This week’s Torah portion describes Abraham’s (Abram’s) calling by God to leave his family and everything with which he was familiar, in order to go to a land God would show him. God told Abraham (Abram) in Genesis 12, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This last line, I believe, is one of the most important lines in the entire book of Genesis, and the words still ring true today!

The obedience of a single sojourner, our spiritual forefather, Abraham, has led to the entire world being blessed throughout the ages. In Romans 15, the Apostle Paul says, “For if the Gentiles have come to share in [the Jewish peoples’] spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.” The Jewish people continue today as they have throughout the ages; bless the entire world with the knowledge of God. So too, we in return should bless them by using our material wealth to show that we believe in the work they are accomplishing in the heartland of the Jewish homeland, the land promised to Abraham so many millennia ago!