Dvar Torah on Parshat Lech-Lecha

In the parsha of Lech Lecha, God commands Abraham to "Go out from your land, your birthplace, and the house of your father, to the land which I will show you". The Rabbis are bothered by the rather long-winded specificity of God's describing the place Avraham already knows he is in and is about to leave - "your land, your birthplace, your father's house" - as opposed to the lack of clarity concerning where Avaraham is going - "to the land which I will show you". Usually, we give directions the other way, focusing not on where you are, but on where you want to get to. Why does God keep Avraham in the dark about his destination, while waxing poetic about his current location? Traditionally, God's demand that Avraham leave his home is seen as a test, one of a number that he was put through. Many commentators, the Ramban (Nachmanides, 13th century Spain and Israel) for instance, understand the listing of "your land, your birthplace, etc." as an element of this test. The repetition serves to endear Avraham's current location to him: look what I am asking you to leave! A homeland! And not just a homeland, a birthplace! And not just a birthplace, but your family home! What a hard thing to do, and what a big deal it will be when you pass the test, obey me and do it. The lack of clarity about the destination can be seen as part of the same psychology: and I'm not even going to tell you where you are going! How tough is that? What a great act of obedience and love of God it will be when you pass this test and leave this familiar, beloved place behind for the great unknown! Just because God said so! In the great collection of Rabbinic Biblical exegesis, the Midrash Rabbah, there is, I think, a different explanation:"Rabbi Yochanan says: 'From your land' - that is your province, 'your birthplace' - that is your neighborhood, 'the house of your father' - that's your father's home. 'To the land which I will show you' - why did God not tell Avraham where he was going? In order to endear the place to him, and to give him a reward for each and every step he took.This is strange. In the Ramban's understanding, above, I understand how Avraham is being tested. Emphasising all that he is leaving behind, and not telling him where he is going certainly makes this task difficult for Avraham, and truly tests his obedience to God: will he do this unnatural thing because he is commanded to do it? But in Rabbi Yochanan's understanding, the repetition of "land, birthplace, home" is not God endearing these places to Avraham, in order to underscore what he is about to give up. Rather, it is meant to "endear" the destination to Avraham, as is, apparently, the mysterious nature of its location. He will be given a reward for every step on the way to his unknown goal - one for leaving his land, one for leaving his birthplace, and one for leaving his parental home, and many more for the steps he takes not knowing where he is going. The question is, how, according to Rabbi Yochanan in the midrash, is this a test? What does Avraham do to pass it? How would he fail it? And how is this list of locations he is leaving, and the unknown nature of his destination, meant to endear the commandment, and the journey, to him? Unlike the Ramban, for whom Avraham's test is simply to prove his faith in God and his fitness to serve Him by doing what God asks him to do, in spite of its difficulty, for Rabbi Yochanan, the test will determine whether Avraham really has the religious personality it takes to be the father of the Jewish people. And what is the indicator of his passing the test? Not, as the Ramban would have it, doing what he doesn't want to do. Rather, Avraham must rise to God's challenge and love the thing he is being asked to do, and do that which he loves. God wants to see if His commandment elicits the correct emotional response from Avraham - love. Avraham can pass the test by feeling that emotion. The question is not: does he obey? Rather, it is: is he excited by the challenge? By the adventure? Is he in love, as God tries to help him to be, with the idea of discovering a new place and new truths? Is he impatient and dissatisfied with his country, birthplace and father's house, and ready for a new home and a new vision? Does the possibility of striking out and creating something move him? According to this understanding, Avraham would fail the test if he felt he was leaving home out of obedience to God's commandment, against his real will. God's attempt to endear this brave new world to Avraham , a world he does not know, must be met, on Avraham's part, by feelings of love and endearment for this shining new challenge with which God has presented him.God's emphasis on the places Avraham is leaving, and the mystery of his destination, are not meant to test whether he will obey God in spite of his love for home, neighborhood, and country. Rather, they are meant to see whether Avraham will pass the test by seeing, when God goes on and on about what he is asking him to leave behind, how insufficient his current situation is, and how he longs to strike out, away from all the things that bind him, in a new direction. The repetition of what he must leave behind is meant to make him love where he is going. Only if he does come to that feeling, to a love for the seductively mysterious nature of his destination, will Avraham have proven that he is, in fact, just the man to be the father of the Jewish people, the people who are in love with the next idea, the next insight, the next journey. In this understanding, we prove our closeness to God not by doing what He tells us to do in spite of our natural desires, but, rather, by developing and cherishing the values towards which God leads us: a dissatisfaction with the way things are, in all their tediousness, and a love for the unknown, the not yet articulated, the not yet created, the new.