Parshat Lekh L’kha

This week’s parashah begins with God’s call to Avram: “Lekh l’kha — Get going!” That phrase, which literally means “Go for yourself,” can be interpreted to mean: “Go for the sake of who you really are.” We are not asked to be more than we are capable of being. But we are asked — all of us — to be the people that only we can be.

One day Zusia of Hanipol wept, and his students asked him why. He replied: “When I go to the world to come, they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not the Ba’al Shem Tov?’ They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusia?'”

We all have Lekh’ l’kha moments, when we feel called upon to stretch ourselves, to leave behind what we are comfortable with. We can understand those moments as calls to to be the person that God knows us to be, but that we ourselves do not yet know — to “get going” for the sake of who we have the power to become, and the blessing that we have the power to bring into the world.

• Shabbat services at The New Shul are on Friday evenings from 6 to 7 pm, and on Saturday mornings from 9 am to 12 noon. This Shabbat, October 28, the kiddush-lunch will be sponsored by Gary and Gail Tasky, Perry and Susan Tasky, and Margie Rothstein in memory of Lillian Tasky.
• Childcare is available from 10 am to noon on Shabbat mornings. Our learning service for children is from 11 to 11:45 am.
• This Sunday evening, October 29, The New Shul will host a lecture by Rabbi Eugene Korn:  “Jewish Schizophrenia: What did the Rabbis Think of Christianity?” The lecture is co-sponsored by Valley Beit Midrash.
• Minyanim during the week are on Sunday mornings at 9:30 am, Monday evenings at 7 pm, Wednesday mornings at 7 am, and Wednesday evenings at 7 pm.