Go out from your country, and from your family, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you (Gen. 12:1)
According to Rashi, the command implied "for your own benefit and to your own advantage." Yet despite the fact that Abraham knew this, he obeyed G-d simply because he had been so commanded, rather than out of any personal advantage it would bring him. (Der Torah Kval)
A person must overcome his natural inclinations in order to draw closer to G-d. This is alluded to in "Go out of your country ("eretz," related to the word "ratzon" or will; "your family" ("molad'tcha," an allusion to the intellect which "gives birth" to the emotions); and "your father's house" (the word "av," "father," related to "taava," lust and appetite). Only then can one arrive at "the land that I will show you." (Sifrei Chasidut)
I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you (Gen. 12:3)
Why are those who bless Abraham referred to in the plural, and those who curse him in the singular? Because when people will see that those who bless the Jews are themselves blessed, and those who curse them are themselves cursed, there will naturally be a surfeit of well-wishers and very few cursers... (Meshech Chochma)
And Abram took Sarai his wife...and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had made in Haran (Gen. 12:5)
If all of the nations joined together for the purpose of creating a mosquito, they could never succeed in inducing it with a soul. How, then, can the Torah refer to the souls that Abraham and Sarah "made" in Haran? Rather, the verse refers to the people they "brought under the wings of the Divine Presence. Abraham proselytized the men, and Sarah proselytized the women." Accordingly, they are credited as if they had "made" them." (The Midrash)
Reprinted from the Parshat Lech Lecha 5762/2001 edition of L’Chaim.
