We are on the move

If there were demographic studies in the year 2200 BCE, the Jewish population would have been considered untethered geographically but connected spiritually.  Then a white paper study would have been written predicting unparalleled shifts in the religion. Of course, the sample set would have been just one family: Abraham and Sarah. They were on the move physically and spiritually.

When last we visited our study’s subject, Abraham, he was somewhere between Ur and the Promised Land, moving west and south. Given the problems of war and famine he encountered, it seems like Abraham never really arrives in a “Promised Land.”  He’s always on a journey.  Perhaps that is true for you as well.

At the end of Genesis 11, Terach takes his son Abraham, his daughter in law Sarai, and his grandson, Lot, from Ur to Haran.  And then Terach dies.  Chapter 12 begins with “The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”  OOPS.  Abraham isn’t in his native land any longer and he long ago left his father’s house.

I don’t believe that the text is imprecise.  There’s a psycho-spiritual component to Abraham’s travels that transcends geography.  With his father gone, Abraham is now the head of the clan. Yet, the man who discovered monotheism has to make the transition to a brave new reality.  In your father’s house, God was not in charge. God is telling Abraham to leave that construct and enter a new truth.  That transition makes Abraham and Sarah the first Jews.

If I adapt that construct into my own life, I have to flip the American dream on its head.  I begin my journey in my father’s house, which was built with the religion that is Americanism. Dad changed our name from Kramowitz to Krame.  Judaism was more a cultural than a theological pursuit. The New Jerusalem was New York, the location of everything that is best in the world; from the best doctors to the best restaurants to the best stores. In post-world war II America, most everyone was on the move. My father moved his family into a better house, in a better community with better schools. Men like my father sacrificed religious practice, skipped family time, and bottled-up emotional connection.

As an adult, I made my move. Like Abraham of Torah, I left my father’s house and moved south and west. More important than the geographic change was a spiritual upgrade. I had to leave the Americanism of second generation Jews who focused on excelling and prosperity.

I may not have made it into a promised land, but I’ve left the American dreamscape that was Jewish life in the suburbs of the 60s and 70s.

And by the way, my Hebrew name is Avraham. So I imagine that it was inevitable that I would follow a path away from my birthplace.

Where ever I am now, it is not as far as I will go. The distance I have yet to travel will not be measured in miles along the highway but in soul connections and personal interactions.  Those associations are with God, with family, and with my community.  There’s lots of mileage yet to go along those routes away from my “native land” and toward a promised estate measured in meaningful and deep relationships.

Recent demographic studies tell us that the millennials value spiritual (but not religious) experiences, honest relationships, and leisure time experiences. They too are on a psychological and spiritual journey away from their father’s home and their native lands.  I am excited to witness the Judaism that they create.

Rabbi Evan Krame