Go Be a Blessing

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
congregation about Israel in Houston. One of the more challenging
conversations I had was with a young man in his twenties.
I'll never forget it. He came to talk about his
fear and anxiety that stemmed from violence and loss in
his life all around him. He told me about his friends,

(00:23):
some of whom were in jail, in trouble and very
often with the law, and many others too, who died
from gun violence. He was eager to know how to
understand what was happening and how to help his friends
in thoset honest and careful way that I could explain
that he wasn't able to change his friends, even if

(00:45):
he cared deeply about them, And if he and his
friends didn't choose to change their habits and behaviors, then
he could surely count on more violence, more trouble with
the law, and even the death of more friends, if
not his own. The true choice he had was what
he was going to do for himself first. The honest

(01:06):
conversation was eye opening for him. He heard that he
shouldn't count on any positive changes unless he took steps
to alter the direction he was going, and he heard
that his choices didn't come without also caring for his
friend's well being. Now he had to decide what would
be his next best step to alter his direction. What

(01:27):
did Torah have to tell him? My advice came from
a Torah portion we call lech lecha. It comes from
Genesis chapter twelve. This is a very familiar portion. It's
when God said to Abram, we know, as Abraham, go
forth from your native land and from your father's house

(01:48):
to the land that I will show you further. Rabbinic
commentators asked the question why didn't God show Abram the
place he was going immediately. Well, they explained that it
was to make the place more beloved in his eyes
as he came closer to it, and for each step
that Abraham took on his own toward the place, God

(02:09):
blessed him there. In contemporary terms, we might say that
it was a lesson in delayed gratification versus immediate gratification.
We would also use the word sweat equity. It's another
way of describing how God enabled Abraham to be a
partner in his own future. God promised to make Abram

(02:30):
a father of nations, which is a great reason to
go forth, and said to Abram as well, be a
blessing that we are not ourselves fathers or mothers of nations.
We are meant to be blessings to in our own
way and in our own day. The young man who

(02:51):
learned from me about Abraham began to understand his own choices.
He needed to go forth, to leave behind a checkered
and predictable path that regularly led to struggle, violence, and death.
Where he would go as not a given, But for
each step he would take, with support, counsel and faith,

(03:11):
he would likely find greater blessings and eventually a safer
and more secure destination. So far, the end of his story,
as it was for Abraham, was that he did find
a new direction, and the cycle of destruction did end
for him. Work, new friends, and new relationships flourished even

(03:32):
as he thought about and cared about people from his past. Now,
you and I know it doesn't always work out this way,
but for those who have support and counsel and faith,
something new and better can emerge. It takes time, it
takes courage. It also takes faith to find in oneself

(03:53):
what God has already created there. Feelings of youthful invincibility
take time to mellow when we enter young adult maturity.
If we give way to the change and welcome it
as part of life's journey, then what God created in
us can emerge in its right time and flourish in

(04:14):
ways we can only begin to imagine. It's not only
true about young adults, it true about all of us
in every age in stage that we enter. Someone said
to me recently that he was turning eighty years old
and that he was just a little jealous that he
wasn't as young as I am, though I'm surely growing

(04:35):
older too. I agreed with him, but I added that
even at my age, I'm a little jealous of him.
How So I told him that there's no guarantee that
I'll ever be eighty. With support, counsel and faith, I
hope to make it to eighty and beyond too. Through

(04:57):
the course of the conversation, he smiled and found for
a moment some satisfaction having made it to eighty and
God willing many more years to come. Go forth is
more than a command to lead. It's a command to
live and to become what we were created to be.
You see the Hebrew lech laha can be translated as

(05:21):
it often is in your own English translation of the
Hebrew Bible. It says go forth, But lehr is a
Hebrew word that means go in and of itself. Why
the laha? It doesn't really add anything more to the translation.
So the commentators of old also focused on this additional word. Lech,

(05:43):
they said, means go. Laha usually means to you or
for you. It's a possessive suffix very often, so le laha,
they said, go for yourself, go to you. In effect,
they said about it Abraham that when he left everything behind
to go to a place that God would show him,

(06:05):
Abraham is actually leaving behind his father's idols and all
of the pagean world that he had grown up in.
Going forth and going for himself meant that Abraham was
emerging to become the very person he was called to
be and created to be. I wouldn't say that you

(06:27):
or I have been called maybe inspired, perhaps we responded
to this still small voice within us. But were we
created to be something unique? Absolutely so we need to
go forth, and we need to go for ourselves to
find what it needs to be, and the rabbis described

(06:48):
Abraham as the father of nations, something we won't be.
But we can be the parents of our own children
and grandchildren, with the expectation that they might learn from
us many lessons, and we can model for them many
things they should be and do as well. But what
God said to Abraham as well in that particular portion

(07:09):
of Torah was be a blessing. Some translations say you
shall be a blessing, but be a blessing is a
marvelous way to feel commanded, to feel urged, and to
know that as long as God created us, and with
many qualities, attributes, and abilities, we have every reason to

