With this week’s portion, the Torah moves from the dramatic opening chapters dealing with creation, the Garden of Eden, Noah and the flood, and the Tower of Babel, into the family story of the Jewish people. The story begins with this simple passage: “The Lord said to Abram: Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

Abraham’s appearance is almost startling: Who is he, and why has he been called by God? Why must he leave his home, and where is the new land? And of particular interest is this question: Why does he heed the call?

The first mention of Abraham comes at the very end of last week’s portion: “When Terah had lived 70 years, he begot Abram….” From the Torah itself, we know nothing about Abraham prior to his being called by God; later rabbinic legend fills in some of the gaps in the narrative, but only by way of imagination. The Torah itself presents Abraham with no antecedent reference as to his eligibility for this unique role.

Abraham’s response is immediate: “Abram went forth as the Lord had commanded him…. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.” (Missing from the text is the conversation that must have ensued with Abraham’s wife, Sarai (later called Sarah), who, after all, must leave with him. What must they have said to each other? Was Sarai convinced or compelled? Did she believe in the Voice that Abraham heard? Or did she believe in Abraham? Did she have her own unrecorded experience of God?

What sort of religious faith is represented by Abraham’s immediate response to God’s call? What must it take for someone to leave everything and everyone familiar and dedicate oneself to the pursuit of a promise?

Elsewhere in the Bible, this commitment of faith is associated with discipleship. Consider this example: “[Elijah] came upon Elisha son of Shaphat as he was plowing…. Elijah came over to him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen and ran after Elijah saying, ‘Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye and I will follow you…. Then he arose and followed Elijah and became his attendant.” (I Kings 19:19-21)

In Christian scriptures, this model is presented in an even more radical way. “[Jesus said] if any man comes to me without rejecting totally his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and his own life, too, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

There is clearly something inherent in biblical faith that compels unquestioned commitment. Someone like Elisha wakes up as a plowman in the family field and goes to sleep the same night as the disciple of a prophet. In the stories of discipleship, there is a clear contrast between adherence and loyalty to one’s family and adherence and loyalty to one imbued with God’s spirit.

The story of Abraham is at once similar and different. He too leaves everything immediately. While he does not abandon his family, he does leave his father’s household. While he does not leave behind his possessions, he does leave his native land. There is a clear break between the past and the future, symbolized by the absence of any transition in the text. Abraham does not say goodbye, does not settle his accounts, does not make necessary arrangements for whatever legal and communal affairs require his attention. He is called and he responds.

It is difficult for moderns to comprehend the conviction that motivates such radical steps. We are uneasy with such faith, which we often call “blind.” We are unsure about instant conversions, and we look disapprovingly on religious zeal that celebrates God at the expense of rejecting one’s own family.

Within our own community, we sometimes forget that the return to observance on the part of many young Jews is accompanied by a coordinate disparaging of the non-Orthodox homes and synagogues in which they were often raised.

And yet we revere Abraham as the beginning of the line of the Jewish people, recognizing something essential in his attitude despite some questions we may have about his actions.

Abraham remains an essential figure for us because he represents a truth and a faith. His truth is the knowledge that after years of reason and debate, after philosophical speculation and mystical immersion, after all pursuits of ideological consistency, faith is ultimately an affirmation of heart and soul more than of mind. We cannot reason our way to God; we can only respond to God.

And Abraham’s faith is a faith in the future, not only for himself (“and you shall be a blessing”) but for all of creation (“and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you”). To leave behind the past is possible only when one becomes committed to the future.

The model of Abraham teaches that all Jews are indeed disciples — not of any human being, but only and especially of God. To be a Jew is always to be on the way “to the land that I will show you.”