Lekh L'kha - Where it all starts
Parshah for Shabbat, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004:
Lekh L'kha [Bereishit, Ch. 12, verse - Ch. 17, verse 24]
If there is a place where Judaism begins, it is here. The preceding two parshahs have little to do with the Jewish people or their faith; they are parables of creation and the spread of people across God's world, basically Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. With Lekh L'kha, the Torah finally gets down to business.
Abram shows up in the last paragraph of Noach. In the first paragraph of Lekh L'kha, God tells him, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you." No introduction, no prologue, no setting. No explanation that the world was iniquitous and Abram righteous, as was done with Noah. Just - go.
And Abram goes. Was it easier in those days to know when God was speaking to you? (Obviously, if you accept these stories as parables and legends rather than historical fact, the question need not arise. And if you take them as allegories, then it is also easy to accept that God spoke more directly to people in those days than He does now.)
There is great poetry and promise in this opening: "I ill make of you a great nation,/And I will bless you;/I will make your name great,/And you shall be a blessing./I will bless those who bless you/And curse him that curses you;/And all the families of the earth/Shall bless themselves by you." (Jews are still waiting for that to happen!)
Abram sets out, and once he sets out, he has trouble stopping. From Ur to Canaan and thence to Egypt. There is a very odd, and to me inexplicable, bit in which Abram tells his wife Sarai, before they arrive in Egypt, to pretend to be his sister rather than his wife, lest the Egyptians kill him and take her. Why would they respect a brother more than a husband?
In any case, Abram prospers in Egypt (clever Jew!) until God sends plagues upon the Egyptians "on account of Sarai, the wife of Abram." So his little deception has ill consequences for all. Does this mean God did not want Abram to conceal his true relationship with Sarai? Why didn't God just tell Abram? Are they not on speaking terms anymore?
Pharaoh expels Abram and Sarai. They wander around, including to Sodom and Gomorrah - which the parshah points out, the Lord had not yet destroyed (why even mention this, unless to people back then, the legend of the destruction of these cities was well known even before the first compilations of the Torah, so listeners would have wondered how could Abram have visited those cities unless they were told it was before their destruction? Evidence that perhaps the Torah was not handed down to Moses in its entirety on Mount Horeb?)
The parshah wanders as much as Abram does. He builds an altar at Hebron. He leads his followers into battle to rescue his nephew Lot. God promises to make his offspring a great nation. And he receives the covenant from God to receive the land between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Abram also fathers a son with his wife's maid Hagar, but Sarai suffers from very human envy and makes Abram cast Hagar Ishmael out. God promises that Hagar too will be the parent of a great nation. Finally, Abram and Sarai, at their advanced ages, have a son. God changes his name to Abraham and demands that Abraham and all his male offspring and all the males in his household be circumcised as a sign of the covenant with God. God changes Sarai's name to Sarah and blesses her with a son. The parshah ends with Abraham, Ishmael and all the males being circumcised.
As I said, Lekh L'kha is where it all starts. From a Jewish perspective, it is perhaps a modest start. Other than circumcision, there are no commandments to follow, no ethical laws, no social justice, no morality. But Abraham will be the father of a mighty nation, in a unique covenant with the Creator.
Why Abraham? There is nothing in the Torah to explain. Did God try to find others, and only Abram was willing to listen? There is a midrash that Terah, Abram's father, was an idol-maker, and one day he left Abram in his shop. He came back to find the idols all broken and asked his son who had done this. Abram replied, one of the idols smashed the others. Terah said, don't be silly, they're just stone, they can't do anything. So why do people worship them, Abram asked. Abraham is revered as the father of monotheism, the belief in one all-powerful omnipresent deity, creator of everything, including creation itself. But there is nothing in this parshah to document that, other than the obvious fact that it is Abram who does hear God and do what He says.
And from this little beginning, everything else will follow. For what are the Jews but the people who hear God and do what He says? At least, that's our story and we're sticking to it!
(Note: all citations from Eitz Chayim ("Tree of Life"), the official Chumash (printed version of the Torah) of the Conservative Movement (copyright 2001 by the Rabbinical Assembly; Hebrew text, based on Biblia Hebraica Stuttgarensia, copyright 1999 by The Jewish Publication Society; English translation copyright 1985, 1999 by The Jewish Publication Society).
(Except as otherwise specifically noted and referenced, all commentaries are mine.)
