Genesis - Parashath Toledoth - Aliyoth 1 to 4.

 ALIYAH 1 - REBECCA'S TWINS.

Isaac and Rebecca are childless, and pray for children.  After 20 years of marriage, Rebecca conceives, and gives birth to twins.  The first-born, hairy and ruddy, they name Esau; the second, born grasping his brother's heel, they name Jacob [ Ya'aqov | יַֽעֲקֹ֑ב ].  Esau is an outdoorsman, and Isaac favors him, while Rebecca is partial to the more indoorsy Jacob.  

Esau, returning hungry from a hunt, prevails upon Jacob to give him some of the stew that Jacob is cooking - in return for which, Jacob extracts Esau's promised birthright.  

A famine strikes the land of Canaan, but G-d instructs Isaac not to travel to Egypt as his father Abraham did, but to remain in the land.

ALIYAH 2 - ISAAC AND AVIMELEKH.

Isaac presents his wife Rebecca to the local people as his "sister", the third instance of such a ruse in Genesis.  After time passes, he lets his guard down and is spotted behaving intimately with Rebecca.  Avimelekh chastises him, and Isaac reaps "a hundredfold" as a blessing from G-d.

ALIYAH 3 - ISAAC DOES WELL.

Isaac prospers, and is asked by Avimelekh to leave the area.  He resettles, first in Gerar (along the border between the Negev and the Israeli heartland, and just east of Gaza), then at Sitnah; after encountering trouble over wells with the locals at these locations, he finally settles in Rehovoth [רְחוֹבוֹת] in the Negev.  (This is not the same as the modern city of the same name, which is about 20 km south of Tel Aviv.)

ALIYAH 4

Isaac travels to Be'er Sheva, where he receives a nighttime visit from G-d with the promise of safety and of many descendants.  He is then visited by Avimelekh, who proposes improved relations and a pact of peace.  [292]

Genesis - Parashath Chayei Sarah.

 GENESIS - PARASHATH CHAYEI SARAH.

ALIYAH 1 [23:1 - 16] - A RESTING PLACE FOR SARAH.

We are not told how much time elapsed between the binding of Isaac and the death of Sarah.  Tradition holds that Sarah died immediately after.  However, if Isaac was a young boy at the time of the binding, many years would have passed.  (Adin Steinsaltz, p. 116.)  

Sarah dies at the age of 127 years, and from the way the text expresses her age, tradition infers that she lived a full life and exhibited the same good qualities throughout.  Abraham negotiates with Ephron and the Children of Heth, i.e. the Hittites (or a branch of the Hittites - Steinsaltz, p. 117, note on 23:3) and purchases a cave to bury Sarah.  He pays Ephron 400 shekels, an extravagant price, without haggling.  

The site is the Cave of Machpelah, today known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and also the location of the Ibrahimi Mosque.  The tomb and mosque have been under Israeli control since 1967, although due to the location security is tight and a number of incidents of violence have occurred.  I visited the site on a trip to Israel many years ago.

ALIYAH 2 [23:17 - 24:9] - A WIFE FOR ISAAC.

With Sarah laid to rest, Abraham turns to the matter of finding a wife for Isaac.  He tasks his chief servant Eliezer with this mission, emphasizing that Eliezer must go "to the land of my birthplace" and bring back to Canaan a wife for Isaac; under no circumstances should Isaac travel back to Ur, nor should he take a wife from the Canaanite women.  

ALIYAH 3 [24:10 - 26] - ELIEZER AND REBECCA.

Eliezer travels to the city of Aram-Naharaim, home of Abraham's brother Nahor [נָחֽוֹר].  Robert Alter (p. 78, note on 24:10) notes that the camels in this scene are an anachronism, as the camel was not domesticated in the Ancient Near East until centuries after the Patriarchal period.  Nevertheless, camels play a key role in this narrative.  

Eliezer, approaching the city, asks for a Divine sign to confirm his choice of a mate for Isaac, and resolves to select the girl who offers water not only to Eliezer himself but also to his camels.  Rebecca appears and promptly fulfills this test.  (Alter notes that ten thirsty camels would consume many gallons of water, so Rebecca "would have had to be a nonstop blur of motion"; p. 80, note on 24:20.)  Eliezer learns that she is the daughter of Bethuel and the granddaughter of Nahor.

ALIYAH 4 [24:27 - 52] - ELIEZER MEETS LAVAN.

Eliezer is invited in to meet Lavan, and introduces himself and relates the events of his mission from Abraham.  He asks Lavan for Rebecca as a bride for Isaac, and Lavan agrees, saying, "This has come from the L-rd, and we can say neither bad nor good about it."  (His terse invitation to Eliezer to "take her and go" - just two words in Hebrew [ קַ֣ח וָלֵ֑ךְ | qach v'lekh ] - echoes Pharaoh's dismissal of Sarai in 12:19.)

ALIYAH 5 [24:53 - 67] - ELIEZER BRINGS REBECCA HOME TO ISAAC.

There are gifts given to Rebecca's family, and a celebratory feast, and Eliezer spends the night.  In the morning, Rebecca's brother and mother ask for a delay before the marriage, but Eliezer urges, "Do not delay me."  (Steinsaltz notes that Eliezer "can therefore justify his hurry to return, not only to bring the girl to Isaac, but also to report to an elderly Abraham that a wife has been found for his son." - p. 128, note on 24:56.)  The matter is put to Rebecca, and she agrees to go right away.  Isaac marries Rebecca and finds consolation over the loss of his mother.

ALIYAH 6 [25:1 - 11] - ABRAHAM'S FINAL YEARS.

