Are they just stories?

 Every journey has a purpose.  

Sometimes it’s business. Sometimes it’s vacation. It could be a family event, or, G-d forbid, fleeing disaster as a refugee.  How monumental is each journey, and what impact does it have on the world?  Usually, none.  

 

But this week we read about one of the greatest and most impactful journeys in the history of the world.  Hashem tells Avraham (Bereshit 12:1,2) "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a blessing.”  

Let me tell you a bit of the backstory of Avraham’s journey. Contrary to popular belief, Genesis is not just a collection of children’s fables and dysfunctional family tales that we grow out of as adults.   These stories are given to teach us - in fact the meaning of the word, Torah, is “teaching” – lessons for living.

Think about it. Why would Hashem come down to Mount Sinai – in all his glory – just to tell us about a 75-year-old man who left home, went to Canaan, took a short jaunt down to Egypt, only to return right back to Canaan?  Should we really revere this scroll of stories as our most precious possession and make sure that our children, as well as adults, study the volumes within again and again every year?  

Does it make sense that myriads of texts have been written to discuss and explain these stories that happened so long ago?

 

Our Sages taught that “The stories of our forefathers are a sign to the children.”  Every step of Avraham and Sarah’s journey, as well as the rest of our forefathers, helped shape the future for our people.  Here are a few examples:

Hashem told Avraham to go “to the land that I will show you.”  This was the beginning of the transformation of the physical world into a domain for Hashem.  Kabbalah teaches that throughout the world there are spiritual “sparks” of hidden Divine energy.  When a person uses a physical object for a higher purpose, this “reveals the spark,” and, over the millennia this work prepares the world for redemption.  This refinement began with Avraham traveling the land “which I will show you,” meaning in a way that fulfills Hashem’s will.

Avraham and Sarah went to Egypt because of a famine in Canaan.  This was a test, because Hashem told them to travel to Canaan, and now, seemingly, things were not working out.  They left Egypt with great wealth and  continued the journey to “the South,” to the future site of the Temple Mount. Four generations later, their descendants were forced to go to Egypt because of a famine.  When the Jews were freed from slavery, something unheard of in those days, they too left with great wealth and journeyed to Israel, ultimately building the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Sarah was taken by Pharaoh, and miraculously he was unable to harm her.  The Torah testifies that although the Jews were slaves in immoral Egypt, none of the women were violated by their captors.

These are just a few examples of a much deeper understanding of what was happening with our forefathers, and show why our ancestors’ actions were so important to future generations.  Studying Torah this way brings us a whole new appreciation of its meaning and the messages it conveys.