Lech Lecha: The Journey Within and Beyond

As Joey and I are traveling this week, I’ve been thinking about journeys — how each one, no matter how ordinary, asks a measure of faith. Every trip is a small act of trust: that stepping away from the familiar might lead us toward something we need to find.

This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, begins with those same words of movement: Lech lecha — “Go forth,” or perhaps, “Go to yourself.” The Hebrew can be read either way, and that ambiguity might be the point. Are we being sent toward a new place, or toward a deeper version of ourselves?

Up to this moment, humanity’s relationship with God has been uncertain and incomplete. Adam stops speaking to God after the garden. Noah is righteous, but distant — obedient, yet silent. Generation after generation, God keeps calling — to Adam, to Noah, to Terach — until finally someone answers with more than compliance. Abram responds with trust. He steps into covenant.

Each beginning in Torah refines the connection between God and humanity. Creation was God’s beginning. Noah’s flood was humanity’s attempt to begin again. But Abram’s journey is something else entirely — not just a restart, but a relationship. It’s no longer about recreating the world; it’s about becoming someone who can walk with God.

To “go” and to “go to yourself” are not opposites. They are two sides of the same sacred motion. Sometimes the only way to discover who we are is to leave what we know behind. Abram’s road takes him far from home, yet every step brings him closer to his truest self. In leaving, he arrives. In going out, he goes in.

Maybe that’s what every new beginning really asks of us — not to abandon the past, but to carry ourselves forward into what’s next. Like Abram, we are ever-cycling through creation, renewal, and becoming — learning, again and again, that every outward journey is also a journey home.

,לך לך לברכה ולשלום
Lech lecha livrachah ul’shalom,
Go forth to blessings and peace,

Ben