By Rabbi Scott Hoffman
Scott Hoffman is Rabbi of Congregation Adath Jeshurun
Between 2018 and 2025, I moved from Long Island to suburban Philadelphia, then to suburban D.C., then to New Orleans, then back to suburban D.C. before arriving in Louisville in May. I’ve learned to make the best of my peripatetic lifestyle, but while it’s posed challenges, it’s also afforded me a unique set of opportunities which I am grateful to have enjoyed. When I open my chumash this Shabbat to portion Lech Lecha, where we read about the journeys of Abraham and Sarah, I can certainly relate to the hardships they faced, while appreciating that their wanderings were considerably more taxing and dangerous than my own.
Abraham is told to leave his country, birthplace and father’s house for an undisclosed place – we the readers know it will be the land of Israel – along with his wife Sarah and their possessions. To fully appreciate how this must have sounded to ancient ears, imagine leaving a place of high culture for what was likely going to be a dusty backwater, like getting a job transfer from Manhattan, New York to Manhattan, Kansas. Abraham and Sarah were willing to undertake the journey, but one imagines they had some misgivings.
In this commentary to the Torah, Rashi (1040-1105, France) indicates that G-d understood Abraham and Sarah’s feelings and therefore offered a threefold reassurance: First, G-d understood that wandering from place to place, then as now, was hardly conducive to family life. The couple hadn’t yet been blessed with children, but certainly they longed to become parents and must have worried whether the constant strain of relocation would hamper this. Therefore, Rashi says, G-d reassured Abraham and Sarah that they would become the founders of a great nation – and by implication be blessed with children.
Second, anytime you move from one place to another, financial loss is a very real possibility. In ancient times, the risks of being robbed of one’s possessions, or of having them destroyed or lost in a storm, were very real. Additionally, any financial success in one place would likely have to be sacrificed if you moved away. Therefore G-d made a second promise to Abraham and Sarah that He would protect them financially. And that is precisely what happened, as by the end of his life Abraham had acquired considerable wealth.
Finally, though it may not have been at the front of their minds, G-d promised Abraham and Sarah that being nomadic wouldn’t decrease their blessing to the world, but paradoxically, would increase it. During my years as an interim rabbi, the highest compliment I received was that my various stints of service enabled me to help four congregations address pressing issues, rather than only a single congregation. The same held for Abraham and Sarah, for by introducing the populations of multiple locations the tenets of monotheism, they helped to spread a desperately needed message to a pagan world. The risks associated with being nomadic were more than made up for by the long-term rewards of increasing human understanding of G-d’s presence in the world.
My years of relocating every two years were stressful and challenging. They were also, in all candor, highly rewarding. And best of all, I knew I was walking in the path blazed for me by Abraham and Sarah at the very birth of our faith.
What could be more authentically Jewish than that?
Scott Hoffman is Rabbi of Congregation Adath Jeshurun