The Torah tells us very little about Abram’s early life. We are only informed that he and Sarai, along with his nephew Lot, were brought by his father, Terach, from Ur to Haran. After Terach’s death, Abram was commanded by God to leave Haran and promised that he would become “a great nation”, a call that changed his life forever.
Since last Sunday, during the Mitzvah School Prize giving, I have been thinking quite a lot about one incident that can change your life forever. In the Torah it is the call from God “Lech Lecha – Go!” that changed Abram’s life, last Sunday it was the awarding of stipends that changed the life of the students, hopefully forever, too. It was my first prize giving that I attended, and even though I have talked to some of the students before, I never imagined to what degree the Mitzvah School influences the future of these young people, and the society around us; in only one year they get a broad and deep education that not only helps them to graduate from school on an high level, but also to find a good job or to enter the university.
Often we don’t know the background of the students, we don’t know what they had experienced in their lives before they have entered the school, and I would say, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, what they have done as soon as they came here, and how serious they are about their own future. There are many Midrashim that try to reveal why God chose Abram, and how he grew up, but at the end, it is not important. Important for us is that God saw something in Abram and that Abram trusted God. And this is exactly what I witnessed last Sunday, the confidence of the teachers and the students that this one year at the Mitzvah School is a life changer.
Pictures and video clips from the prize giving can be found here: http://betdavid.org.za/kehillah/mitzvah-school/.
I am asking you all to support our “4-Fore-Four” Charity Golf Day on Tuesday 03 November 2015, our major annual fundraiser for the Synagogue and the Mitzvah school. Thank you!
Shabbat Shalom – Rabbi Schell
Podcast of Rabbi Schell’s weekly Radio Sermons on Radio Today, follow http://betdavid.podomatic.com/.
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