Abraham remarries; the text reports that the woman's name is Keturah [קְטוּרָֽה].  Some commentators believe that Keturah is in fact another name for Hagar, while others take the straightforward reading that this is a new wife.  (Steinsaltz, p. 131, note on 25:1.)  She bears him many children, but Abraham sends them to lands far to the east, and gives all that he owns to Isaac.  Abraham dies at the age of 175 and is buried next to Sarah and the Cave of Machpelah.

ALIYAH 7 [25:12 - 18] - SONS OF ISHMAEL.

As Ishmael "definitively leaves the scene of narration" (Alter, p. 85, note on Ch. 25), his descendants are listed, "twelve princes" (25:16) like the future sons of Jacob.  Ishmael dies at the age of 137.  [761]

Genesis - Parashath Vayera.

GENESIS - PARASHATH VAYERA.

Abraham receives mysterious visitors, who bring good tidings and ill.  The course of Lot's life is changed forever.  Abraham's long-promised blessing finally appears, but family strife ensues, and Abraham's faith is tested.

ALIYAH 1 [18:1 - 14] - ABRAHAM'S THREE VISITORS.

Three angelic visitors appear to Abraham as he sits by his tent in the afternoon.  While Sarah prepares refreshment, they deliver the news that in a year's time, Sarah will have a son - much to Sarah's incredulity.

ALIYAH 2 [18:15 - 33] - MISSION TO SODOM.

Abraham sees the men off; two continue toward their next destination, the evil city of Sodom.  The text now reports the Creator first contemplating, and then speaking directly to Abraham:  "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is very great!  Let Me go down and see ...".  The idiom of G-d "going down" to a wicked city to appraise the behavior of its inhabitants recalls the story of Babel.

Abraham bargains with G-d, securing the Creator's agreement to spare the city if even ten righteous people can be found there.  G-d departs from speaking with Abraham, and "Abraham returned to his place."

(If Abraham had instead continued to Sodom with the two angels, bringing his family with him, then - counting four humans of both sexes from each of Lot's and Abraham's families, plus the angels - there would have been exactly ten righteous people in Sodom.)

ALIYAH 3 [19:1 - 20] - LOT'S TWO VISITORS.

The angels find Lot sitting "in the gate" of Sodom; he's sitting literally inside the gate, because fortified cities had "a large chamber at the gateway" (Alter, p.60, note).  This detail emphasizes the urban setting, in contrast to Abraham's vantage point by his tent in the wilderness.  Lot invites them to his home for dinner, rest, and safety.  When the men of Sodom learn of the visitors, they demand Lot give them over, and threaten to break down his door.  The angels strike the attackers with blindness and urge Lot to flee with his family.  

ALIYAH 4 [19:21 - 21:4] - DESTRUCTION OF SODOM; AVIMELEKH AND SARAH; BIRTH OF ISAAC.

Lot arrives at dawn at the small town of Tzo'ar [צֽוֹעַר], and Sodom meets its end in classic Biblical fashion, in a rain of fire and brimstone; Lot's wife, looking back, is turned into a pillar of salt.  Lot then flees Tzo'ar for a deserted cave with his two daughters.  They must have assumed that "[the destruction of Tzo'ar] had been merely delayed" (Steinsaltz, p. 100, note on 19:30).  The daughters, assuming the destruction is worldwide, conceive a plan to propagate the human race.

Abraham journeys south, where he repeats the "wife / sister" deception upon Avimelekh, King of Gerar.  Avimelekh, warned in a Divinely-inspired dream not to touch Sarah, rebukes Abraham.  "Unlike Pharaoh in chapter 12, who bestows gifts on Abraham as a kind of bride-price, the noble Abimelech offers all this bounty after Sarah leaves his harem, as an act of restitution."  (Alter, p. 67, note on 21:14.)  At the beginning of Chapter 21, Sarah conceives and bears the long-awaited son.

ALIYAH 5 [21:5 - 21] - SARAH EXILES HAGAR; ISHMAEL AND THE ANGEL.

Sarah derives the name of Isaac [ יִצְחָק‎ | yitzchaq] from the verb "to laugh", recalling her own amused reaction at first hearing the prophecy (18:12); the word can also mean "playing" and can sometimes have other connotations as well (as we'll see in 28:8).  Isaac is circumcised and weaned, and Abraham gives a feast.  Sarah notices Ishmael laughing (or joking, or playing, or doing something - it's that verb again) and becomes angry; she demands that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away, and G-d orders Abraham to obey.

Wandering in the desert with their water depleted and on the point of dying, Hagar and Ishmael are saved by an angel who directs them to a well of water.  Ishmael survives and grows up to be a great hunter, and Hagar finds him an Egyptian wife.

ALIYAH 6 [21:22 - 34] - ABRAHAM AND AVIMELEKH.

Abraham and Avimelekh resove a dispute concerning a well, and seal a pact with the transfer of seven ewes in Be'ersheva [באר שבע]; the place name means "well of the oath" (or alternatively "well of the seven").

ALIYAH 7 [22:1 - 24] - THE BINDING OF ISAAC.

The passage relating Abraham's offering up of Isaac is one of the most challenging in the Torah, and many commentaries have been written on it.  It's impossible for me to do it justice here.  Clearly the endpoint is to emphasize G-d's unequivocal rejection of human sacrifice; but, like Abraham and Isaac's three-day journey, it's getting there that's the hard part.  Yoram Hazony insists that "at no point does Abraham intend to murder Isaac" (Hazony, p. 119), but I think it's difficult to square this reading with 22:10.

