“And they went forth to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5).
Read that verse again. Notice anything strange? The text tells us that Abraham and Sarah set out for Canaan, and then—as if we needed confirmation—it tells us they arrived in Canaan. Why the redundancy? Any competent editor would cut one of these phrases. We know where they intended to go. We know they got there. Why does Scripture waste words stating both?
The answer becomes clear when you realize this isn’t the only journey to Canaan recorded in Genesis. One chapter earlier, Abraham and his family set out on this same trip:
Same destination. Same intention. Different result.
Two journeys. Two generations. One reaches Canaan. One stops short.
This parallel conceals a question that haunts every person who attempts something difficult: What happens when we start something we cannot finish?
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, known as the Chafetz Chaim, drew a sharp lesson from this contrast: good intentions alone are not enough. Terach wanted to reach Canaan. He uprooted his family and traveled hundreds of miles. But he stopped short, and the Bible marks this failure. Abraham, by contrast, did what he set out to do. The repetition in the verse—stating both intention and arrival—celebrates this achievement.
But there’s another way to read this story, one that doesn’t excuse failure but refuses to dismiss effort.
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis offers a more charitable assessment of Terach. He points to a teaching from Ethics of the Fathers in which Rabbi Tarfon declares: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” This maxim captures a truth that anyone who has attempted something difficult understands: many worthwhile tasks exceed a single person’s capacity to finish them. We plant trees under whose shade we will never sit. We begin projects that our children will complete. We start journeys that end one generation later.
Terach did start a worthwhile task. He left Ur of the Chaldeans, one of the ancient world’s great cities, because he felt a calling to head toward Canaan. He didn’t complete the journey, that was finished by his son, but he moved in the right direction. When he stopped in Charan, he had already traveled a significant distance. His son Abraham, raised in a household that valued Canaan as a destination, had only to finish what his father began.
Rabbi Mirvis argues that we should judge Terach more favorably because he did embark on a worthwhile journey. His dream was fulfilled one generation later. He started the matter, even though he couldn’t finish it. The Bible records both journeys—the incomplete and the complete—because both hold meaning.
This reading doesn’t contradict the Chafetz Chaim’s emphasis on completion. It adds a layer of realism to it. Not everyone finishes what they start, but everyone can start what needs finishing.
These two interpretations—the Chafetz Chaim’s call for completion and Rabbi Mirvis’s validation of beginning—don’t cancel each other out. They describe two aspects of the same reality.
The Chafetz Chaim is right: we must strive to complete what we begin. Terach’s failure to reach Canaan was a failure, not a success. The text highlights the contrast between father and son deliberately.
But Rabbi Mirvis is also right: we must start, even when finishing eludes us. Terach’s journey, though incomplete, moved his family closer to their destiny. His son inherited both the dream and the distance already traveled.
The repetition in the verse about Abraham’s journey—stating both intention and arrival—honors both truths. Yes, we must complete what we start. Yes, we must value those who start what they cannot complete.
We live in an age of abandoned projects and unfulfilled promises. People start books they never finish, launch businesses that close within a year, make commitments they quietly drop. The Chafetz Chaim’s warning echoes across the generations: intention without completion is failure. If you say you will reach Canaan, reach Canaan. Don’t stop in Charan and pretend you’ve arrived.
But we also live in an age that demands impossibly rapid results and punishes anyone who doesn’t achieve them immediately. Rabbi Mirvis’s insight provides the necessary corrective: you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. Start the journey. Take the first steps. Travel as far as you can. If you cannot reach Canaan, reach Charan. Someone else will finish what you began.
The Bible gives us both Terach and Abraham because we need both examples. We need the father who starts the journey and the son who completes it. We need the reminder that completion matters and the permission to begin even when completion is uncertain. Most of all, we need to understand that the journey to Canaan continues across generations. What we cannot finish, our children will. What they cannot finish, their children will. But someone must take the first step, and someone must take the last one.
