{"id":22092,"date":"2018-10-19T21:31:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T21:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jww.org\/?p=22092"},"modified":"2018-10-19T21:31:20","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T21:31:20","slug":"benny-signer-excerpts-from-his-lech-lecha-bar-mitzvah-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/benny-signer-excerpts-from-his-lech-lecha-bar-mitzvah-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Benny Signer: Excerpts from his Lech Lecha Bar Mitzvah speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lech Lecha is the story of the start of the Jewish people. In this parasha, God tells Avram, or as we will come to know him, Abraham, to leave his home and go to the land that God will show to him. This land is, of course, Canaan, which we know today as Israel. God promises that if Avram goes, he will grow into a rich nation and his descendants will be as countless as the stars in the sky.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026Avram had many difficulties when he was immigrating to Canaan. For one, he had to pack up all<\/span><\/p>\n

his stuff and leave with only his wife and his nephew. He also was migrating to a land populated<\/span><\/p>\n

by other people, who might not be so welcoming. He had to work out where he was going to<\/span><\/p>\n

start a life. He also had no clue where God was going to take him. God only said \u201cGo to the<\/span><\/p>\n

place that I will show you.\u201d He still accepted this challenge, knowing the risks and difficulties<\/span><\/p>\n

involved. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026However, stories like Abraham’s are not exclusive to the Torah. Many immigrants experience<\/span><\/p>\n

difficulties and hardships even today! In fact, there have been immigrants at one point in all of<\/span><\/p>\n

our families, including my own. My parents emigrated from Canada to the US to start a new life<\/span><\/p>\n

for our family, and my great-grandparents fled their homes in Europe to escape the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

And while I’m not moving to a new physical place, I am moving into a new phase of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026As I become a Bar Mitzvah, I will become a member of Jewish society. That means to be giving<\/span><\/p>\n

and grateful. It means to be active in the community. As a Jew, I will help people in need. When<\/span><\/p>\n

Abraham started the Jewish religion, he had these ideals in mind. To listen to God, and to do<\/span><\/p>\n

God\u2019s work, by aiding others and practicing Mitzvot.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lech Lecha is the story of the start of the Jewish people. In this parasha, God tells Avram, or as we will come to know him, Abraham, to leave his home and go to the land that God will show to him. This land is, of course, Canaan, which we know today as Israel. God…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[349,188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nationalrefugeeshabbat","category-news-features","category-349","category-188","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}