For me, what's clear is that the Creator only commanded Abraham to offer Isaac (literally, "raise him up" [ וְהַֽעֲלֵ֤הוּ | ha'alehu ]) - not to kill him - as Rashi points out.  In Rashi's reading, G-d laconically tells Abraham, "I told you to take him up, now bring him down."  (Rashi on 10:2.)

Now, with Hagar and Ishmael gone and the urban center of Sodom in ruins, Abraham's future lies with his son Isaac.  [874]
 

Genesis - Parashath Lekh Lekha.

 GENESIS - PARASHATH LEKH LEKHA

The third section in the traditional annual cycle of Torah readings begins here, with G-d's summons to Avram.  The early history of mankind is behind us, and from this point on, the text focuses on the story of the tribe that will become the Hebrew, or Israelite, nation.  I've noted earlier that the early history of mankind, as told in the Bible, is a series of displacements; that tradition will be continued by Avram / Abraham and his descendants, the famously wandering Jewish people.

ALIYAH 1 [12:1 - 13] - FROM UR TO CANAAN TO EGYPT.

The command "go forth" - [lekh lkeha], or literally "go for yourself" in Hebrew - will be given again to Abraham.  Here, he is being told to leave his native land [eretz], his heritage [moledeth], and his family [beth av], for parts unknown - "the land that I will show you".  He's not told where he's going, or how he's supposed to know when he gets there.  It is a leap of faith.  Avram is being called to re-create himself, as he leaves behind him the settled life of cosmopolitan Ur and embarks with his family on a pilgrimage into the unknown.

So Avram travels to Canaan, arrives at Shechem, and receives a promise from G-d that "to your seed I will give this land."  Avram builds an altar and blesses G-d, travels to Bethel and Ai and to the south - and then encounters a famine and heads to Egypt.  He tells his childless wife Sarai to present herself to the Egyptians as his sister.  (Of the three times in Genesis where the "wife / sister" ruse appears (here, in Chapter 20, and in Chapter 26), only here is the future Exodus story strongly hinted at.  See Alter, p.42.)

Finally, and perhaps most important, G-d's blessing here entails an element of responsibility on the part of Avram towards all of humankind:  "and you shall be a blessing" (12:2) and "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed through you" (12:3).

ALIYAH 2 [12:14 - 13:4] - PHARAOH AND SARAI.

The Egyptians respond to Sarai as expected, and she is taken captive and presented to Pharaoh.  A series of plagues on Pharaoh and his house (again foreshadowing Exodus) alert Pharaoh to Sarai's married status, and she is returned to Avram with the blunt instruction, "take her and go."  Avram leaves Egypt wealthy, and returns to Canaan to encamp between Bethel and Ai.

ALIYAH 3 [13:5 - 18] - AVRAM AND LOT PART WAYS.

Avram and Lot ascend from Egypt, returning to the southern part of the Land of Israel, the Negev.  Strife breaks out between their respective households, and Avram proposes that they separate.  "The language in which he addresses Lot is clear, firm, and polite."  (Alter)

Lot takes what he sees to be the better territory - "all the plain of the Jordan, a lush, fertile area large enough for his flocks and herds."  (Steinsaltz on v. 11.)  Following this, God promises the Land of Israel to Avram - and also promises progeny.

The text reports Lot's choice of land from Lot's own point of view.  "And Lot raised his eyes and saw the whole plain of the Jordan, saw that it was well-watered, before the Lord's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt ...".  (Alter's translation.)  That's a striking, and very ambivalent, pair of similes there.

Lot sees the physical terrain, but not the moral terrain.  Verse 13 tells us that "the people of Sodom were very evil offenders against the Lord."  And this is a good place to point out the importance of sight and attention in the Bible.

In the very next verse, the Creator tells Avram, "Raise your eyes and look from the place where you are ... for all the land you see, to you I will give it and to your seed forever."  Both men "raised their eyes", but only Avram did so under God's instruction.  Where Lot looked, he saw abundance; where Avram looked, he saw potential, as revealed by the Divine voice.  And along with the promise of the land comes God's other promise to Avram:  that the land will be filled with his children's children.

ALIYAH 4 [14:1 - 20] - THE WAR OF THE FOUR AGAINST THE FIVE.

Avram may have left Babylonia behind, but Babylonia isn't finished with Avram.  A coalition of rulers from powerful Babylonia move to put down a rebellion in Canaan, and Avram is caught up in the action when Lot is captured.  The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, fleeing, take refuge in a bitumen pit.  Avram launches a mission to rescue Lot and the other captives and to recover the plundered wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Following the successful rescue, Avram is greeted and blessed by Melchizedek, King of Salem.  The Bible doesn't tell us much about Melchizedek (a fact which aroused the curiosity of the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson), but tradition identifies him with Shem.

ALIYAH 5 [14:21 - 15:6] - THE STARS, IF YOU CAN COUNT THEM.

The King of Sodom offers to reward Avram with all the recovered spoils of his city, but Avram refuses.  G-d promises to reward Avram, and Avram replies that any material reward will mean little to him if he does not have a family member to inherit it.  G-d promises Avram that his offspring will one day be as numerous as the stars.

Here again we see the importance that the Hebrew Bible places on the survival of the family and of the nation.  For all of Avram's wealth and influence, what he really cares about is having a family line to carry on after him.

