Parshat Lekh L’kha

This week’s parashah begins with God’s call to Avram: “Lekh l’kha — Get going!” That biblical idiom, 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.

• Candle lighting this Friday evening October 27, is at 5:22 pm. Shabbat ends on Saturday night at 6:17 pm.
• The New Shul’s Shabbat morning service is from 9 am to about 11:45 am, followed by a kiddush-lunch open to all. This Shabbat, October 28, we will celebrate the bat mitzvah of Brynn Gottlieb, daughter of Daniel Gottlieb and Jolene Kuty. The kiddush-lunch will be sponsored by the Kuty-Gottlieb family.
• Minyanim during the week are on Sunday mornings at 9:30 am, and on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 6:30 pm at the shul. Kabbalat Shabbbat is on Friday evenings at 6 pm at the Kanter-Wasserman home (please contact us for directions).
• Rabbi Wasserman’s class: Dare to Daven: Exploring Jewish Prayer, continues on Shabbat afternoon November 4, at 5 pm. The class meets at the Kanter/Wasserman home.