To Build Like Abraham

To Build Like Abraham

Sermon Shabbat Lech Lecha 5782

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

We are enjoying the beautiful fall weather here in the Sonoran Desert, as our society moves towards fully opening in the aftermath of the COVID-19.  Perhaps, after a year and a half of Coronavirus strangeness, and then Delta variant scares, we are closer to ready to resume our lives more fully, and can try to reembrace creating, building and working to establish a new and better world.  And that is all to the good.  

In the aftermath of traumatic events we need to look around, assess the damage, and decide that we will start over.  When tragedy strikes and things go wrong, there is always an adjustment period that follows, and often it feels chaotic and disturbed.  But sooner or later we pick ourselves up, gather our resources, and begin to rebuild.

It happened for the first time, according to the Torah, with Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden.  It happened again for Cain after his brutal invention of murder, and his further exile.  It happened with Noah in last week’s Torah portion of the flood.  And in truth, it happens every time something in the world goes badly wrong, or even when something in our own world goes badly wrong and we have to pick up and—what’s that line from the old Jerome Kern song?  “Pick yourself up and start all over again.”

Some of that comes from the fact that there is a deep human need that many of us have, to build something enduring, something that will continue after we are gone.  We want to feel that we are part of an entity greater than ourselves, that we have made a material difference in living our lives.  And after things fall apart, most of us actually see an opportunity to rebuild and create something enduring.

For many people in history this has taken the form of creating a physical structure, a great construction project.  For others, it’s committing to serving their country in a dedicated way.  Still others find purpose in working for financial success, or seeking to create works of art or music or theater or literature that have lasting value.  And of course, some see their families as their great lifeworks.

 It’s true that not everyone has high ambitions for furthering their own posterity, but many—perhaps most of us—do.  We want to change the world, or enhance it at least, in meaningful ways that will outlast us, that will carry beyond the limited span we are given on this earth.

Judaism provides a prime example of a person who wished to transform the world based on a different kind of enduring project: a change in the way we perceive God and understand faith.  In the Torah this week we begin the story of Abraham, the first person who can truly be called a Jew, whose choice to dedicate himself to the belief in one God, and to practicing a form of ethical monotheism changed all western religion.  Coming of age in a world in which no one conceived of God as a unity, Abraham—first called Abram—sought a higher concept than “lots of gods making lots of ethical points of view.”  He had the pristine, powerful belief that there was only One God, and that One God had the power and authority to create a world of meaning and purpose and beauty. 

It was an incredible undertaking, and one that must have seemed impossible at times.  First, he had to convince an entire world dedicated to a morality dependent on various sources and the winds of change that there could even be One God and one source for right and wrong.  And then, he had to hope that someone would carry on after he himself was gone.  In fact, Abraham comes close to losing faith several times: he tells God that he has no child who can carry on his belief, and God has to reassure him with a covenant and the promise that sooner or later he will be the father of a great nation. 

Ultimately, of course, he succeeded.  But his own building program was unique: it was consisted creating a society, a civilization, a religion and a people who cared more about right than power, for whom justice mattered more than wealth, for whom decency was the central value not strength, and who strove to build a world of goodness, not an empire of domination.

You see, for Jews, as much as we love our synagogues, it’s not the buildings, or the organizations or the wealth that determine our success in passing on our values.  It’s not even the number of children or grandchildren we engender. It’s the way we are able to carry on the vision of our great founder, Abraham, in maintaining our commitment to that One God, and to advancing his unified concept of a world that God created based on justice and holiness.

That’s the true challenge of being Jewish, and the gift: to strive to make the world reflect the moral beauty of this quest on a daily basis.  It is our goal as Jews to work to build this into a world in which being good is valued highest, in which justice really exists for all, in which we protect and preserve the health and beauty of the earth as God gave it to us.

It’s a great mission indeed, and it’s one that every Jew has the responsibility to fulfill. 

Abraham’s legacy is secure—but it’s up to us to live to that standard.  And perhaps now, in the aftermath of a pandemic, more or less, we can reconsecrate ourselves to this very real, and crucially important rebuilding.

May this be our will.  And, of course, God’s.  Ken Yehi Ratson.