ALIYAH 6 [15:7 - 17:6] - THE COVENANT BETWEEN THE PARTS.
As a sign that Avram will inherit the Land of Canaan, G-d's presence is revealed at the Covenant Between the Parts.  The Israelite captivity in Egypt is foretold.  Later, Avram, still impatient for the promised heir, agrees to Sarai's suggestion to take Hagar as a wife, and Ishmael is born.  Trouble follows, and Hagar flees the household with Ishmael, only to be ordered by G-d to return, with the promise that Ishmael's descendants will be "multiplied beyond all counting."

ALIYAH 7 [17:7 - 27] - THE COVENANT OF CIRCUMCISION.

G-d clarifies that it is through Avram's wife Sarai that his promised progeny will come, and instructs the couple to change their names to Abraham (Avraham) and Sarah.  The rite of circumcision is ordained for all males in Abraham's household.

Yoram Hazony enumerates five virtues that can be associated with Abraham:  (1) his generosity with kinsmen and strangers; (2) his zeal to protect the innocent against injustice; (3) his insistence on taking only what belongs to him and paying for everything he takes; (4) his piety towards G-d; and (5) his devotion to the interests of his family. (Hazony, Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, p.112.)

Regarding the passages in this Parashah, Hazony writes (p. 113) that Abraham's character includes "his most obvious moral failings - his decision to take his wife's servant to bed ... [and] his willingness, in the early parts of the story, to expose his wife to the predations of others in order to save his own skin".

But, continues Hazony, Abraham's "pronounced sense of his own interest ... is also the source of the very virtues for which we are supposed to admire him - all of which are tinged with this same concern for his own interest and that of the members of his family."

Abraham's great virtue, and the character trait that suits him for the job, is precisely his tough-mindedness.  "God's concern here is not merely to find a just man, but to raise up an individual who can lay the foundations for a just society with the ability to survive in a sea of injustice.  He must be the kind of man whose virtues come of strength and success."  (Hazony, p.114)

What actually makes the world a better place is not selfless generosity (which is fickle), but a sustainable commitment to compassion grounded in justice.  [1349]

Genesis - Parashath Noach.

 PARASHATH NOACH

ALIYAH 1 [6:9 - 6:22] - MAN IS JUDGED.

The story is familiar to us in English as "Noah and the Flood".  While the inundation of the earth is certainly the main feature of this cataclysm, the Hebrew word for "flood" occurs nowhere in this narrative; the event is instead called [ הַמַּבּ֥וּל | ha-mabul], meaning "destruction" or "confusion".  It is an undoing of the work of the Creation.

There's a famous debate as to whether the phrase "righteous in his generations" (6:9) should be interpreted as enhancing Noah's status (because he resisted the evil influences of his time) or limiting it (because he only appeared "righteous" by a very low standard).  However this may be, Noah, like every one of us, was born into a particular place and time; and like all of us, he was judged by G-d according to his actions in the world he lived in.

ALIYAH 2 [7:1 - 7:16] - NOAH IS COMMANDED TO PREPARE.

Tradition teaches that the men and the women entered separately (based on 7:7), and abstained from marital relations while in the Ark, because the world was in a state of distress.  This would also ensure that no children would be conceived aboard the Ark.  (But see 7:13.)

ALIYAH 3 [7:17 - 8:14] - THE FLOOD.

The Hebrew word used for the cataclysm of Noah's time does not actually mean "flood" but rather "confusion".  In fact, the event is a systematic undoing of the original work of creation.  Grumet on 7:23:  "Notice what is being erased and the order in which it is happening:  human, animal, crawling creatures, and birds."

It's also noteworthy that the text refers to the pairs of animals as [ish v'ishto] (7:3) - generally translated as "each with its mate", but it literally means "man and wife", echoing Adam and Eve.  In no other place in the Bible is the phrase "ish v'ishto" used in reference to animals.

One thing that's striking about the Flood narrative is the amount of detail, in the measurements of the Ark and especially in the chronology of the Flood itself.  Here we get the first usage of calendrical dates in the Bible (7:11, 8:4, 8:13-14).  And in fact, this is the ONLY instance of calendar dates in the Book of Genesis:  not in the journeys of the Patriarchs, not in the chronicle of Joseph's sojourn in Egypt, but here, in the story the Flood, where human history has come to a standstill and literally nothing happens.  

"Ironically it is G-d, for Whom time is meaningless, Who keeps track of time in the absence of the functioning of the luminaries."  (Grumet)




ALIYAH 4 [8:15 - 9:7] - LEAVING THE ARK.

Many elements of the Flood narrative echo the earlier Creation story; here Noah offers sacrifices to G-d (8:20), recalling the first appearance of sacrifices in the Cain and Abel story.  

And, again harking back to the Creation, G-d blesses Noah and his sons with the same phrase:  "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (9:1 - 4), but with some important differences.  Man is not only given dominion over all living things, but now "there will be a fear and dread of you" [ וּמוֹרַֽאֲכֶ֤ם וְחִתְּכֶם֙ | u-morakhem v'chitkhem], perhaps as a safeguard against a second rebellion from a jealous animal kingdom as with the Serpent.  "Every moving creature will be yours to eat," further clarifying that animals as well as plants are now permitted as food.  However, man is not to consume the blood, a hint at the prohibition against cruelty to animals in the Seven Laws of Noah as understood by Jewish tradition.

G-d forbids the shedding of innocent human blood (9:5 - 6), pointedly referring to "the hand of a man who is his brother".  The famous verse "who sheds the blood of man, by man's blood shall his blood be shed" explicitly calls for crime to be met with punishment - perhaps a response to the lawless violence that consumed the world in the generations following Cain.  It appears that the Creator is determined not to repeat the experience of Cain, who was shielded from human retribution, and who in the end served to inspire later generations such as Lemekh to violence.