Lekh L'kha [Bereishit, Ch. 12, verse - Ch. 17, verse 24]
If there is a place where Judaism begins, it is here. The preceding two parshahs have little to do with the Jewish people or their faith; they are parables of creation and the spread of people across God's world, basically Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. With Lekh L'kha, the Torah finally gets down to business.
Abram shows up in the last paragraph of Noach. In the first paragraph of Lekh L'kha, God tells him, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you." No introduction, no prologue, no setting. No explanation that the world was iniquitous and Abram righteous, as was done with Noah. Just - go.
And Abram goes. Was it easier in those days to know when God was speaking to you? (Obviously, if you accept these stories as parables and legends rather than historical fact, the question need not arise. And if you take them as allegories, then it is also easy to accept that God spoke more directly to people in those days than He does now.)
There is great poetry and promise in this opening: "I ill make of you a great nation,/And I will bless you;/I will make your name great,/And you shall be a blessing./I will bless those who bless you/And curse him that curses you;/And all the families of the earth/Shall bless themselves by you." (Jews are still waiting for that to happen!)
Abram sets out, and once he sets out, he has trouble stopping. From Ur to Canaan and thence to Egypt. There is a very odd, and to me inexplicable, bit in which Abram tells his wife Sarai, before they arrive in Egypt, to pretend to be his sister rather than his wife, lest the Egyptians kill him and take her. Why would they respect a brother more than a husband?
In any case, Abram prospers in Egypt (clever Jew!) until God sends plagues upon the Egyptians "on account of Sarai, the wife of Abram." So his little deception has ill consequences for all. Does this mean God did not want Abram to conceal his true relationship with Sarai? Why didn't God just tell Abram? Are they not on speaking terms anymore?
Pharaoh expels Abram and Sarai. They wander around, including to Sodom and Gomorrah - which the parshah points out, the Lord had not yet destroyed (why even mention this, unless to people back then, the legend of the destruction of these cities was well known even before the first compilations of the Torah, so listeners would have wondered how could Abram have visited those cities unless they were told it was before their destruction? Evidence that perhaps the Torah was not handed down to Moses in its entirety on Mount Horeb?)
The parshah wanders as much as Abram does. He builds an altar at Hebron. He leads his followers into battle to rescue his nephew Lot. God promises to make his offspring a great nation. And he receives the covenant from God to receive the land between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Abram also fathers a son with his wife's maid Hagar, but Sarai suffers from very human envy and makes Abram cast Hagar Ishmael out. God promises that Hagar too will be the parent of a great nation. Finally, Abram and Sarai, at their advanced ages, have a son. God changes his name to Abraham and demands that Abraham and all his male offspring and all the males in his household be circumcised as a sign of the covenant with God. God changes Sarai's name to Sarah and blesses her with a son. The parshah ends with Abraham, Ishmael and all the males being circumcised.
As I said, Lekh L'kha is where it all starts. From a Jewish perspective, it is perhaps a modest start. Other than circumcision, there are no commandments to follow, no ethical laws, no social justice, no morality. But Abraham will be the father of a mighty nation, in a unique covenant with the Creator.
Why Abraham? There is nothing in the Torah to explain. Did God try to find others, and only Abram was willing to listen? There is a midrash that Terah, Abram's father, was an idol-maker, and one day he left Abram in his shop. He came back to find the idols all broken and asked his son who had done this. Abram replied, one of the idols smashed the others. Terah said, don't be silly, they're just stone, they can't do anything. So why do people worship them, Abram asked. Abraham is revered as the father of monotheism, the belief in one all-powerful omnipresent deity, creator of everything, including creation itself. But there is nothing in this parshah to document that, other than the obvious fact that it is Abram who does hear God and do what He says.
And from this little beginning, everything else will follow. For what are the Jews but the people who hear God and do what He says? At least, that's our story and we're sticking to it!
(Note: all citations from Eitz Chayim ("Tree of Life"), the official Chumash (printed version of the Torah) of the Conservative Movement (copyright 2001 by the Rabbinical Assembly; Hebrew text, based on Biblia Hebraica Stuttgarensia, copyright 1999 by The Jewish Publication Society; English translation copyright 1985, 1999 by The Jewish Publication Society).
(Except as otherwise specifically noted and referenced, all commentaries are mine.)
posted by Tom Beck at 5:37 PM
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