Blessings?
God promises Avraham a lot of great things, blessings of abundant descendants and a sacred land. And yet, at each and every turn, there are obstacles to this promise coming into fruition for Avraham. There is a famine in the land and he must leave it. Later the land is torn apart by war and destruction. Meanwhile, in terms of progeny, Avraham’s wife Sarah continues to be barren for a long time, and even when Avraham manages to have a child through Hagar, his concubine, he ends up having to banish that child from his home. And then, just when he finally does have a child through Sarah, he is told to sacrifice that child. God’s blessings, when and if they come to Avraham, do not come easily or quickly, but with much disruption and uncertainty.
As if to compound matters, at the end of the parsha, right after the story of the akedah (Genesis 22:20-24), Avraham receives a message about how well his brother Nahor has been faring. Avraham is told that this brother who, unlike him, never received a divine blessing of abundant progeny, this brother has had 8 children through his wife and 4 more through his concubine, while Avraham, whom God did bless, has struggled to have one child from each. What a contrast!
It often looks bad. It often looks like God’s blessings in the world are not in fact coming to fruition. Similarly, in the story of the exodus, when God sends Moshe to Pharaoh to begin the process of redemption and demand that the people be set free, initially what happens is that things get worse – the slaves’ load is made heavier, not lighter (Exodus 5). Sometimes, often, the workings of God’s blessings and redemptive energy in the world are not clear or quick or linear. Things get worse before they get better.
What is your experience of this phenomenon, the sense that things don’t look like they are going in a good direction, either personally or globally, the sense that God’s blessings and redemption do not seem to be playing out as you think they should? What feelings does this experience evoke in you – despai, anger, fear, a loss of faith?
How do we orient in such an unredeemed world? How might the story of Avraham help us cope?
Faith
The first thing to notice is how Avraham keeps on going, undeterred, through thick and thin, always staying faithful to God and to God’s promise, believing in it despite the odds, despite all evidence to the contrary. Veheemin Bashem, the Torah says (Genesis 15:6). He has emunah, faith. As the Ani Maamin song goes, af al pi sheyitmahmeha, even though the Messiah, the redemption, continues to tarry, I still believe in its arrival and await it each day. We can develop such a steadfast faith in redemption, a steadfast faith that goodness will ultimately prevail. That’s what faith is; it means staying true and believing in something even if it doesn’t seem to be working out right now. We will be thrown down again and again, obstacles come our way, it will seem that all is for naught, and yet to have faith means to pick yourself up each time and keep going. It is a strength and a power, this emunah, the energy of staying with, staying with yourself, staying with others, staying with God and the promise of a redeemed world. Come what may, I will stay the path.
Regular Contact With God
This is hard, really hard. Looking at Avraham, what seems to have sustained him through the challenges was regular contact with God. Avraham’s narratives are interspersed with frequent appearances and conversations with God. He is continuously and deeply connected to God and this connection nourishes him. How do we move towards such intimacy, towards such deepening relationship with God? You might think it is only for the elite. Not so. Karov Hashem lekhol korav. God is close to all those who call out for such closeness (Psalm 145:18). We just have to ask for it, to desire it.
Sitting in the Opening
How does this work? In the beginning of our parsha, God appears to Avraham as he is sitting petah ha’ohel (Genesis 18:1), in the opening to the tent, perhaps the tent of meeting, like the ohel mo’ed, the tent of meeting God. When we sit and open to God like that, waiting and open and in touch with our desire, we invite God into connection with us. But we do have to sit, to be yoshev, like Avraham, to make the time and the space, to be ready and open. Maybe sensing that possibility in yourself, to sit like Avraham in the opening to the tent of meeting with your God, your Higher Power however you understand it, to sit and wait quietly, gently, without forcing or controlling or efforting, just opening to what wants to appear.
