Lech Lecha: Bread, Stars, and the Rest of Shabbat

David Ben-Ami

Shabbat Shalom. Welcome to a quiet edition of Daily Torah, the one we set aside for the day of rest. This is parashat Lech Lecha, the thirteenth of Cheshvan. Earlier this week we followed Abram out of Haran, we stood beside the burning palace, and we heard the call to go. That was the outward journey. Today the Torah lets us do something different. It lets us sit down. So let the day be as slow as it wants to be, and come with me into the part of the story that comes after the running is done.

David Ben-Ami

Genesis chapter fourteen is a war chapter. Four kings sweep through the region and carry off the people of Sodom, and among the captives is Abram's nephew Lot. Abram gathers three hundred and eighteen trained servants from his household and chases the kings through the night, all the way to Dan. He wins. He brings back Lot, the people, the property. Then the king of Sodom says, keep the wealth, just give me my people. And Abram answers, not a thread, not a sandal strap. Now picture him afterward. The shouting has stopped, the dust is settling, and a man in his seventies is walking home, depleted, still without a child.

David Ben-Ami

Here is the detail I want to hold up to the light. Who meets him? Malki Tzedek, king of Salem. The Torah says he brought out bread and wine, and he blessed Abram. That is all. No debriefing, no questions about the battle. The Midrash, as Chabad summarizes it, identifies this king as Shem, the son of Noah, and Salem is understood as Jerusalem, a name that sits very close to shalom, peace and wholeness. So the first thing a weary Abram receives after a war is a table. I won't claim this is the official origin of our Shabbat table. But listen to it. Lechem v'yayin. Bread and wine. Two loaves of challah, and a cup of kiddush. Whoever sets a table on Friday night is doing what Malki Tzedek did, saying to someone worn thin by the week, come, sit, you are blessed.

David Ben-Ami

But rest does not come easily, even then. The next chapter opens with God saying, Al tira Avram, anochi magen lach, s'charcha harbeh m'od. Fear not, Abram, I am a shield to you, your reward is very great. The sages ask, why was Abram afraid? In Bereishit Rabbah they offer several answers, and one is tender. Abram thinks, I was saved from the fiery furnace, I was saved from the war, perhaps I have already been paid in full in this world, and nothing is left for me. And the sages hear a wordplay in the word magen, shield. In Aramaic, magan means free of charge. Everything I did for you, I did as a gift. Think how much of our weariness is the quiet fear that we haven't earned what we've been given.

David Ben-Ami

Then Abram is in his tent, and he is honest. He is childless. His heir, he says, will be Eliezer of Damascus, a servant of his house. And the Torah gives us three small words: vayotzei oto hachutzah. He took him outside. Rashi says the plain meaning is simple. God brought Abram out of his tent so that he could look at the stars. Count them, if you are able. So shall your offspring be. Then Rashi gives the midrash, and it is the heart of today. God says, tzei me'itzganinut shelcha, step out of your astrology. Abram had read the heavens, done his calculations, and concluded that he was destined to have no son. The Talmud, in Shabbat 156a, draws from this the teaching, ein mazal l'Yisrael, Israel is not bound by the fixed verdict of the stars. And Rashi adds another reading, from Bereishit Rabbah. God lifted him above the stars, which is why the verb is habet, a look from above, downward. Abram is not shown his future from inside the tent of his calculations. He is shown it from above. And what does Abram say? Nothing. The Torah says only, v'he'emin b'Adonai. He believed.

David Ben-Ami

That, I think, is what Shabbat is. For six days we live in a tent made of calculations. What did I produce, what am I worth, is it enough, what if it isn't. And on the seventh day the same voice says, vayotzei oto hachutzah, come outside. This is menuchah, the Hebrew word for rest, and it is more than a pause to recharge. Menuchah is arrival. It is the stillness of a person who is not being measured. For one day the ledger stays inside the tent, and the sky is simply there, vast and unaccountable and kind.

David Ben-Ami

And look who comes out under that sky with us. Our family. Rashi, on the verse where Isaac brings Rebecca into his mother's tent, quotes Bereishit Rabbah: while Sarah lived, three things never failed in her tent. A cloud rested over it, a blessing lived in the dough, and the Shabbat candle burned from one Friday evening to the next. Light, bread, presence. That is the Shabbat table. And at that table, parents rest their hands on their children's heads and bless them, daughters to be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, sons like Ephraim and Menashe. Abram was told his children would be like the stars. Every child under a parent's hand is one of those stars, close enough to touch.

David Ben-Ami

The stars are also how Shabbat goes. The Talmud, in Shabbat 35b, asks when the day ends, and the answer is not a clock. It is the sky. When three medium sized stars appear. Not the large ones you can see by day, and not the tiny ones. The medium ones. So we wait, a little reluctantly, and then we light the braided Havdalah candle, whose joined flames flicker like a small constellation in the house. We lift the cup of wine. We breathe in the besamim, the sweet spices, which tradition says comfort the extra soul, the neshamah yeteirah, as it takes its leave. Havdalah means separation. But notice what we carry out of the day. Not a plan. Just the starlight that was shown to Abram, folded into one small flame, walking us gently back into the dark.

David Ben-Ami

So let the table stay set a little longer. Let the candles do their quiet work. And may this blessing from the Book of Numbers rest on you, and on everyone beneath your roof. Y'varech'cha Adonai v'yishm'recha. May God bless you and keep you. Ya'er Adonai panav eilecha vichuneka. May God shine His face upon you and be gracious to you. Yisa Adonai panav eilecha v'yasem l'cha shalom. May God lift His face toward you, and grant you peace. Shabbat Shalom.