ALIYAH 5 [9:8 - 9:17] - THE PROMISE.

The Creator promises to Noah that He will never again destroy the world.  All of the reported speech in this passage is G-d's, but as Robert Alter notes, "and G-d said ..." is repeated three times, as if to suggest a significant silence or absence of response, perhaps indicating doubt:  "The flood-battered Noah evidently needs further assurance ..." (p. 33).

ALIYAH 6 [9:18 - 10:32] - NOAH'S DRUNKENNESS, HAM'S SIN.

In Eden, man sinned through the forbidden fruit; here, it is Noah's excessive indulgence in wine that leads to an indecent incident involving Ham.  Again echoing the Creation, there are themes of appetite and shame.  Noah curses Ham and his son Canaan and their descendants.

Here we see a common theme in the Hebrew Bible:  the descendants may be punished for the sins of the fathers.  What you do today affects those who will come after you tomorrow.  Reward or punishment of future generations is the main incentive mechanism in Scripture.  On a national level, this focus is what helped the Jewish people survive for generations in exile and oppression.  On an individual level, this incentive works by appealing to man's highest motives:  the search for meaning, and the drive to create something that will live on after one's own death.

In the tale of Noah, we have seen many parallels with Adam and Eve, but we also see some key differences.  For Noah and the generations after him, death is an inexorable reality - and one that will grow closer as the extraordinary lifespans reported by the text continue to shrink towards the Divinely ordained limit of 120 years (see 6:3).  Noah and his family witnessed the death of the old world; for them, and for the generations after them, the urgent question of mortal life is:  What will live on after me, when I am gone?  What will I leave behind?


ALIYAH 7 [11:1 - 11:32] - THE CITY OF BABEL.

So far, the story of mankind told in Genesis is a story of displacements:  the exile from Eden, Cain's banishment, the Flood.  Now - narrated in just nine verses - we find the dispersion of mankind from Babel.

We know the story as "the Tower of Babel" in English, just as we know the story of Noah as "the Flood" (even though the Hebrew word for "flood" never appears there).  Here, as Grumet points out, the word "tower" occurs twice, but "city" appears three times, suggesting that "God's primary concern is about the city, and only secondarily about the tower".  Prager (citing Gunther Plaut, among others) agrees.

Grumet elaborates:  "The city is a means to concentrate people geographically, and the tower provides a vantage point for control of those people."

Hazony:  "In these verses we get to see the biblical suspicion of the state in its distilled form."

Steinsaltz:  "This generation expressed the very human desire to gather in large urban centers that hold all their power, control, and technology.  Their unity enabled them to build these huge centers.  Such centers however, are designed for preservation rather than progress. ...  In a homogeneous technological society, nothing new will grow."

Prager goes on to observe:  "City dwellers are far more capable of anonymity than people who live in small towns and rural areas.  And when people are anonymous, they feel less moral obligation to their neighbors - who are also likely to be anonymous.  When both the individual and his neighbors are anonymous, people inevitably feel much less connected to one another.  And they often act worse ...".

From the foregoing, we may see two possible causes for concern in the growth of Babel:  (1) the centralized mechanisms of control, represented by the tower; and (2) the erosion of personal identity in the face of the anonymous crowd, and with it the loss of a sense of personal responsibility.  Taken together, these forces form the same destructive combination that we see in our world today:  the weakening of family and of human society, which are then supplanted and displaced by the impersonal state.

And given this state of affairs, the Creator's recourse seems almost inevitable:  to shatter the Leviathan-state of Babel, returning a sense of locality and community to the human population.  This is reflected in the fragmentation of language, just as the fall of the Roman Empire brought with it the disappearance of Latin as a living language and the rise of its Romance descendants.

I want to come back to the theme of wandering and exploration.  The text tells us that "The entire earth was of one language and one speech" and that "they traveled from the east."  This seems to indicate that the entire human population migrated together (although Steinsaltz maintains that "they" refers only to "a large group of people" - which, in turn, would imply that some other portion remained unaffected by the Dispersion).  "From the east" is ambiguous:  it's [mi-qedem] in Hebrew, but the word could also mean "from ancient times" - and we've run into that word before, referring to the Garden of Eden (2:8).

They settled in a plain (Steinsaltz and Alter explain that [biq'a] means a plain, and not "valley" as in later Hebrew) in Shin'ar - that's the name Sumer in English, and Sinjar in Arabic.  And it seems like they got tired of wandering.

Although the episode is just nine verses long, the text takes the time to point out that the people made bricks from clay (the first architectural detail in the Bible) "which were for them as stone" suggesting that they had improvised and adapted to their new envitonment.  But, having grown comfortable there, they didn't want to leave.

"Lest we be scattered" - this is fascinating.  What were they afraid of?  Who or what did they think was going to scatter them?  And yet, in the end, scattered they were, and scattered they must be.  

Adam was exiled from Eden, to work the land from which he was taken.  Cain was condemned to wander the earth, and so to give up his own settled lifestyle and re-create the nomadic existence of his murdered brother.  

And the people of Babel were scattered "upon the face of all the earth". They were cast out from the stultifying order of the city-state to the terror of the wilderness.

In each case, it is not just a change of place, but a change of habits and lifestyle.  It is the biblical "hero's journey".  It is a summons to mend oneself, and to grow, by encountering the danger and the chaos of the unexplored world outside.

