- Clergy
- Shabbat
“An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
-Sir Isaac Newton
Baked into the basic laws of physics, there is a fundamental truth that is being felt across the country, as we prepare to enter Shabbat this week. There exists a natural tendency to resist change in one’s state of motion. That resistance is called inertia.
Long before Sir Isaac Newton gave language to this tendency, inertia was illustrated in two journeys that began to take shape in this week’s Torah portion.
The first was that of Avram. Not yet renamed Abraham, Avram was called upon by God to leave everything that he knew behind and go to a place he did not know. Curiously, though the Torah tells us that he was called upon to leave his “native land,” when God called him to go, he was in Haran. Avram, born in Ur of the Chaldeans, had already begun his journey. Regardless of his past, Avram’s focus was squarely on what lay ahead. Perhaps it was the fact that Avram’s journey had already begun that inspired God to call him in the first place.
The second journey that was begun in this week’s Torah portion was that of Hagar, the maidservant of Sarai (not yet renamed Sarah), who would soon give birth to Ishmael, Avram’s first child. In a scene filled with equal parts drama and trauma, Hagar flees Sarai’s cruelty and is met in the wilderness by a Divine messenger. Asked the messenger, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” Her response was all that she was able to consider in that moment. “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” Not a word was spoken about where she was actually going.
Avram was only able to focus on the immense unknown of the road ahead. Hagar could only focus on the trauma of her past. For both of them, it was God, or a messenger of God, that recognized that no change would happen without consideration of both the past and the future.
So where are we coming from and where are we going? As the dust from this week’s election begins to settle, when so many are overwhelmed by these very questions, the Divine truth that is expressed twice in this Torah portion can be a guide. Inertia can be broken - and our journey - as a country, as a people and as individuals - can lead to blessing - if we allow the lessons of our past to inform the steps that we take into an unknown future. Each of our life journeys is filled with infinite wisdom to guide us, if only we are willing to use it for good.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Leah Lewis