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✡︎ Shalom and Good Shabbos, Friends ✡︎
Parshas Lech-Lecha: Stars of Blessing
In this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Lech-Lecha: Bereishit (Genesis) 12:1 - 17:27, we meet Abraham, the first Jewish Patriarch, and his wife Sarah, the first Jewish Matriarch. Known as Abram and Sarai at the beginning of the portion, they leave their home and venture forth according to God's call: Go out into pagan society and transform it into a monotheistic culture.
Abraham's Journey
A visionary blessed with the Almighty's presence, Abram embarks on his journey with a hopeful heart that any idolator he meets has potential for knowing God and serving Him. Abram's every action inspires and enlightens those around him.
God reassures Abram that his lifelong journey will culminate in blessings for his family, his country, and the world. He and Sarai will parent a great nation as numerous as the stars in Heaven. His descendants will have a country of their own. This nation will uphold and teach moral guidelines for living to all people of the earth. Those who bless the nation of Israel will be blessed; those who curse the nation of Israel will be cursed.
Abram encounters hazards on his journey, safeguarded by God's love and protection. His cheerful spirit and friendly personality attract many converts along the way. When Abram is 100 years old, God changes his name to Abraham, father of multitudes. Sarai gets a new name, too, Sarah. The childless couple receive God's promise of a son to be born next year.
The portion closes as Abraham endorses the Holy covenant by circumcising himself and the other men in his household.
A Winning Strategy
Our Haftarah portion this week, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 40:27 - 41:16, compliments the Genesis reading by recalling Abraham's miraculous military victory engineered by God in Canaan against four powerful pagan armies. This victory serves as a testimony of God's blessings merited by a righteous man. Isaiah makes clear to a demoralized Israel that God will always bless a holy Israel and vanquish her enemies.
Blessing Israel by advancing holiness in the Jewish state is the best way to help Israel, as well as to merit personal blessings from the Almighty. Monetary support to a secular Jewish state ought to be contingent upon making policy changes that promote holiness in the Holy Land.
Let Isaiah's promise give every donor to Israel the courage to truly help deliver Israel from her enemies by coupling dollars to policy changes that advance holiness. We can begin by encouraging an end to legal abortion in Israel, where 20,000 Jewish babies die from abortion annually. See our Israel Pro-Life Education Project for details.
100 Million Stars and 100 Million Jews
The Torah portion declares that Abraham is the progenitor of a nation as numerous as the stars. According to The Nine Planets, an encyclopedic overview with facts about our solar system, there are about 100 million stars in the average galaxy. So, the nation of Israel should number 100 million!
How Many Stars are in the Milky Way?
https://nineplanets.org/questions/how-many-stars-are-in-the-milky-way/
As of 2026, the world's Jewish population is estimated to be around 16.5 million, approximately 0.2% of the global population. Our Divine destiny of 100 million Jews seems as unreachable as an unreachable star. We can start improving our numbers by protecting our unborn children from abortion. We do not have to wait until our enemies stop attacking Jews to save Jewish lives.
Going Forth in Faith
Faithful people of goodwill around the world need a winning strategy to stop the violence, destruction and death that gains strength everyday. The Torah portion, Lech Lecha, and Isaiah's prophecy, teach us that courage founded on holiness and supported by faith in God, stops evil.
Like Abraham, we step out in faith and courage to be a force for good. We approach any person who lives in spiritual darkness with the view that they have the potential for knowing God and serving Him, for healing from traumatic experiences, and for appreciating the gift of life. Every action we take on our own journey inspires and enlightens those around us.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!'” Isaiah 52:7
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