The early history of man closes with a list of the generations after Noah (or more precisely, the descendants of Shem) through the sons of Terach.  The three sons of Terach are Avram (also spelled Abram), Nachor, and Haran.  Like the three sons of Noah, they all appear to be born in the same year, when Terach is 70 years of age.

The chronology of the ten postdiluvian generations (11:10 - 26) resembles that of the sons of Seth (5:6 - 32) but with one noticeable difference:  the checksums for the ages ("he lived X years, he begot ..., he lived Y more years, he begot sons and daughters, all his days were X+Y years, and he died") are missing here.  I think it is because in the first series, an exception existed to the "... and he died" pattern (Enoch who "walked with God" in 5:24); whereas in the second series, all of the people died in the usual fashion, so it was not necessary for Scripture to tell you in each case that "he died".

Terach died in Charan, enroute with his family to Canaan - the land that the Hebrews would come to call Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.  (The place name Charan is sometimes also spelled Haran in English translations, but it should not be confused with Abram's brother Haran.)  The story of this journey is told in the next reading.  [2041]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Fourth aliyah to end.

FOURTH ALIYAH TO END: CAIN, ABEL, AND VIRTUE ENVY. FOURTH ALIYAH: THE HOUSE OF CAIN. We now come to the story of Cain and Abel [4:1 - 16]. Two things stand out for me about this episode: (1) Cain's murderous jealousy of Abel is not motivated by envy for some desirable worldly possession - wealth or fame or the love of a woman - but for the favor of G-d; and (2) Cain and Abel are not employed in the same enterprise (Cain is a farmer, Abel a herdsman) - they're not playing the same game - so it's not as if they were competing to see who could be the best farmer or the best shepherd. Humans are competitive, like all living things; unlike the other animals, we have the ability to follow a moral code, and we are competitive even in that. I'm going to use the term "virtue envy" to refer to the envy of another person's moral standing. Mundane envy - the desire for another's worldly attainments - is quite bad enough. It is among the most pernicious of emotions, and with good reason is it included in the Ten Commandments. And it's always easier to tear the other guy down than to build ourselves up: if Reuben is conspicuously wealthy, and Simon is struggling to get by, then Simon might be tempted to wish ill fortune upon Reuben. This is the basis for the idea of the "evil eye" [ עין הרע | ayin ha-ra] in Jewish tradition. If mundane envy is a destructive emotion, how much more so is virtue envy. When we encounter a person known to be of excellent moral character and reputation, we might feel uncomfortable about ourselves. And we should! But the correct response is to work on oneself to improve. So when Cain's offering is rejected and Cain is "grieved and downcast", the Creator takes notice, and even tries to rehabilitate him: [4:7] "If you improve, there is advancement; but if you do not improve, sin crouches at the gate. And its desire is towards you, but you shall rule over it." In that last phrase, the language unmistakably parallels 3:16, describing the woman's desire for the man; and in fact the Hebrew word used here for "desire" [ תְּשׁ֣וּקָת֔וֹ| teshuqah] is very rare in the Bible, occurring only in these two verses and in Song of Songs 7:11. But Cain won't hear of it. He remains unredeemable. In 4:8, Cain kills his brother Abel. The Creator confronts Cain and sentences him to be "a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth" (4:10). Why did Cain kill Abel? Did he observe his younger brother's sacrifices [4:1 - 4] and think, "I, too, am a firstborn - perhaps he means to sacrifice me as he sacrificed those sheep"? And so, projecting his own violent impulses on his brother? Yoram Hazony makes the case that the story of Cain and Abel prefigures a recurring theme in the Hebrew Scriptures, where "the shepherd and the farmer are taken as representing contrasting ways of life, and two different ethics, which come into sharp conflict time and again." (Hazony, Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, p. 104.) Here I'll just point out the irony of Cain's punishment: he is sentenced to be a perpetual wanderer, re-creating his murdered brother's nomadic lifestyle. He must literally walk a mile in his brother's shoes. Cain, still the victim in his own eyes, complains that [3:13 - 14] "my sin is too great to bear ... whoever finds me will kill me!" The Creator declares [4:15] "whoever kills Cain shall be avenged sevenfold" and sets a distinguishing mark on Cain's forehead "so that none who find him shall harm him". So Cain is protected from vigilante justice - but a fateful precedent is set. In 4:15, the key word [ שִׁבְעָתַ֖יִם | shiv'atayim] may mean either "sevenfold" (and that's how I'm reading it here) or "seven generations". The descendents of the exiled Cain are named in short order in 4:17 - 18. We learn nothing about their lives until we get to Lemekh. FIFTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH'S WIVES. Lemekh's wives Adah and Zillah are the first women mentioned by name after Eve, and Zillah and her daughter Na'amah are the first mother/daughter pair identified in the Bible. And there is a Rabbinic tradition that Na'amah was the wife of Noah. SIXTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH'S BOAST. [4:23] "I have slain a man for wounding me, and a lad for bruising me. For sevenfold is Cain avenged, and Lemekh seventy-seven." The passage is cryptic and difficult to translate, and other interpretations exist. (Rashi offers a rather elaborate explanation involving a hunting accident.) But I think the most straightforward - and also the most disturbing - is simply that he is boasting about his willingness to kill. "Perhaps, then, what Lamech is saying (quite barbarically) is that not only has he killed a man for wounding him, he has not hesitated to kill a mere boy for hurting him." (Alter, p.21, note.) Dennis Prager agrees: "Lamech boasts that if any man touches him, he will kill seventy-seven of his opponent's men in retaliation. This type of unbalanced retribution was the norm in all societies." (Genesis: God, Creation, and Destruction, p. 74) Notice the connection with Cain: Lemekh invokes the precedent of Cain's mark to justify his own ability to kill with impunity. Man has taken God's mercy and perverted it into a literal license to kill. The result is society's descent into barbarism. Is it any wonder the Creator is angry? The line of Cain disappear from the text, seemingly without trace. We do not know whether they intermarried with the descendants of Seth (chapter 5). [4:25 - 26] Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and she named him Seth ... and a son was born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. Then it was begun [or: it became profaned] to call upon the name of the L-rd. We can only guess at Eve's anguished state of mind as we meet her again, for the last time in Genesis. There's an ambiguity in the last part of 4:26: the Hebrew word [huchal] can mean either "it was begun" or "it became profaned". The descendants of Seth are chronicled [4:6 - 31] in formulaic fashion. Each entry in the list is given with a lifespan in years, and all but one end with the words "... and he died". Of Enoch, we are told cryptically that "he walked with G-d, and was not, for G-d took him". (In the later list of Shem's descendants [11:9 - 26], the phrase "and he died" is omitted because there are no exceptions to the pattern.) The names of Seth's descendants appear to echo the names of the line of Cain. Zvi Grumet (Genesis: Creation to Covenant, pp. 72-74) offers an interesting interpretation of this, arguing that "the descendants of Seth are intentionally giving themselves names that mirror Cain and his line ... [the] two genealogies paint for us an image of six generations desperately trying to counteract a divine curse." (This refers to the "seven generations" reading of 4:15, see above.) SEVENTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH II, NOAH, AND THE DECREE AGAINST MAN. And here we see the appearance of the second Lemekh [5:25]. This Lemekh has a son whom he prophetically names Noah (pronounced "noach" with a guttural “ch” - it's not the same as the popular girls' name No'ah, which is spelled and pronounced differently in Hebrew). The text ties the name Noah - [noach] in Hebrew - to the verb [nachem], which incidentally has two meanings, both of which are in play here. Usually [nachem] means to comfort or to console, and that's how it is explained as relating to Noah's name [5:29]. But also, and much less commonly, it can mean "to regret", and it is also used in that sense here, when the Creator is described as having "regretted" making man [6:7]. Noah's three sons [5:32] are apparently the first multiple birth in the Bible. Shem, Ham, and Japheth were born in the same year to the same woman (Noah is not recorded as having a second wife or concubine) and so must have been triplets. It's also worth noting that Noah becomes a father late in life, relatively speaking, compared to his ancestors. At 500 years old, he is past middle age (500/950 = 10/19) when he begets his three sons. Chapter 6 opens with a description of the lawless violence that has engulfed the world. There's also a reference to the "Nephilim", whose exact identity remains a mystery. The Creator places a limit on man's lifespan - perhaps to force man to start thinking beyond his own immediate gratification, and about the future. I want to zoom in on [6:2]. "The sons of the mighty [ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙| bnei ha-elohim] saw the daughters of man ..." Now this is tricky to translate, because "elohim" can mean either "God" or "mighty ones", but it's clearly used in the second sense here. Also notice that this verse very subtly echoes the refrain of 1:4, etc., "... and God [Elohim] saw that it was good," only here of course it's in a negative sense. And there's an irony in the juxtaposition of "bnei ha-elohim", as the bad guys, with "bnoth ha-adam" as the innocent party. Now the next part of the verse is often translated in English as "... [they] saw that the daughters of man were fair (or, "beautiful", etc.)", but the word that's actually used [ טֹבֹ֖ת|tovoth] simply means "good". (See Rashi on Numbers 24:5.) And in fact that's how the Artscroll edition renders it, and I think it's the most straightforward understanding of the verse - and here we see another instance of virtue envy. The daughters of man may have been beautiful or not, but they carried themselves with decency and dignity - they were morally good. And it was this goodness that the corrupt, powerful men saw in them - and they despised them for it. [1734]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Third aliyah.

