The Meor Eynayim notes that Abraham, like Jacob and like Moses, is often called-to twice (think of that critical "Abraham, Abraham!" in the akedah narrative.) He argues that the two namings correspond to two aspects of the tzaddik, his earthly or embodied self and his elevated or "root" self. The use of a doubled name "is taken by the Meor Eynayim to reflect a deeper doubleness or duality: namely, his ability to be equally present, equally at home, in both the supernal, heavenly worlds and in this earthly, corporeal world," as Rabbi Jonathan Chipman writes.

We are called to be like Abraham: to trust in our Source as we journey through the wilds of our contemporary lives. And we are also called to live up, as best we can, to Abraham's apparent ability to transcend the dualism which suggests we are entirely separate from God. To hear, when our names are called, a doubled address that wakes us from complacency before offering a deep communication about who we really are.

Trying to hold on simultaneously to the notion that I am distant from God (which is borne out in my ordinary reality, in which self-consciousness depends on awareness of the boundaries that separate me from everything other-than-me) and to the notion that I am always already in a state of devekut with God's unity... well. It makes my brain hurt. I get that separation from God is necessary because it's the act of moving to overcome the separation that makes us who and what we are -- in that sense all of creation is an engine for teshuvah. But how can we live in boundaried reality, where duality is a necessary part of being, and in constant awareness that duality is illusory and all is One?

Like most important tasks, I'm not sure the work of integrating those two perspectives can ever be said to be "finished." Come to think of it, I'm not sure the kind of journey God invites Abraham (and, by extension, all of us) to take is ever "finished" either. Each one of us is always going forth from her land, the place of her birth, the house of her father. My land: the physical place where I feel at-home, the landscape I know intimately in every season, which in some sense I know best because I allow myself to leave and return. The place of my birth: my origin-point, physical and spiritual, the locus of my awakening. The house of my father: the interconnected web of my family, the community that shelters me and also allows me to reach beyond the limits of what's familiar and known.

Always leaving, always coming home. Our challenge is to fully inhabit the journey, to trust that we are being led forth for a reason, and to honor where we come from even as we relinquish attachment to who we've been. (And while we're at it, to be gracious and hospitable to strangers, to argue for the rights of the inhabitants of even our most squalid cities, and to cultivate the discernment that will allow us to hear God's call clearly.) Abraham's not an easy role model, but his story has a lot to teach us about how to make our own lives a blessing. To sanctify the experience, and the process, of always going forth into something new.