Parshat Lech-Lecha
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Venturing for the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"והקמתי את בריתי ביני ובינך... ונתתי לך ולזרעך אחריך את ארץ מגורך את כל ארץ כנען"
"Blessed are You HaShem our God King of the World that has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to place him (the baby) in the covenant of Avraham our father."
This blessing, said at a baby boy's first mitzvah, circumcision, highlights the centrality of Avraham our father at the very onset of our lives, and with them highlight how central are our roots stemming from our three Patriarchs in general as the forerunners of our sacred covenant with God.
Indeed, this week's parsha begins the core topic of our first book in the Torah, Breshit - the story of our holy Patriarchs. As Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook zt"l noted numbers of times,[1] the first two parshios of Breshit are basically a kind of 'pre-history' till we reach parshat Lech Lecha which begins, with our Patriarchs, the main history that concerns most of the Torah.
It is also this mitzvah of circumcision that, as our title quote teaches us, that connects us, via our covenant with God, to our Holy Land. The connection between bris mila and our Holy Land is actually so great that the Zohar explains the reason that the descendants of Ishmael have had such a strong grip on the Land of Israel for such a long time is because of the merit of the brit done on Ishmael in this week's parsha.
However, the Zohar continues and says that because this circumcision was done at a later age and other factors, unlike Isaac and his decendants, Ishmael's circumcision is 'imperfect', and thus his descendants will not merit to hold the Land forever.[2] As we have shown many times, Hebron is key in the connection of our People to our Holy Land. It is therefore no wonder that the place of the first circumcision of Avraham occurs in Elonei Mamre, i.e. Hebron, as we see in the beginning of next week's parsha.
Indeed the very name, 'Elonei Mamre' is, according to the Midrash, based on the figure of Avraham's colleague, Mamre, who advised Avraham to commit the commandment of circumcision, despite numbers of adversaries. The reason he was called 'Mamre', our sages add, is because he advised despite - 'lamrot' (verb root same as 'mamre') - adversaries who advised Avraham not to commit circumcision for numbers of reasons.
In this sense, Hebron, Elonei Mamre, today continues this legacy of Mamre.[3] Hebron stands in the leadership of "fighting the case" for the Holy Presence in our Holy Land, thus continuing the legacy of our ancestors and patriarchs and keeping the covenant with God and His Holy Land.
Real Stories from the Holy Land #39: "It was almost 22:30, last time in Kiryat Arba one can find a minyan for Maariv. I was in a different neighborhood of Kiryat Arba from this minyan and needed to hitch a ride to make it in time for the minyan, which was about half-an-hour walk away. I saw about 6-8 people waiting to hitch a ride, which would normally mean I had no chance. With confidence in God I decided to proceed several meters away from the group of hitchhikers, saying to myself 'I'm going to do a mitzvah, I trust in HaShem to help me". Just then a car stopped and took me straight to the minyan on time."
[1]See 'Sichot Rav Tzi Yehuda'
[2]Zohar 2, 32a
[3]Breshit Raba Lech Lecha 42, 8