THIRD ALIYAH: THE SERPENT AND THE FALL. [2:20 - 3:21] When woman is created as a separate entity, man exclaims, [2:23] “This one shall be called woman, for from man she was taken.” Notice that he does not address her directly. Who’s he talking to? His words – the first recorded human speech in the Bible – are spoken in the third person, and there isn’t even a third person in the world yet! [2:24] “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife” – here is a moral imperative, a commandment, explicitly linked to the Garden of Eden. Up until now, the text has been declarative and expository: this happened, and then that happened. Here for the first time the text says: you shall do this. The message is that our instinct to seek union and wholeness cannot be fulfilled by staying in our parents’ home. The way home is forward. [3:1 - 5] The first recorded conversation in the Bible neither involves nor concerns a man, and therefore almost passes the Alison Bechdel test. Why did Eve speak to the serpent? Maybe because it spoke to her. Why does the serpent tempt Eve? Because it can. People sometimes ask why the serpent, specifically, had a motivation to cause man’s fall. But I think this is the wrong question. What the text actually tells us, the very first thing it tells us about the serpent, is this: [3:1] “The serpent was the most cunning of all the beasts of the field.” This answers the question, Why could the serpent, specifically, cause man’s fall? Nowhere does the text ask why the serpent wanted to, because we’ve already been told that – in 1:28, where man was given dominion over all the other creatures. What the text tells us is that the serpent was unique in its capabilities; it does not say that the serpent was unique in its motives. I think the serpent’s motive was shared among all the animals: resentment towards man for man’s having been given dominion over all other life forms. All the animals had the motive, but only the serpent had the method; all had the intent, but the serpent alone had the capability. This, then, is the first instance of envy and jealousy in the Bible, even before the well-known brothers whom we’ll meet in the next chapter. And it is also of the same theme: rather than wanting to better itself and improve its own standing, the serpent wants to bring the other guy down. This is the nature of envy and it’s an all too common human weakness. Venturing just a little bit into symbol, we might take the snake – and, in my reading, the putative rebelliousness of the animal kingdom generally – as a metaphor for how our lower nature, our animal instincts, will often use rationalization to get us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. [3:20] “He named her Life [חַוָּ֑ה |chava]” – as Steinsaltz drily observes, he could have called her a lot of things at that moment. But he didn’t. He named her Life. “- because she was the mother of all life.” I think the verb here [הָֽיְתָ֖ה |hayetah] really wants to be translated as “had become” – “she had become the mother of all life.” So, what is really going on here? I think she must have been already pregnant, and perhaps she told the man her wonderful secret right then and there. And now, suddenldy, the fruit, the fall, the curse – none of that matters now, because they are about to bring a new human life into the world. [597]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Second aliyah.

