Lech Lecha

OK, let me begin with an admission, that I have a particular affinity for Parasha Lech Lecha, as this is my Parasha, that I read for my Bar Mitzvah. Were it not for my experiences leading up to that day, I'd not be writing these words now, and I owe an incalculable debt to my father and my Rabbi for their roles.

OK, and to the Brandeis University Grad Student who taught me my Torah and Haftorah portions. So Moshe Peru, wherever you are, thank you.

Lech Lecha this year also marked the Bar Mitzvah of a cousin of mine, at a shul I used to be affiliated with a number of years ago. I'm not comfortable there today as my own path in Judaism has led me to a far more traditional practice, but there was some comfort in being in the same space where I once led my infant children onto the Bimah to sing "Adon Olam", where my (then) wife and children were called to open and close the Oron Kodesh before leaving Washington DC. I got to talk with my daughter's preschool teacher, and to kvell about all she has accomplished over the years and her upcoming trip to Israel with her classmates.

My cousin did a respectable job, albeit I found it, well, minimal. When my peers and were called as B'nai Mitzvah, even at the Reform shul I learned in, the expectation was to chant Torah and Haftorah (and if we didn't chant the whole parasha, it certainly felt like it!). When my older son and his peers were called not three years ago, they did the whole thing as well, and when my younger son and his peers are called (G-d willing) in the next three years, they too will, as well.

I wonder what my cousin will take away from this experience, which way his life will go. Did his learning to this day plant the seeds in him that will lead to a life of Torah and Mitzvot? Will he become, like many of my peers, like the peers of my children from their days here in Washington, become regulars at service (twice a year, once on the first day of Rosh Hashanah and once on Yom Kippur)? Will he remember that Lech Lecha is a special Parasha, the first in which only good and wonderful things happen, or the DJ at the elaborte lunch at the fancy hotel?

One day, I expect he will return to Israel (he was there once before, albeit at age 6...). I hope he connects with Eretz Yisrael. We need all types of Jews, learned and not as learned, observant and not as observant, but it seems almost a foreign concept to me, how a Jewish man or woman could look upon and be in Eretz Yisrael and not realize this is our home and that these are our ways.