Lech Lecha 5774

October 22, 2013 by Rabbi Yaakov Grunewald

Our Sidra is called Lech Lecha, which is a striking name. LECH means GO. But what does Lecha mean in this context? According to Rashi it implies that God told Abram to go for his own benefit. Nachmanides disagrees. He argues that this is simply a Hebrew expression. The pronoun ‘Lecha’ is often attached to […]

Lech Lecha 5772

January 5, 2013 by Rabbi Yaakov Grunewald

The name of the Sidra means GO. God addresses Avram, Abraham’s original name, for the first time, and instructs him as follows: “Go to the land which I will show you.” The Torah does not explain why God spoke to Avram. The call came out of the blue. Only in next week’s Sidra, we read […]

Lech Lecha 5773

October 26, 2012 by Rabbi Yaakov Grunewald

The title of today’s Sidra is Lech Lecha which means go for yourself. This interesting expression occurs only once more in the entire Bible, in the story of the Binding of Isaac. This means that it symbolises Abram’s unique mission to go and spread the knowledge of God everywhere. There are two explanations for the word […]