Walking Away
When my son, Robert, was about 9 or 10, he told me he wanted to be allowed to go to the little store across Belmont by himself. That meant he would be crossing a major intersection with a traffic light all by himself. I wasn’t ready to let him go, but I did. He returned safe and sound and I got several more grey hairs!When I read this week’s parasha, Lekh L'kha, I wondered what Avram and Sarai’s parents felt when they were told their children were “getting up and going,” leaving their ancestral home and all they knew. It must have come as a shock and I have to believe those parents were terribly sad, probably knowing, in all likelihood, they would never see their children again.
Many if not all of us have had our own “lekh l'kha” moments in our lives---times when a voice (sometimes an inner voice, perhaps even God’s voice) tells us it’s time to leave our home and venture out---whether it’s across a busy street, whether it’s off to college, or whether it’s a move to another state or country. And our parents---or we as parents--- know that it’s time to let go---that a parent’s job is to help their children be independent enough to leave the nest and make their own way in this world.
I hope that Avram and Sarai’s families found comfort in the fact that these two trusted in a power greater than themselves to bring them safely to... somewhere, just as we too hope and pray that our children will be safe and find fulfillment in their journeys.
This parasha brings to mind a beautiful poem by Cecil Day-Lewis, the former poet laureate of the U.K. Here is the last stanza of the poem, Walking Away. I offer this to all of you who have ever watched your loved one, no matter what age, walk away from you into their new future.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
Shabbat Shalom,
Debby Lewis
