לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך (לך יב:א)

Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives, and from your father’s house…

The Medrash asks on the pasuk that the typical nature of a man’s departure is that he leaves his home, his family, and then his land.  By Avraham Avinu it says the opposite.  The Medrash answers that when Hashem told Avraham to leave his family, He meant that Avraham should separate himself from his family’s ways. Therefore, the pasuk first says, מארצך – to leave the land’s culture and behaviors and then leave וממולדתך ומבית אביך – the middos – behaviors ingrained in the family. As Dovid Hamelech  Tehillim, “שכחי עמך ובית אביך – forget your people and your father’s house.”

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