Ma Koreh
Adam Carpenter | Head of Jewish Life Primary
Bat Mitzvah celebrations and Torah reading
Last week during our Years 2-6 Torah Service tefillah, Daliah Smagarinsky and Liberty Waldner were called to the Torah to celebrate their becoming Bat Mitzvah. They had prepared their Torah reading as part of their celebrations at Emanuel Synagogue and they beautifully chanted the first reading from Lech Lecha – לך לך, describing the Abram and Sarai’s covenant with God and the origins of the Jewish people. Sara Manoy, who also celebrated becoming Bat Mitzah last week and participated in the Torah Service.
Below are extracts from Daliah and Liberty’s Dvar Torah on the parasha לך לך.
In summary, Abram went on this incredible journey to find acceptance and be his own unique self, even if it meant being “different”. He had to trust in G-d to guide him to the land that had been promised to him and his descendants, B’nai Yisrael; the Children of Israel. We learn that sometimes you have to move away to grow. Abram left his home to go and find this foreign land that G-d told him to find and guided him to do so. He did all this just so that he could be himself. Also, there is a comparison that I can draw between Abram’s journey and the journey of my family. They both took journeys to a new, foreign land to find acceptance and be Jews without being persecuted. Some of the takeaways of this parsha for me are: to always be yourself, even if it means going a little beyond your comfort zone sometimes, to trust one another and to do whatever it takes to do what you think is right.
Daliah Smagarinsky
I would like to discuss is the spiritual journey that Avram makes. When looking closely at the Hebrew words לך לך – this can also be understood to mean ‘going to yourself’ or ‘going for yourself’- in the sense of a spiritual journey. Avram leaves his previous religion and steps out into the unknown open world to discover and explore.
Avram made the decision to follow the words of G-D. He decided this for himself, choosing to be this different person. This connects to our present world and the idea of diversity, being who you really are. In our world, there is a lot of pressure to be seen as something, act a certain way or look a certain way. At the time, Avram was thought of as a radical and was not accepted by the people around him. Yet, he kept moving forward, both physically and spiritually. Avram defied the stereotypes of being ‘normal’ or ‘the same’. This can be a very hard thing to do. It is often called ‘stepping out of your comfort zone’, meaning stretching out your feelers and having a look outside of your shell. In this case, Avram’s shell was his previous life, he showed his true colours to his community and began the Jewish people.
Liberty Waldner
