Everyone knows someone who talks endlessly about leaving. Leaving their job, leaving their relationship, leaving their hometown. They speak with passion about breaking free, about finally making the change that will transform their life. But here’s what separates the dreamers from the achievers: most people who successfully leave never reach their intended destination. They exchange one form of wandering for another.
Abraham was different. God spoke to him twice in his lifetime using the identical Hebrew phrase: lech lecha ā “go forth.” The first time, the command launched one of history’s most consequential journeys:
Abraham had to abandon everything familiar ā his country, his community, his family’s house. The Hebrew phrase lech lecha literally means “go to yourself” or “go for yourself,” suggesting that this journey would transform Abraham’s very identity. He was leaving the idolatrous city of Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldeans) for a destination God had not yet revealed.
Decades later, after Abraham had established himself in the Promised Land, God issued the same command with far different stakes:
God once again told Abraham to go, using the same Hebrew phrase lech lecha. This time, the destination was specific: Mount Moriah, the future site of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
Two identical commands. Two vastly different challenges. The Sages noticed this pattern and reached an interesting conclusion. Rabbi Levi taught: “Lech lecha is written twice, and we don’t know which is more beloved ā the second or the first? From what is written ‘to the land of Moriah,’ behold the second is more beloved than the first.” In other words, Abraham’s willingness to bind Isaac on Mount Moriah was a greater accomplishment than his courage to leave his birthplace.
Why did the Sages declare that Abraham’s second lech lecha was more beloved to God than his first?
The answer lies in understanding the fundamental difference between departure and arrival. The first lech lecha demanded that Abraham separate himself from spiritual darkness. He had to leave behind idolatry, materialism, and the corrupting influences of his birthplace. This required tremendous courage and faith, but it was essentially a negative act ā a leaving behind, a rejection of falsehood.
The second lech lecha demanded something far more demanding: the positive construction of holiness. Abraham had to ascend Mount Moriah not merely to flee from something, but to build something eternal. The binding of Isaac (Akeidat Yitzchak) was never about child sacrifice ā God prevented that. It was about Abraham’s willingness to surrender everything for the sake of establishing God’s presence in the world. Mount Moriah would become the Temple Mount, the place where heaven and earth meet.
This pattern repeats throughout our history. The Sages teach that only one-fifth of the Israelites actually left Egypt during the Exodus. Four-fifths chose to remain in slavery rather than face the uncertainty of freedom. Even those who departed required forty years in the wilderness before they were spiritually prepared to enter the Promised Land.
Yet leaving Egypt and the wilderness was the easier test to pass. Breaking free of Egypt took forty years – but the next test, building the Temple, took four hundred years. Think about that ratio. It took the people of Israel ten times longer to fulfill its purpose in the land than it took to reach the land itself. The construction of the Temple required a different kind of courage than the Exodus. Leaving Egypt meant rejecting Pharaoh’s oppression. Building the Temple meant creating a dwelling place for the Divine Presence. One was escape; the other was destiny.
We see this same pattern in the Jewish peopleās modern return to the Land of Israel. Millions of Jews have returned to our ancestral homeland over the past century and a half. Many came fleeing persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Others came driven by Zionist ideology or religious conviction. This modern aliyah (immigration to Israel) is a contemporary fulfillment of the first lech lecha ā the courage to leave behind exile and return home.
But Israel’s ultimate purpose transcends mere refuge or nationalism. We returned to our ancestral homeland not simply to escape antisemitism or to normalize our existence among the nations. We returned to fulfill our calling as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). We returned to rebuild the Temple and restore God’s presence to the world.
The second lech lecha was more beloved. Any person with sufficient desperation can flee from danger or discomfort. But only those with the deepest faith can build something sacred that will endure for generations. The first journey requires rejecting the past; the second requires creating the future.
Abraham’s genius lay in understanding that his first lech lecha was incomplete without the second. He didn’t simply wander from place to place, exchanging one exile for another. He left Ur Kasdim “to go to the land of Canaan” with a clear destination in mind. Every step of his journey pointed toward Mount Moriah, toward the ultimate fulfillment of God’s purpose.
The challenge facing our generation is the same: Will we be satisfied with leaving the darkness, or will we press forward toward the light? Will we be content with rejecting falsehood, or will we commit ourselves to building truth? The first lech lecha is necessary but insufficient. The second lech lecha ā the willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of holiness ā remains the ultimate test of faith.
Abraham passed both tests. He left his homeland and he ascended Mount Moriah. He rejected idolatry and he prepared the foundation for the Temple. He shows us that the journey away from darkness must always point toward our arrival in the light. The real question is not whether we have the courage to leave the exile, but whether we are ready to make the painful sacrifices necessary to bring the redemption.