Talking to God
Avraham also shows us another way of developing intimacy with God – talking to God, being in regular dialogue, especially about things that bother us. The destruction of Sodom and Amorah bothered Avraham. What did he do? He talked to God about it (Genesis 18:23-33). What is bothering you right now? Have you talked to God about it? Shared what is on your heart? Even wrestled with God over it? You can pause and turn to God at any moment, speaking what is on your mind and in your heart, honestly and sincerely, whatever it is, however small or large, the truth of it. When we talk to God, the deepest truth inside us untangles itself from all its coverings. And if it feels hard – you don’t know what to say – then telling God about that, about what makes it hard, and asking for help to be able to open up and speak. Hashem sefatay tiftah. Open my lips, God, open my heart to You, so I can speak to you and be close.
Becoming Like a Tree
When we talk to God, it is not because it solves our problems. Nothing really changed as a result of Avraham’s dialogue with God about Sodom. The cities were still destroyed. And yet so much changed – so much can change inside you. The connection itself bolsters you, buoys you. You feel heard and held and loved through it. You become grounded in faith and optimism and resilience and strength. You become like a tree, deeply rooted in this connection to God which sustains you and holds you firmly and steadfastly so that you do not topple over in the storm. Your feet are rooted into the ground with a sense of faith and connection to the source of all life. There may be outer branches and parts of you that get swung about in the wind, quite wildly and frenetically at times, but at your base, you are still rooted, unshakable and resilient. This is “radical optimism.” The word radical actually comes from the word root. When we root our optimism in a connection to God it becomes radical, it becomes rooted and steadfast (See Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism).
Long Range Perspective
A tree also stands in place for a long time and witnesses a lot of history go by, many trends and conflicts and crises and changes, and still the tree stands through it all, in it for the long haul, not getting too caught up in each event. Can you feel that capacity in your own tree-like body? It is the capacity to stand witness and stay faithful through storms of change and conflict, come what may, time passes and you stay firm, riding it all out. This is a divine perspective, this long range perspective, the perspective that God offers Avraham, bringing him outside and showing him the whole spread of the land and the stars in the sky and telling him about a future 400 years away, offering him a glimpse of eternity. Maybe you can let that vast spaciousness of time and space enter your system and calm you. We get so caught up in this one tiny moment of history, of our own tumultuous lives, this crisis in our family or community or country. Stepping out of that tight spot into a broader view, taking the spaciousness into your body, letting it undo all the tight knots of worry, letting them all dissolve into the vast ocean of time.
Be A Blessing
Maybe, like a tree, too, once we are nourished and grounded, we have blessings to offer the world, like shade and fruit and oxygen. We can offer those blessings now from this grounded calm place. Because when faced with a challenging situation beyond our control, we often get restless and anxious, filled with urgency about what to do, how to help, to stop, to change things. And I believe the Torah’s answer to what to do lies in the last line of that initial blessing God gave Avraham: Veheyeh brachah. “And you shall be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). You yourself shall be the blessing. In a world where the blessing seems not to be coming into fruition, be the blessing you want to see. Be the love. Be the peace. Be the kindness. Be the faith. Heyeh brachah. Be the blessing.
Notice it is not about what we do per se. To be a blessing is not so much a call to doing as it is a call to being, a call to a way of being in the world that takes seriously our own divine blessedness and belovedness and spreads that same sense of blessedness and belovedness to others. Blessings by nature multiply exponentially. To become a blessing means to become a vessel for divine blessing to spread in the world like light, to inhabit fully your own light and let that effortlessly spread and kindle other lights far and wide.
Maybe you can notice in yourself any sense of restlessness and anxiety around what to do, how to be helpful, and you can offer that urgency a glimpse of the tree again, rooted in a connection to God, and sense how, to be rooted that way is indeed to become a blessing, to grow like a tree into a strong trunk and then branches and blossoms and maybe some fruit and to offer yourself in this way as a blessing to the world, a blessing that emerges organically out of your own groundedness. There is so much that we don’t control. To be a blessing is our steadfast response to all that we don’t control. And it is enough. We are not in charge of its effects; we are not in charge of the outcome.. Be a blessing and trust the ripples, maybe not in this moment, but long term, slowly shifting the tide, one drop of blessing at a time, bringing divine redemptive energy into the world.
This essay was inspired by my son Asher’s dvar Torah on Parashat Lekh Lekha.
Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels
