A good number of the readers of this piece are currently living in a place different from where they were born: there’s a great opportunity to discuss this with your kids this week!
Avraham is told to go “from your land, and from your birthplace and from your father’s home” to an unspecified future destination that Hashem will show him.
Talking Point 1: What do you think it was like for Avraham and Sarah trekking across the ancient highway from Charan (in present-day Turkey) to Israel? Imagine for a second the two of them (already not so young!), together with all of their possessions and a group of people they’ve inspired and are joining them on the journey. They’re walking for days and weeks along a path, every once in a while running into someone else or passing through a village or town, but most of the way is likely quite quiet and desolate.
What were they feeling? (afraid, nervous, excited, bored…) What thoughts were running through their heads? What were they thinking about from the past, present and future? (people and family they may never see again, what they were going to do once Hashem told them to stop, where they were going to sleep for the night, what is that small dot I see in the distance?)
Have you ever moved from one place to another, or started in a new gan or school? What was that like for you? What did you feel before? What were you most nervous, unclear and excited about? How quickly did you adjust to your new surroundings?
Later on in the parsha, fear makes an appearance. After the war between the four and five kings, Hashem tells Avraham “don’t be afraid.” But the pesukim don’t even record that Avraham *was* afraid! Why was Hashem telling that he does not need to be (or should not be) afraid? Rashi on the passuk writes that there are two potential reasons Avraham was afraid: either that the kings he’d beaten in war would regroup and attack him, *or* that he was going to pass away soon without having any children.
Right after this, Hashem makes a covenant (like an agreement or commitment) with Avraham called Brit Bein HaBetarim; Avraham first prepares various korbanot, and then we are told that the sun goes down and Avraham falls asleep. At that point, “a great, dark fear descends upon him” and Hashem tells him that his descendants will experience trouble and hardship before they are redeemed.
The Ramban, quoting Chazal, explains that there are different stages of this fear, each referring to different nations that will rule over Am Yisrael. First there is the “fear”, after that it becomes a “darkness”, and when the word “great” is added, it is because Avraham at that point felt “as if [the darkness] was falling upon him like a heavy burden, heavier [even] than him.”
Have you ever experienced an emotion as being “heavy”? What was it? (fear, sadness, nervousness) What made it different from just a regular form of that emotion? Where did you feel it, and how did you deal with it?
Usually, we can’t “control” our emotions, or make them just go away, but there are things that we can do to help notice and then take a step back from those emotions. What sorts of things help you deal with situations where difficult emotions arise?
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Shabbat Shalom!
(Photo credit: עומר מרקובסקי on Wikimedia Commons)