SECOND ALIYAH: ADAM AND EVE.[2:4 - 2:19] [2:5] because there was no human to work the ground There was no irrigation, which required human labor. "There was no one to recognize the benefit of the rain." (Rashi) [2:7] He blew into his nostrils. "He made him both of earthly and heavenly matter – his body from earthly matter, and his soul from heavenly matter." (Rashi) "The soul of man is part of G-d Himself, as it were." (Steinsaltz, p. 16, note.) [2:9] and the tree of knowledge, good and evil: Robert Alter correctly translates this as “the tree of knowledge, good and evil” (and not “… knowledge of good and evil”). The definite article here is attached to [ הַדַּ֖עַת|ha-da’at], "knowledge", and by the rules of Hebrew grammar it cannot be “knowledge of” something else. “Good and evil” therefore describes the ambiguous and ambivalent nature of the tree and its fruit – both good and evil. Also, notice that the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of life are mentioned after, and apparently excluded from, the description of "every tree pleasing to the sight and good for food". So the appeal of the Tree of Knowledge perhaps lay elsewhere than in its outward appearance. "Evil involves distortion, and yet this distortion is not too far removed from the essence of human creativity, a capacity that stems from the ability to perceive reality beyond its obvious form." (Steinsaltz, p.16, note.) The appeal of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge lay not in its beauty but in its mysteriousness. It is human nature to be attracted to the unknown and the unexplored, even if (or perhaps because) this attraction carries with it an element of danger. [2:16 - 17] Of every tree you may surely eat, but of the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, lest you die. It is possible that eating of the Tree of Knowledge would have revealed the nature and location of the Tree of Life. [2:18] It is not good for man to be alone: Notice that the solution is not to create a second Adam from scratch; rather, the single, unitary man must give up his completeness – just as (so to speak) the Creator must self-limit and withdraw to make room for man and free will. [2:19] Every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens ... to see what the man would call them: The fish are excluded from this verse, and in fact Biblical Hebrew lacked names for any individual species of fish. "... the redaction gives us first a harmonious cosmic overview of creation and then a plunge into the technological nitty-gritty and moral ambiguities of human origins." (Robert Alter, p. 13 note.) Together with the separation of the original human into two beings, male and female, we also see the emergence of language. We depend on other people to keep ourselves sane; we learn how to think, speak, and act by interacting with the people around us. And the division of the original, unitary human into two individuals signals a shift in consciousness: the ability to observe another person from the outside, and to imagine ourselves as other people see us. [531]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - First aliyah.

In the beginning verses of the Bible, we see the Creator fashioning the world, and man in it, bringing forth first chaos, then order, then complexity. The order of Creation is logical, not chronological. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (The Steinsaltz Humash, p.10, note on v. 20) points out that the creatures created after the fourth day “would not grow and develop blindly, like vegetation, but would move and have some measure of will.” I’ll add that all of the creatures created after the fourth day (when the heavenly bodies were created as distinct light sources) have eyes – unlike plants, which can “see” only light and darkness. One thing that stands out about the creation narrative is the role of Divine speech in the act of creation. The Word of G-d is the instrument that fashions order out of primal chaos. Another thing I’d like to point out here is the role of number. Already, in just the fifth verse of the Bible, we’ve started counting: “… and it was evening, and it was morning, one day.” And each following day is numbered in succession. People sometimes say that “the Bible is not a book of science” – well, maybe not, but there sure are a lot of numbers in it. Here, in this very first occurrence of numbers in the Bible, what is being measured is time, and that with a specific purpose: to involve man in the process of the Creation. Although the commandment to observe the Sabbath is not made explicit until later, it is first mentioned at the end of the Creation story (at the beginning of Chapter 2). In fact, even before the Sabbath, we’re told that the luminaries were created “for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” That is, man is expected to observe the regular processes of nature and study their patterns. He is to create a calendar. (And in fact, Jewish tradition understands this commandment to mean that the calendar must incorporate three elements: the solar cycle, the lunar cycle, and the week – that is, a purely numerical element which is not dependent on natural phenomena but is reckoned by the mind of man alone.) The Creation story of Genesis is profoundly spiritual, affirming our place in the order of Creation. It is deeply moral, calling on us to act in accord with the will of the Supreme Being. And, too, it is supremely scientific in its worldview, inviting us to engage cognitively with the processes of the world around us. Genesis comes to teach us, not a mere collection of disconnected “facts”, but rather how to think about the universe: as a theatre of unfolding, orderly events, proceeding from a single First Cause, that can be known and understood – at least in part – by the mind of man. [468]