“Be and Be Better,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

October 31, 2025 | 9 Cheshvan 5786

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. You can also listen to it as a podcast.

This week, I pre-emptively share the words I will offer tonight, which, for those in attendance at Qabbalat Shabbat, will lead us into a discussion.

Years ago, I participated in the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and was exposed for the first time in a serious and helpful way to yoga and meditation. Our meditation teacher spoke about Halloweeners. Wait! What?

When you are listening to a meditation teacher, it isn’t a joke filled time. They are guiding your attention and thoughts. The moment is one of awakened introspection, serious soul calming and mind focusing. What was she saying? What is a Halloweener? Why am I here? Will I ever be able to sit still? Can I take a nap if no one notices.
Oops. Mind gone astray.
Breathe.
Come back to the breath. Be here. Refocus your attention.
But my reaction was still Wait! What?

Soon, I figured it out while still breathing and listening, focused on her explanation. She was teaching us about our thoughts and what to do with them. Just because we think of something, does it mean that we massage it with our minds? She used the image of trick or treaters, a much better depiction than her chosen description. On Halloween, many different characters, Halloweeners, show up at our door. Some are cute and make us smile. Others are meant to frighten and scare us. With each Halloweener, we look at them and assess, commenting out loud or to ourselves, “nice” “pleasant” “scary” “unpleasant.” And so it goes. What we don’t do is invite these gremlins and princesses in for dinner and give them a place to sleep, unless they are our children. As it goes with the Halloweeners, so can it apply to our thoughts. Our musings can be nice, pleasant, scary or unpleasant. We name them and then let them go. Often if we are experience something unpleasant and name it as such, we might not get caught up in reacting in an unnecessary way.

One of our former rabbis, Joshua Loth Liebman, of blessed memory, offered this perspective by reminding us that our minds are not a democracy. Not every thought gets a vote (from his book, Peace of Mind.)

In many ways, life itself is a walking meditation. We encounter situations, one after the other in rapid succession. How do we respond? What do we hold and ponder and what do we let go of?

Abram from this week’s portion came upon numerous situations that speak to his own way of being in the world as he encountered what was pleasant and unpleasant and how he managed.

When we first meet him and his wife Sarai, they lived in Ur (in southern Iraq, today). We learn that Abram was one of three sons, Haran, who died and Nahor. Their father’s name was Terah. The text also informed us that Sarai was infertile. Here is an explicit piece of information that hints of sadness or disappointment as we might read it. Unpleasant, for sure.

Then, the family was on the move:

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans toward the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Charan, they settled there…
and Terah died in Charan. (Genesis 11: 31-32).

They travel from Mesopotamia, went along the fertile crescent and stopped. In essence, they only got halfway toward Canaan.

In the time that they settle in Charan, Terah, Abram’s father died. Abram is next in line, responsible for his nephew and his wife. He has no children of his own.

It is in this moment that this week’s portion (12:1) opens with God’s instruction to go forth, to continue to leave it all behind וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛
From the familiar land מֵאַרְצְךָ֥
of his birth וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖
from his father’s home וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ
to the land God would show him. אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃

For some, this might seem plausible. Is there anything that God can’t do? Yet, from a human perspective, for a person dealing with his father’s death and his newfound responsibility, the request might have been unfathomable. Up to this point, we have no knowledge of Abram, Sarai’s, or Lot’s connection to divinity. The rabbis loved to think of the people who lived then as idol worshippers and therefore distinguished Abram from the others as someone capable of not just hearing a higher calling or sacred purpose but also paying attention to it.

There was something else, however, that drew him in, a pleasant kind of bidding.

God gave Abram direction not just toward a place but also a way of being. God described to him that he would be a great nation, blessed, and prosperous and one other offering.
וֶהְיֵ֖ה בְּרָכָֽה
We can read it as “You shall be a blessing”.
We can also read it as
“You shall be!” וֶהְיֵ֖ה — full stop —
is a blessing. בְּרָכָֽה

Just being present, mindful, in the moment is the blessing.

This is another way of saying that Abram’s presence in the world, just being in it, mindful, awake, and aware is blessing in and of itself. Where he will travel and what will become of him and his family by their existence, by their being is the blessing. Abram realized that the Divine presence placed him within a larger picture of the universe. That call of Lech Lecha לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ “Go forth!” attached a sacred purpose to his being in the world. Be present. Be aware. That is blessing.

So Abram proceeded. Each step along the way brought challenge-unpleasant, and blessing, — pleasant.

The portion ends with Abram’s name and Sarai’s name changing as instructed by God. Each name receives the letter “hey” as a representation of the divine. Abraham and Sarah.

This is not the end of their story nor is it the end of ours. We regard Abraham and Sarah as the first Jews. They brought others in. They created a very large family of which we are a part. God’s initial call of Go Forth! Lech Lecha, accompanied by “You shall be” IS a blessing! Heyei Brachah is to us as well. Be and be better.

We face challenges and will continue to face them as well as amazing triumphs as we go forward, pleasant and unpleasant. At the same time, we are. We exist. We are here and not going anywhere. We are Jews, Jewish adjacent, part of the Jewish orbit, inextricably linked to one another and our history.

Let us feel this blessing, be blessing and experience it with depth and meaning, guiding us to be better as we go forth with the great strength of our tradition holding us and welcoming each of us in.

Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions. Share with me what you think. Your email goes directly to me!

Rabbi Elaine Zecher