Lech Leach: Aliya

Monday Morning, at 5 0'clock, as a day began....my daughter Shoshana went to Israel.  Her visa was for aliya, an emigration of ascent. 

Like Avram in the parsha, she left the land of her birth and went to her future, the place that  will be revealed to her. This is a common transition for a recent graduate, aliya to Israel gives it a special flavor.  This is the land that was shown to Avram.  A land with conflict and troubles, but they both went...Avram and his distant descendant, Shoshana. 

The overriding theme of lech lecha  is courage. 

 Avram leaves his comfort zone,

 almost starves in the new land, 

seeks refuge in an Egypt 

    that kills husbands to acquire their wives 

          who are then traded up to the rulers, 

defeats the dominant military power of his era 

   to save a nephew

      ( who has some questionable values),

 and invents a urological procedure that he performs on himself

    and promises to continue, as a covenant, on male babies born to his household. 

Why does Gd ask for courage?  Perhaps, relative to Gd, that is all people have to offer.