Hello everyone, I’m Kate Behrman, a sophomore here at Trinity and one of the co-presidents of Hillel – the center for Jewish life on campus.
As a former Jewish day school student, I spent much of my childhood studying the Torah. In preparation for becoming a Bat Mitzvah, a Jewish ceremony for the transition into womanhood, I studied the Book of Genesis heavily. Like the talkative and curious person I am, I would bother my Bat Mitzvah tutor with great theological and philosophical questions about God and Abraham. Why Abraham? Why would Abraham leave everything behind because God said so? Why did he trust in God despite the constant tests?
But, as there is never one answer in the Jewish tradition, as so much of our liturgy is Rabbi’s arguing with each other, I had to start to do my work to understand — why Abraham? Known as the father of the Jewish people, Abraham had a humble beginning. In the Book of Genesis, the Torah portion Lech Lecha, meaning go forth or go for yourself, tells the story of God commanding Abraham to leave his homeland and go on a journey to a land that God will show him. God sent him to the land of Canaan and promised to make him a great nation, through whom the nations would be blessed. In midrash, interpretations of the Torah, it is said that the call for “lech lecha” was made to everyone. But Abraham was the one who listened to God’s call and answered it. God and Abraham made a deal, that in return for Abraham’s obedience, righteousness, and loyalty, his descendants would be abundant. This is the beginning of the covenant between God and the Jewish people.
I once listened to a powerful speech by Rabbi Benay Lappe, a rabbi and brilliant educator who explains the covenant between Abraham and God in a unique way. She understands the covenant as the core of what she calls the Jewish people’s “master story.” With our master story, our centuries and centuries of history, there have been what Benay Lappe calls “crashes.” Within our history, there have been moments of persecution and injustice, like the destruction of the 2nd temple, the Holocaust, and even modern-day antisemitism. With these crashes, we have responded to hardship in three different ways according to Benay Lappe: denying our faith, abandoning it, or renewing our covenant with God.
Abraham also inhabits the spirit of a nomad or the “wandering Jew.” Jews, throughout time, have always been wandering when we do not feel belong or are being pushed out. There is a joke that Jews make about Jewish holidays about persecution that goes like this, “They tried to kill us, they failed, now let’s eat.” I would argue that what defines us as Jews is not our suffering but rather our persistence and willingness to go forth, Lech Lecha, just like Abraham. Although my physical Jewish wandering journey was not 40 years in the desert, I continue to feel the wandering spirit of my ancestors, my family who faced expulsion and persecution, and the wandering spirit of Abraham. I feel a constant sense of spiritual wandering as a Jew, a feeling of action and movement within my Jewish spirit. But, with the “crashes” I see in history or in the news, I do not feel alone in my spiritual wandering but rather comforted for Abraham wanders alongside me.
In Genesis, God tells Abraham, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” Abraham dreamed of a great Jewish nation, he dreamed of me when looking up at the stars that God promised him. He dreamed of positive action, curiosity, and open-mindedness. And maybe you are here to learn more about how our faiths intersect or how Abraham brings us together. Or maybe just for the food. Regardless, I hope one thing you can take away from my speech is that Abraham implored us to believe in something greater than ourselves, have a wandering spirit, be curious, be open-minded, and listen to others. This is the simple beauty of interfaith: channeling your inner Abraham, exploring uncharted territories, always asking questions (like my 13-year-old self), and keeping your heart open. Thank you.
