SERMON LECH LECHA October 23, 2026 | 13 Cheshvan 5787
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington, Vermont
WALKING IN FAITH
There are many theories as to what caused the human evolutionary tree to diverge from that of other great apes.
Some say it was a random mutation that we were born with bigger brains and that was the key change.
Some claim it had to do with complex language being central to our brains and our way of understanding the world.
Some claim it was our impulse to cooperate from a very early age to accomplish shared needs, like food. Despite much evidence to the contrary, it is human nature to cooperate and that is different than our evolutionary cousins.
Some say it’s the use of tools.
One theory claims that we are an aquatic ape that evolved in shallow lakes areas and that’s why we don’t have as much body hair and why babies can swim from birth.
But one common explanation is that we evolved to come out of the jungle and our life in the trees to inhabit the savannahs, where we had to walk long distances for food and for hunting. We evolved to walk upright, we kept hair on our heads against the sun, and we lost hair and gained sweat glands on our skin to keep us cool as we walked long distances in the heat.
According to that, we humans are walkers first and foremost. Walking is foundational to what it means to be human. It is no wonder that for those who are able to walk, walking or running is such a grounding experience. Many of us think best while we walk.
While in Jewish tradition, we were created like this by God, the rabbis knew that there was something profound in walking, and this week’s Torah portion, Lech L’cha is key to this interpretation.
While Abraham’s name and lineage was given at the very end of last week’s portion, we first meet him in the opening words of Lech L’cha. We don’t learn of his childhood or his life, but instead we first meet Abraham when he is being commanded by God to leave his home and go to a place that God will show him. “Lech L’cha” are the words God uses. Lech L’cha. It is usually translated as “Go forth” but literally can mean “Start Walking.” “Lech Lecha” is from the same verb as to walk or to go, “holech”. So God’s first command to our first Ancestor is “Walk!”
[Interestingly, Jewish law is called Halacha, from the same verb, and observant Jews are referred to living “al ha derech” or “on the path”.]
Abraham surprisingly does exactly that, he starts walking with his entire family toward Canaan, a place he had never been. He leaves a known present for an unknown future.
Isn’t that at some level what we all do as human beings? We are always leaving what we have known behind and heading to something new, maybe better, but we can’t know what the future will show us. That is the human condition, to be walking from what has been to what will be, a place we can imagine but can never be sure of?
The rabbis call Abraham the “first Walker” and use the term “M’halchim” or “Walkers” for humans that are spiritual seekers.
Of course, when I hear the word “Walker” I think if Star Wars “Imperial Walkers” or “The Walking Dead,” but the rabbis saw being a “Walker” as a key aspect of being a human with faith.
And it takes faith to walk positively and joyfully toward an unknown destination as Abraham does, as we all do.
Jewish mystical tradition reads this more deeply. To be a walker means we have free will, we can choose our path, and that it is our nature to always be on a journey from one state to another. As humans made in God’s image, we have the capacity to choose to grow and change and reach ever higher spiritual destinations.
The mystics contrast this with the angels, who are called “omdim” or standers, because they can only reflect God’s will and must go as God tells them, but humans who can choose to go and our impulse to learn means our spiritual power is greater than angels. That is after all how we got the name Israel because we wrestle with angels and prevail.
We are as humans always moving from one point in place and time to another and while we have a sense of the past, we can’t know where we are going. Sometimes we just have to put one foot in front of the other.
***
We have just witnessed very disturbing planned coordinated riots all over France. Next week will be the first Israeli elections since October 7th. Not long after that, the US Midterm elections will take place.
Reading the news this week, I’ve noticed a great deal of “sky is falling” apocalypticism. France has fallen. This is an existential election for Israel and Democracy is on the ballot. If El Sayed is elected, Muslim Brotherhood will take over America.
I admit that I am susceptible to this sort of feeling. Watching the riots in France and seeing how mainstream media coverage said it was mostly peaceful and never showed any Palestinian flags, Jewish media was flooded with warnings about how central disaffected Muslim young people were in the violence, and the French left was supporting them.
The American elections are important, and I am myself deeply concerned about El Sayed and the likelihood of his election and what it portends for the next presidential election, for the rise and normalization of antisemitism, and also for the future of liberal democracy and its way of life. But that will not be determined by one midterm election, and one of the advantages of democracy is that it can self-correct in future elections.
The Israeli elections are important, but whether Netanyahu’s coalition wins, which I think has a better chance than the polls show, or whether the opposition block wins, it is not the end of Israel or democracy. Things won’t change much in terms of the conflict in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran or with Palestinian statehood. There will be more curbs on settler violence in the West Bank, and the threat to the judicial system will be dialed back, and the Haredi draft will be more likely to go forward. My biggest fear is that hundreds of thousands of educated Israeli center-leftists will simply decide to leave and that brain drain and economic drain will significantly impact the country.
The worst-case scenarios may all come true, be right now we don’t know how any of this will turn out, and we don’t know what unintended positive consequences might come from bad outcomes.
The riots in France might continue and worsen, or they might prompt much needed changes in how France is integrating immigrants. We don’t know.
If Sayed gets elected it might mean the rise of a Muslim Brotherhood inflected block in American government, but it might end up being better than we fear, or it might end up with a course reversal in the future.
We have to do what we think is right in the moment, but it doesn’t serve us, or the future for us to give up, to panic, or despair.
We have to keep walking.
Just like Abraham, we are always leaving what has become familiar into a future that is unknown and unknowable. We have agency, but not one of us has the power to control the future. Human society is far too complex and history shows that our progress does not go in a straight line. It wanders. It goes back and forth in what feels at times like the wilderness.
And in this I think Abraham and Sarah have something important to teach us. Have faith. Not that all will turn out right. We know better as Jews. But faith that over time we can change direction. There will be crises, and there will be loss, and there will be huge setbacks, but if we keep faith and we keep walking forward, we will make it to a better place, a promised land, and then that too will change and fall and return.
We need to walk through the history of our times with faith, with responsibility, and with love of our shared humanity, but we can’t walk if we try to carry the weight of the world and of history on our shoulders. There is much ego in that, and also futility.
Here we can get guidance from the Prophet Micah, who lived through the fall of northern Israel and the invasion of Judah by King Sennacherib of Assyria. Despite living through times that felt apocalyptic, he wrote these famous words which come to us across centuries:
“You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
And what GOD requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your God.”
Let us walk that path together in faith.
Shabbat Shalom.
