In this week's Parsha, Parshat Lech-Lecha, G-d says to Avraham, “Go from your land, from your birthplace and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you” where G-d tells him he will become a great nation. Avraham along with his wife, Sara and nephew Lot, travels to Canaan where Avraham builds an altar and speaks the message of the one G-d. 

Throughout this Parsha we see Avraham go through a series of trials and tribulations.  A famine leads them to Egypt where Sara is taken to the Pharaoh but Avraham is able to escape death by claiming that he and Sara are siblings. A plague stops the Egyptian king from seducing Sara, persuading him to return her to Avraham and reward the brother-turned-husband with gold, silver, and cattle before insisting they leave Egypt. We then see Lot, Avraham’s nephew, separate from Avraham and settle in the evil city of Sodom. He is taken captive when Chedorlaomer's armies and his three allies conquer the five cities of the Sodom Valley. Avraham leads a small group to rescue his nephew, overcomes the four kings, and is praised by Malki-Zedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem).

Now, what can we take from this story filled with twists and turns? One simple message can be derived, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it clearly: ‘there is heroism in ordinary life...’ 

But what does he mean? To give some context, Avraham is the founder of Judaism. He also can be credited for two other religions, Christianity and Islam, which both trace their spiritual origins to him. Together they have more than half of the world's population as followers. So if he was such a hero, why doesn’t he fit in the ‘conventional’ image of a religious leader? As Rabbi Sacks says, “He is not, like Noah, the sole survivor of a world hastening to its destruction. He is not, like Moses, a law-giver and liberator. He is not like the later Prophets, people who spent their life confronting Kings, wrestling with their contemporaries and “speaking truth to power”. But we see through this parsha that Avraham is indeed a hero, saving Sara, rescuing Lot and following G-d’s commands throughout. 

But, when we think of words to describe a hero we are conditioned to think strong, brave, extra-ordinary: Avraham challenges this, as his primary qualities can be identified as faithful, hospitable, kind and humble. All simple qualities that we can possess in our ‘ordinary’ lives to emulate true heroism. 

In the words of Rabbi Sacks, “To be Jewish, to be a child of Abraham, is to have the courage to be different, to challenge the idols of the age, whatever the idols and whichever the age. In an era of polytheism, that meant seeing the universe as the product of a single creative will – and therefore not meaningless but coherent, meaningful.” 

This quote displays the complex yet clear lesson that can be derived from this parsha. To put it simply, we can all be heroes in our ‘ordinary’ lives as long as we remember the most crucial traits; faithfulness, kindness and humility. 

Thank you and Shabbat Shalom

Lili, Grade 11