Parshas Lech Lecha: The Unboxing Edition

Last week in Noach, we learned that Hashem scattered humanity, not to punish but to save them. 
The rainbow and the languages were reminders: we aren’t meant to all look the same. 
Every color matters. Every voice has a place.

This week, in Lech Lecha, the lesson goes a step further. 
Hashem tells Avram: “Lech Lecha” — go for yourself.

Step outside what feels familiar. You weren’t made to be a drab shade of grey on a dusty old TV.
You were made to be full color, broadcasting a Godly signal into the world.

Avram is called to trust Hashem’s direction and walk into the unknown. 
Sourdough is much the same: instead of the quick, predictable yeast packet, you enter the slower, uncertain world of wild fermentation. 
You don’t control it; you listen to it.  You walk with it.

When Avram entered Egypt, he hid his wife Sarai in a box. 
The Midrash says that when the guards opened it, her light shone so strongly it lit up the whole land.

That’s the point: if you stay hidden, your light stays trapped. But when you step out, your radiance has the chance to change everything around you.

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I’ve been working on that in my own journey. 
A few days before Yom Kippur, with Ochila still fresh on my lips, I did something that felt very “Lech Lecha”: I sent an email to 40 Chabad yeshiva principals — mostly Mesivta and Zal — across the globe, hoping to spark conversations that matter.

Inside it were links to two articles I had written:
  • “Let the L’Chaim Mean to Life” — a public op-ed about the culture of alcohol in our Mosdos and communities and the responsibility we carry as adults to model something healthier.
  • “Coming Back to Myself” — a personal essay about sobriety, Teshuvah, and the slow work of returning to presence and connection.

The gist wasn’t just “stop pouring drinks.” It was twofold:

  • Defense: Stop the silence. Stop normalizing and enabling a culture that teaches kids to numb instead of connect. Adults, Mashpi’im, parents, yeshivas — model something better.
  • Taking away the band-aid without teaching healing only makes a hurt kid reach for another band-aid, and sometimes, it’s much worse than alcohol..
  • Offense: Don’t just say no. Start earlier. Teach kids life skills, emotional health, awareness of feelings, how to connect honestly to another human being. Frame it through the stories of Chassidim if needed; showing not just their intensity and their big cups of Mashke, but their resilience, their honesty. Their ways of being real with each other, with their Rebbe, with their Avodas Hashem. 

Among other things, that email led to reconnecting with an old teacher from Mesivta, and an invitation to speak to his current talmidim on a zoom call earlier this week.

I initially hesitated.. Who am I to speak to bochurim? 
But then I realized it would be Lech Lecha.. I couldn’t say no. 

Afterwards, he messaged me that he wished he’d asked: 
“If you could speak to your 15-year-old self, what would you say?”

The next day, I sat down and actually did that as a therapeutic exercise..
I said hello, got some things off my chest that 15-year-old Berke never said. 
Letting go felt really liberating.
And I told him: your pain is real, but so is the possibility of healing.

Teenagers can be really hard to connect to. To get them to open up. Especially if they’re hurting. Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply validate that they even have a story.. even if you don’t know the details, and even if they don’t either. Life has so many layers, the interconnected spiderweb of experiences.

Believe in him. Believe in what he’s capable of, even if nobody knows yet what that will look like.

The most important piece is to create a warm, safe space. So that when the ice eventually starts to melt, it has somewhere to flow.

You want someone to really trust you? Lead by example. Model that trust first. Share one of your own struggles. Something they might understand. Show you’re human and flawed too. 

On a practical level: meet him in his own language. That’s why Hashem made so many of them. 
Don't force. Don't shame. Don't speak lofty concepts. Don't speak gibberish.

Find his channel, his way in. 

For example: my second grader absolutely loves math, but a few weeks into the school year his teacher asked me how to get him to participate more. I told him maybe a plain white worksheet is just boring. But if the problems are wrapped in a fun-themed worksheet, suddenly every answer gets filled in.

I could clash with him, force and fight for my way, and see how far that would get me.
Or I could choose to learn to speak child.

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Now while I can’t literally go back, I can go forward — to speak to my kids, my family, my friends, my community. And wherever else my voice carries.

We each have a voice. 
Parshas Noach taught us that every color and language belongs.
Lech Lecha challenges us to actually bring ours into the light.

Lech Lecha means: don’t just know you have a voice. Dare to show it.
Some lights are just beginning to glow, others already illuminate whole communities or networks.
Together, we can all fill in the full spectrum Hashem intended.

I’ll end with the Hayom Yom from this Monday, 5 Cheshvan:
"The Jewish people are compared to the stars twinkling in the high heavens. By their light, even he who walks in the darkness of night shall not blunder.
Every Jew, man or woman, possesses enough moral and spiritual strength to influence friends and acquaintances, and bring them into the light."


Where will your light shine this week?


Wishing you all a Shabbos of stepping forward with courage, shining your unique color, and filling the world with a little more light.

✨ Berke ✨