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]
Dreams Into Lightning
Classical liberal, constitutional patriot.
2024-11-18
Genesis - Parashath Chayei Sarah.
2024-11-17
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]
2024-11-15
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]
2024-11-10
Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Fourth aliyah to end.
Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Third aliyah.
Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Second aliyah.
Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - First aliyah.
2024-10-01
Hassan Nasrallah gets his virgins.
2024-09-03
Israel: Bodies of six hostages located at Rafah.
'On Saturday night, the IDF and ISA located and recovered the bodies of the hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Master Sergeant Ori Danino, from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area in the Gaza Strip and returned them to Israeli territory. The six were abducted on October 7th, 2023, and were murdered in the past two days by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. They were found 20 meters underground without previous intelligence. The bodies were recovered a kilometer away from the tunnel where the hostage Farhan al-Qadi was located and rescued last week.'That's in Rafah. You remember Rafah, the city that the Biden regime was so anxious to keep the Israelis out of? https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387366
'US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Monday in Washington with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement after the meeting that Blinken “reiterated the United States’ support for ensuring the defeat of Hamas, including in Rafah, while reiterating opposition to a major ground operation in Rafah that would further jeopardize the welfare of the more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.” “The Secretary underscored that alternatives exist to a major ground invasion that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians. Secretary Blinken also discussed the need to immediately surge and sustain additional humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” the statement added.'
2024-08-13
Morning Report: 2024-08-13
'A pub in Birmingham, England was attacked and terrorized by a mob of masked "Muslim patrol" militants after they marched around the city looking for accused white supremacist "Islamophobes" to beat.'Part II: A pub in Birmingham, England was attacked and terrorized by a mob of masked "Muslim patrol" militants after they marched around the city looking for accused white supremacist "Islamophobes" to beat.
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 11, 2024
The violence was then proceeded by days of leftist and Muslim direct… https://t.co/3tGU7XYKq3 pic.twitter.com/dF2JTeVssD
2024-08-09
US / Israel: Kirby and Smotrich have words.
“I even saw one claim today, again by Mr. Smotrich, suggesting that the mediators of this deal, which includes the United States, would impose, quote, ‘a surrender agreement on Israel.’ He's saying this as President Biden is actually directing the United States military to the Middle East to directly defend Israel against a potential attack from Iran or other Iranian backed terrorist groups,” said Kirby. He added that Biden “is fully prepared to defend Israel yet again, with the United States military, and again, this is the second time that he will have done this in four months. The idea that he would support a deal that leaves Israel's security at risk, It's outrageous. And anybody knows President Biden and how staunchly he's been a defender for Israel for the entire day of his public service, ought to be ashamed of thinking simply put the views being taken against this agreement ... ”"Look at all we've done for you!" Kirby is saying. He is explicitly telling the Israelis that Israel should become dependent on the United States for its defense, which of course would be contingent on Washington's good will. What's in the agreement that got Kirby so defensive? Well ...
"You have to read it to believe it, and above all to understand the distorted and dangerous starting point of those who are pressuring us to stop the war and surrender. The ‘mediators’ actually wrote in their announcement yesterday that ‘the time has come to conclude the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the release of the hostages and prisoners’ while creating a delusional symmetry between the Israeli hostages - men, women and children - who were kidnapped from their beds with terrible cruelty, and despicable terrorists who murdered Jews and are serving their sentences for it in prisons," said Smotrich.