Like Avram, It's Time to Go

This week’s Torah Portion Lech Lecha (go, or leave), opens with God’s command to Avram to leave everything he has known—his birthplace, family and the culture he grew up with—and move to a land “that I will show you.” He is asked to leave behind his family and embrace an unknown future in order to create a new world. He has complete trust in God and that God will show him the way. 

This weeks portion reminds me of my own journey to becoming a rabbi. I had complete faith that I would be shown the way and I have been. And now as my studies are coming to an end I hear outside voices constantly worrying about the state of the Jewish community.

As I have stated before, I believe this is an exciting time to be Jewish and to be a rabbi. As someone who converted to Judaism, I have not inherited Jewish trauma from the past or anxiety about our future. In fact, I feel that Judaism has liberated me, and made me free. Since converting I have become a better activist, a better ally and have been able to live up to my potential. Please don’t misunderstand, I am well aware that antisemitism still exists in the United States.

I also fill fortunate that my rabbinic training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has made me a very forward thinking rabbi. My training has taught me to bring in the past, use our traditions but not to be stuck in the old ways of doing things just because we have always done them that way.

As God tells Avram Lech Lecha (go or leave) and Avram trusted God to go. I too believe that it’s time for me to leave rabbinical school, head out on an adventure and I too have trust that God will show me the way.