In this weeks Parsha, Parshat Lech Lecha, God told Abram to “Go to a land that I Will show you”. This is more than just a kid sleeping over at a friend’s house for a couple days. Essentially, this is God telling Abram to leave everything he has. he has to leave his house, his family, and his dependence. Try to imagine being a young adult and getting kicked out of your house. In addition to just leaving, try thinking about being told you have to move far away. If you ask where to, the only response you’ll get is, “You’ll see”.  Abram didn’t even ask that question. In fact he didn’t ask anything. He didn’t ask about his location, the expenses, food, or family. He just did as he was told to do. Thit is a crazy thing to think about. He was blindly following a voice. This is something that takes respect, courage, and passion. He must have been afraid to leave and follow Hashem without any prior knowledge. It’s hard enough for anyone to leave home under normal circumstances.

Now a question comes in to play. What can we learn from this? The Torah is flawless, right? It doesn’t add anything extra. Why put this in? Why make us learn this?  The answer is quite obvious. We previously mentioned that what he did took respect, courage, and passion. I want to focus on his genuine respect. He respected God. In countless other acts he respected other people as well. This is a trait we should take from him. Respect. We need to learn how to respect our and other’s religions, ideas, words, and actions.

There is a popular idea in the world: Benefit of the doubt. Abram understood this idea almost perfectly. Younger children give a pure insight. Teenagers see things in a passionate manner and are very in the moment. Young adults start to gain consequential thinking which can play into their thought process. And older men/women have experience that everyone else lacks. Everyone has a unique way to look at the world and that thought process also shows a unique answer to every situation. Next time you hear someone say something or do anything that bothers you, just try to think where that idea really stems from. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Fight the frustration. If you need inspiration to do this, or proof to show you can, just look here. Abram in this Parsha shows you just how far RESPECT can take you.