabbah, 39:1. ↩︎
4. Sacks, “A Palace in Flames: Family Edition.” ↩︎