(07:31):
believe that we can be a blessing too, if we
choose to do with what we've been given what we
should do with them. How many of us know, whether
it's ourselves or others, who have great potential, certain skills
and gifts, but they squander them. They don't spend any
time honing them and getting better at them. It's like

(07:55):
the old question how do you get to Carnegie Hall?
And the answer is practice, practice, practice. It's not the answer.
Perhaps somebody was looking for when they were asking literal
directions to Carnegie Hall in New York City. But we
all know that the only way to get to the
high place in our profession or personal life is to

(08:16):
do the very best that we can, and that's the point.
To be a blessing is very high standard, but it
doesn't need to frighten us from aiming to try to
do our very best. I've had people tell me that
my child is so bright, just lazy. Well, sometimes that's true.
Sometimes though, we overstate a person's potential or intelligence, and

(08:41):
we should give them a break so that they can
rise to the occasion that they can reach and be
the very best that they can in that place and
given that set of skills. But there are people like
ourselves who sometimes feel afraid to change course. That's why
the portion that says lehrech, go forth, or go for
yourself first is a great way of remembering that with

(09:04):
counsel support and faith, we can reach the new destinations
where we can be at our very best. It isn't
that Abraham was told where he was going, and that's
why the Rabbis made it clear in their interpretation that
not telling Abraham immediately is a profound lesson for humanity.
That it isn't always clear where we're going, but with

(09:25):
counsel support and faith and some renewed confidence in ourselves
and our abilities, we'll get where we need to be.
One of the challenges that faces young generations today is
that they're in a very big hurry to be the
next startup, to be the next billionaire and more. Many

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of us know that it's terrific. It's quite inspiring to
see some people come right out of the chute and
make a fortune, But truly life has lived much differently
than that. More often and most of us discover great
joys and great blessings that grow out of all that
we are over time, sometimes over many many years. And

(10:08):
finding perspective when one is fifty, sixty, seventy, and even
I just wrote a happy birthday card to somebody who's
turning one hundred this month. Find me perspective later in
life is a treat. It's a real gift. Even the
man who was turning eighty came to understand that being
eighty is not a loss, it's an achievement and it's

(10:31):
a blessing. I hope to be eighty one day two,
and maybe even more so when we go forth It
is certainly more than a command, more than a command
from God to Abraham, more than a command from God
to us. It's a command to live and to become
what we were created to be. Mindful of Torah's ethics

(10:52):
and Judaism's own hopes, we can arrive at destinations where
the fulfillment of our life's blessings can be found and celebrated.
Like Abraham. With gratitude, we can live, we can lead,
and we can grow and thrive to be a blessing
to I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston.

(11:14):
To listen again or share this message with others, please
find it in my podcast called Heart to Heart with
Rabbi David Lyon. You can find it at Sunny ninety
nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app. The fall is
here in many cities, including Houston. The temperatures have finally dropped,
and as I'm traveling to New York City shortly for

(11:37):
some meetings, I'm checking the weather up there colder than
we live here in Houston or in the South of
the United States, but all of us are going through
transitions as the fall holidays come. As nature turns and
we obey the rhythm of nature to so it might

(11:58):
be a great time to feel the push and the
urge even as the leaves are changing, as the temperature falls,
to feel the change that's coming through the wind, the rain,
and the temperature. How will we change? Are we just
going to bundle up and force our way through? Perhaps

(12:18):
we need to shift our orientation to and appreciate that
we must follow and obey the rhythm of nature as well,
and consider the change that needs to happen within us.
Will we do exactly what we've done? Will we find
something new about ourselves that we didn't know? Perhaps there
is a hobby or skill or interest that we've postponed

(12:42):
for many years for reasons that never really made much sense.
So maybe now, as the weather's changing and all things
are turning, it's time for us to turn to I
would urge you to do it again with support. You
don't have to go it alone. With counsel, get advice,
be sure what you're doing is safe and worthy, and

(13:04):
also with faith. Joy and happiness is a gift and
a blessing. Having confidence in what God has given you
to do and to get better at it is a
blessing too. Have faith in yourself and have faith that
what God created you to do and to be was
not to suffer or despair. We can learn from it,

(13:26):
but we don't aim for it. Let's aim for joy, happiness, prosperity,
and also aim for peace. And if we're able to
accomplish any more of all of that in our life
by turning just a bit, Let's be sure that we
express gratitude, because that gratitude will also connect us to

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others who need the same thing. We would be great
teachers or role models for those who are very close
to us, or those who are strangers to us, even
those at work, if we can model them how to
continue to become what God created us to be. None
of us is finished until the very end of our life.

(14:08):
All of us can grow, forgive, renew have hope, and
certainly thrive on greater faith. So, as God said to
Abraham leach Laha, I would say to you the same,
go forth, go for yourself. Let's see what this week
will be, perhaps even the month to come. But as
the seasons change and turn, it's a constant reminder that

(14:32):
all things are in flux, all things obey the rhythm
of nature, and though snow will probably not fall in Houston,
we pray each year the cold temperature is coming and
we shiver a little bit too. So let's move through
the rhythm of nature together, see what will come, and
see what will become of each of us. Thank you

(14:52):
for joining me today. I look forward to being with
you again next time.