This is the sermon I’ll be giving tonight.

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This week’s Torah portion introduces a powerful teaching: that life is a journey.  And we don’t always know where that journey will lead.

“Go from your country,” God said to Abraham, “from your place of birth, from your father’s house to the land which I will show you,. And I will multiply you, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

God tells Abraham to give up everything he knows, to march towards an uncertain future, with only a vague promise ahead of him.

All of us have been forced to go on journeys – journeys of grief, journeys of loss, journeys of relocating from one city to another.  And we seldom know where they will lead.

Our journeys can last a lifetime.  Or they can end for a while, only to pick up again.  We can find moments of peace, years or even decades when everything makes sense.  And then suddenly, life changes.  We get sick, we lose a loved one.  And suddenly, we start another journey, searching for a new way to make sense of our lives.

We all have times when we’re forced to go on a journey.  And perhaps, that’s why we have communities – because journeys are easier when we’re not alone.

Abraham never raised an army.  He never gave a sermon.  But he lived a life of kindness, and he listened to the people around him.  And according to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do. He wrote:

Judaism is a complex and subtle faith, but it has rarely lost touch with simple spiritual imperatives.  

Jewish ethics is down to earth. If someone is in need, give.  If someone is lonely, invite them home.  If someone you know has recently been bereaved, visit them and give them comfort.  If you know that someone has lost their job, help them find another. The sages called this “imitating God.”  This is religion at its most humanizing and its most humane.

In the end, Judaism is not about believing. It’s about lives lived, about healing, about helping each other as we go through life’s journeys. We can celebrate, and we can care for each other. And we can share each other’s tragedies and joys.

The sages called this “walking in the way of God.”  And they taught that we can bring God’s presence into the world, simply by the way we live.

Abraham’s journey is far from over.  There is violence and hatred in the world.

But we can continue to walk in his footsteps, creating a world of kindness, just like he did.

And someday, perhaps, Abraham’s journey will end, and we will create a world of love. 

Shabbat Shalom
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