What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question that we often ask our
children. But in reality, when we ask
them this question, we’re not really asking what do you want to be, we’re more
accurately asking, what do you want to do.
We expect them to answer, film
star, astronaut, sports player, maybe even rabbi. Because we’re asking about what profession,
what job do they aspire toward in their future.
The question of being, is a much deeper question, a much
harder question to answer. What do we
want to be, that’s a question that can be answered by an emotion. I want to be
happy. Or, in the case of the Jewish
people in Abraham’s call of Lech Lecha perhaps the answer is, to be a blessing.
This week, as Abraham is called by God to Lech Lecha to go
out on the journey, God says to Abraham, I will make of you a great nation and
I will bless you and I will make your name great and you shall be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless
you and curse those that curse you and through you shall all the families of
the earth bless themselves. In this way,
from the very beginning, our story is about being a blessing.
God tells Abraham what he will be, but at the same time, one
can almost hear this as a challenge. The
challenge placed before Abraham and Sarah is to be a blessing. To live their life in a way that blessing
emanates from them. Blessings for those
closest to them, blessings for their families, blessing for the stranger and
even blessings for the world as a whole.
Abraham and Sarah, and by extension, each one of us, is
challenged to be a blessing in the world.
As Jews, when we’re asked what do we want to be when we grow up, one of
our answers should be, to be a blessing.
This means that we have to be conscious of whether, through the way that
we behave, through the way that we live
our life, through the words that we speak, do we bring blessing, or do we bring
pain and suffering into this world.
It is not necessarily easy to be a blessing, but this is
what being Jewish is all about. About
spreading the blessing that we receive from God to everyone on the earth. Ultimately as God says to Abraham, all the
families of the earth shall bless themselves by you, or through you. We are to be that conduit of blessing for
this whole planet. It’s a heavy
responsibility which Abraham accepted on our behalf all those years ago. And, yet, there’s something so wonderful
about the challenge placed before us.
Can each one of us live our lives so that we truly are the
heirs to Abraham and Sarah? So that each
one of us is truly a blessing.
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