Dear Friend,

A lot of pop-therapy junkies aren’t going to be happy with the message of Lech Lecha. Abraham is told—and so is every one of us—“Go away to yourself.”

Go away from your past, your upbringing, all those happenings that formed your personality. Pick yourself up, look straight ahead, and go to the land G‑d will show you—where He will show you yourself, your true self.

But what about the rearview mirror? What about revisiting the trauma of your childhood and reframing it? What about detoxifying the river upstream before you travel further with its current?

Abraham didn’t do that, and we’re not told to either. We fix the past by going to the place where G‑d will lead us, where our mission in life lies, where we make a difference, where the world is better off because we were born into it.

As for the rearview mirror, yes, we need that as well. We don’t deny the past. We acknowledge it. We need to glance back once in a while and see how that past is moving forward along with us. Because the past is defined by the future to which we lead it.

And what about you? In which direction is your focus in life?

Tzvi Freeman,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team

P.S.: Hey, I really can’t leave this out: We have to do something for our brothers and sisters in Israel. Check out a few words I have to say about that in Gather for the Peace of Jerusalem.​