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]