Trust God Even When Nothing Makes Sense — Abraham's Lesson - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

Some of today's most creative writing isn't to be found in novels. You'll find it on Airbnb. The description of the apartment promised spacious living rooms, a fully equipped kitchen, and a peaceful location, five stars, wonderful reviews. The photographs showed a stunning apartment flooded with sunlight with panoramic views of the Mediterranean. And then you arrive. The panoramic view of the Mediterranean turns out to be a glimpse of something bluish between two gray apartment blocks. Provided you stand on the chair and lean out of the bathroom window. The spacious living room is spacious enough for two people, provided neither of them moves, and the peaceful location is directly above a nightclub. It's certainly peaceful after the last drunks have staggered out of there around 6:00 in the morning. Welcome to the world of expectations. At the beginning of Parshat Lech Lecha, Hashem tells Avraham Avinu, "Go for yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you." And what happens when Abraham arrives in this promised land? There's a massive famine. One moment the Almighty is promising Abraham a wonderful future, and the next Abraham is packing his bags and heading down to Egypt because there's nothing to eat. Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer explains that the famine was one of Abraham's 10 tests. We tend to think that when we're doing what Hashem wants, things should go smoothly. If we do a mitzvah, we expect a little divine assistance. If we make a sacrifice of Torah, surely Hashem will arrange things so that our sacrifice is rewarded. And then things don't go the way we expect. And we wonder whether we've taken a wrong turn. Maybe we misunderstood the instructions. Maybe Hashem isn't pleased with us. Abraham teaches us that difficulty is not necessarily a contradiction to a promise. Sometimes it's the very means by which that promise is fulfilled. The purpose of Lech wasn't just to move Avraham from one place to another, it was to transform him into Avraham Avinu, to create a person whose relationship with Hashem was not dependent on whether life was comfortable, predictable, or even comprehensible. A person who could walk into a famine and still know that he was exactly where Hashem wanted him to be. The great illusion of modern life is that with enough information, enough planning, and the right technology, we can eliminate uncertainty. We have satellite navigation to tell us where to turn, weather forecasts to tell us when to leave, and artificial intelligence to tell us what to think. But none of them can tell us what tomorrow will bring. The first words that Hashem speaks to Avraham are not merely a command to [music] travel. They're an invitation to trust. Lech Lecha, go. Not because you know where the road ends, but because you know who is leading you.