Go Forth

Before we even know anything about Avram, the man who will become Avraham the Patriarch, we learn about God’s command: “Go forth [or, get yourself going] from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Bereshit 12: 1). In this land, Avram will become “a great nation,” blessed, and a blessing to all peoples (12:2-3). Avram did not hesitate but “went forth as God had commanded him” (12:4).

By no means am I Avram. But I’ve been thinking about him often as I pack up my belongings and fly to Israel. What does it mean to go forth, to leave your land, your birthplace, your father’s house?

While I’m hesitant and apprehensive and anxious, I am perfectly willing to go forth to a new land, to live by a Jewish rhythm under a Jewish calendar, to immerse myself in the Hebrew language, to learn new customs and explore the beauty of Jerusalem, an ancient city with a vibrant, modern life. I’m perfectly willing to leave Brooklyn (my land)—for a time—and travel around Israel, walking on the land of the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), climbing the high points, floating in Yam HaMelach (the Dead Sea).

But leaving my birthplace, leaving my father’s house… ?

My Dad jokes that I’ve converted in more ways than one: lesbian, Jew, New Yorker. As long as I don’t become a Yankees fan, though, I haven’t traveled too far.

I left my birthplace a few times, depending on how you count it. The night before I started college, just twenty minutes from my childhood home, I felt like I was leaving my birthplace forever. And when I moved from the Boston area to Washington, DC, I learned to live outside New England, away from the familiar accent, the good pizza dough in the supermarket, the cobblestone streets and Colonial history. Then I moved to New York, to Brooklyn, and found a new land that began, quickly, to feel like home, hopefully the birthplace of some future Kramer-DeBlosi children.

Maybe leaving my father’s house simply means making a house of my own, creating an adult life. I did this years ago, Rachel and I confirmed it in 2004 when we met under the chupah and committed ourselves to establishing our own Jewish home.

But, when you’re a convert to Judaism, the notion of leaving “your birthplace and your father’s house” is more complicated than striking out on your own to live in a different building, in a different city.

For Avram, leaving his father’s house meant moving, sure, but it also meant leaving the religion of his family—a religion he was skeptical of all along, say the Sages. For Avram, that leaving was seemingly simple, as easy as smashing the powerless idols sold in his father’s store, gods of wood and stone who cannot see, cannot hear, cannot smell, cannot eat.

When I left the religion of my family, I did not do it with the simplistic surety that my parents are wrong and I am right, that their Christianity is tantamount to bowing to false idols while my Judaism is Truth. For me, Judaism is true and right; it enriches my life and provides me with a way to connect to others, to challenge myself to live ethically, to experience joy and wonder and gratitude. But I never want to imply that, in becoming Jewish, I have smashed the religion of my parents into so many splinters, so much dust. I left, yes—completely, sincerely. But I left as an individual, and my family continues to practice Christianity, completely, sincerely.

As I leave my land, my birthplace, and my father’s house—places one never leaves completely and leaves over and over again—I want to think about this going forth as a continuing challenge to learn the meaning of and eventually to enact the call God made to Avram: to be a source of blessing for all peoples. It’s not an abandonment but a crossing. Avram is, after all, “Avram Ha-Ivri,” Avram the Hebrew, the one who crosses over to a new land, a new way of life. I hope to do so without cutting off the past, to do so as an act of connection.