Parshat Lech Lecha teaches us that going forth isn’t always about knowing where we’re headed. Sometimes, it’s about finding the courage to keep going when the path we imagined disappears.

There’s an art to losing. Not because losing is beautiful or because disappointment magically becomes meaningful with enough time, but because sometimes the hardest part of losing is figuring out who you are without the thing you thought you were working toward.

In Parshat Lech Lecha, God commands Abram to leave everything familiar behind and journey toward an unknown destination. “Lech lecha,” go forth, is a call to move forward without knowing exactly what lies ahead. Abram doesn’t receive a detailed itinerary or a guarantee that everything will go according to plan. He’s simply asked to take the first step.

For a long time, I thought going forth meant moving toward something I wanted. This year, I learned that sometimes it means moving forward after losing it.

BBYO has been one of the most meaningful parts of my Jewish identity. It’s given me a community, a purpose, and a place where I feel like I can make a difference. That’s why losing my caucus for Council Morah hurt so much. It wasn’t simply the disappointment of not getting a position. It was watching a future I’d imagined for myself disappear and wondering what came next. If I couldn’t pursue the opportunity I’d wanted so badly, did I still want to keep pursuing BBYO at all?

My uncertainty wasn’t just about losing Council Morah, either. After serving as N’siah, I was also dealing with the burnout that came with being chapter president. I loved my chapter, but leadership had taken a lot out of me, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do it all again.

When I considered returning as Mazkirah, I found myself questioning whether it was worth it. If I wasn’t on council board, was I still doing enough? After wanting to take my leadership to the next level, would returning to chapter board feel like moving backward? I even wondered whether chapter board was enough at all.

Looking back, I think I’d started measuring my value in BBYO by the positions I could hold and the opportunities I could win. I knew how much I loved this organization, but I was struggling to separate that love from my disappointment. For a while, I genuinely considered stepping away.

Then came ILTC and Kallah.

Both experiences gave me the space to reconnect with the parts of Jewish life and leadership that had drawn me to BBYO in the first place. Through the people I met, the conversations I had, and the Jewish learning I experienced, I was reminded that BBYO is so much bigger than any one position or election. Leadership isn’t limited to a title, and the impact we make isn’t measured only by the roles we hold.

Slowly, I started to feel excited again.

Returning as Mazkirah began to feel less like settling for something other than what I’d wanted and more like choosing something I still genuinely loved. My chapter deserved leaders who cared, showed up, and wanted to make the experience better for everyone around them. I didn’t need a council position to make a difference, and I didn’t need to prove my worth through an election. I could still want bigger opportunities while recognizing that the work I did within my chapter mattered, too.

That’s the connection I see between The Art of Losing and Lech Lecha. Going forth doesn’t require us to forget where we’ve been. It asks us to keep moving even when the future looks different from the one we planned. Abram leaves behind what’s familiar without knowing precisely what awaits him. In my own way, I had to let go of the future I’d pictured to make room for the experiences still waiting for me.

I didn’t have to turn my disappointment into an inspirational story overnight. I needed time, distance, and new experiences to remember why BBYO mattered to me in the first place. Losing my caucus didn’t make me less of a leader, and questioning whether I wanted to stay didn’t mean I loved my community any less.

Perhaps that’s the real art of losing: learning that an ending isn’t always an exit, that disappointment doesn’t have to become a disconnection, and that we can love something enough to choose it again after it’s hurt us.

This year, going forth didn’t mean leaving BBYO behind. It meant finding my way back to it, with a clearer understanding of why I wanted to be there in the first place.

Lech lecha. Go forth. Not because the road is the one you expected, but because there’s still somewhere meaningful to go.

Shabbat Shalom
Lila Weiss, Greater Jersey: Central