Lech Lecha – A Journey From Wound to Healing

There is a section in our parashah that is often overlooked—perhaps because the opening verses are so powerful that they eclipse everything else. After all, they give the portion its very name: Lech Lecha. 

It’s hard to compete for attention with something as extraordinary as God’s call to a man who seems quite ordinary, and that man’s selfless and wholehearted response—a response that would make him the founding father of a people, just as promised.

But this time, the text does not urge us to seek a new land. Instead, it invites us to heal our collective soul. Lech Lecha becomes “leave your wound and walk toward your healing.”

We owe ourselves a journey of recovery—both personal and national—a journey that includes mourning, remembering, embracing, and learning to believe again.

Abraham also heard these words:

“I will bless those who bless you… and through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

That verse remains both a promise and a challenge: even after the deepest pain, we are called to be a source of blessing, not resentment—to turn wounds into wisdom, darkness into light, and mourning into renewed commitment.

But let us now turn to the other part of this same parashah. It is a somewhat macabre scene—animals cut in two and laid upon an altar. And there, a covenant: Brit Bein HaBetarim, “the covenant between the parts,” one of the least romantic and emotional stories in the entire Torah.

It all unfolds from a crisis of faith. God tells Abraham that he will inherit the land of Canaan. But Abraham’s faith falters; he asks for proof. In response, God commands him to perform a sacrifice—the first time in the Torah that God demands one. In the face of Abraham’s insecurity, the command seems shocking: to cut and offer animals in a bloody ritual.

“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon,” God says “He brought Him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.” (Genesis 15:9 -10)

The smell of blood surely drew the vultures that feed on carcasses:

“Birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great and terrifying darkness descended upon him.” (Genesis 15:11–12)

It’s a scene that would fit right into Halloween night, yet it leaves us wondering—what was God’s intent in asking this?

Classical commentators offer explanations that don’t necessarily speak to us today: that this passage teaches how to prepare animals for sacrifice; that the large animals symbolize Israel’s enemies while the birds represent the Jewish people and thus remain whole; or that every covenant requires two parts. Others point out that since there were three animals and two birds, the animals had to be cut in two so that the numbers would be even—symbolizing the two parties to the covenant.

Interesting as these may be, they fail to fully satisfy.

Let’s take another path. Abraham needed to strengthen his faith in God’s promise of a land—a promise difficult to visualize. The “covenant between the parts” may be telling us that nothing good comes from achieving our goals by tearing things apart.

Those split animals seem to foreshadow what was to come:

“Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own, enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.” (Genesis 15:13)

What is the connection between Abraham’s doubt, the birds of prey, and the prophecy of slavery in Egypt?

To me, it speaks powerfully today: fragmentation and division always precede exile and bondage. They open the door for the vultures—of every kind—to feed on the wounded and broken for their own gain.

Throughout Jewish history, this pattern has repeated itself. Sinat achim—hatred among brothers—has always led to disaster, the most tragic being the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. But there were others.

And isn’t that what we’re witnessing in our world today?

A handful hover above the suffering, watching scenes of horror on their screens while continuing their daily lives, offering detached disapproval at best. Meanwhile, others feed on this brokenness—filling their bellies, their coffers, and their insatiable hunger for power. Everywhere we look, people are subjected to abuses of authority, to extreme violence, reduced to the cruelest expressions of what humanity can become.

The world, it seems, has made a covenant—not with the Divine—but with the most heartless and brutal side of its own nature, all for the benefit of a few.

And what does Abraham have to do with this?

Perhaps God chose such a graphic, shocking image to portray the cruelty of Egypt’s slavery—and, by extension, the horrors that follow when we cut apart what is sacred: our faith, our ethics, and our principles.

The story regains calm as continue reading:

“When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking furnace and a blazing torch passed between the pieces.” (Genesis 15:17)

God Himself intervenes in the midst of such darkness. The burning torch halts the desecration and sanctifies what remains. It reminds us that returning to our Jewish essence—our faith in the Creator and our covenantal commitment to our people and to humanity—is precisely what Torah and mitzvot call us to do.

God commanded Abraham to cut the animals in two, but not the birds. The birds were to remain whole. They have the ability to fly—to rise above tragedy. If the cut animals represent pain and suffering, then the birds represent the spirit of those who refuse to bow before horror, who do not join the violent but soar above the darkness in search of light. From that higher perspective, they can see the way forward: through education, dialogue, ethical leadership, and the defense of diversity and equity.

Immersed in tragedy, it may seem impossible to glimpse the light. Yet the story ends with God’s promise to Abraham that He will redeem the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.

Perhaps this covenant—Brit Bein HaBetarim—is a call for us to look beyond suffering toward that spark of divine light; to choose to rise above pain and horror and begin building a different reality, one that lifts humanity out of the abyss in which it is trapped.

It’s probably no coincidence that these reflections bring to mind a verse from Martín Fierro, the classic Argentine epic by José Hernández—a poem about the struggles of a humble gaucho:

“Brothers should stand together strong, For that’s the law, the first and long. Let their true bond in time endure, In every age, both firm and pure. For if they quarrel, filled with spite, The wolves from outside come to bite.”

Shabbat Shalom  

Rabbi Gustavo Geier