Torah Posting: לך לך
The parshiyot are divided such that the previous one ends with a mundane description of the general situation of the family of Avram and Sarai. This one begins with “ויאמר יהוה אל–אברם” — “and God said to Avram” — just like that. In the last parashah, Avram is some guy. Now, he is the elect of God.
God tells Avram to leave his ancestral place and go to a land God will show him. The phrase God says to him is “לך–לך”, a playful phrase many commentators enjoy translating as “go to yourself.”
From the very beginning, Avram’s destiny is to father a great nation in this land God prefers, which at this time is called Kena’an. Avram is convinced enough of this that he is able to marshal a quite large and wealthy family tribe to go with him. The text makes quite clear that there were already people living there at the time. Once they arrive, God says to Avram that God will give this land to Avram’s descendants, and in response Avram builds his first altar on the spot where this happens.
Avram continues moving through the country toward the desert, pitching tents and building altars as he goes. Then famine strikes the land, and Avram brings his family to Mitzrayim — the narrow places, today known as Egypt — for the first time.
The first time we ever see Avram speak to another person, it is to his wife, Sarai. He expresses a paranoid fantasy about the sexual appetites of the Mitzrim toward his wife and instructs her not to reveal she is his wife, lest they kill him and take her.
He does so sort of humbly, pleading with her, and apparently she agrees to pretend to be his sister instead. But sure enough, when they get there, he’s right. The narrator informs us that the Mitzrim find Sarai very hot, so hot that the travelers are whisked up to Pharaoh’s court. And because Pharaoh believes he is Sarai’s brother, Avram is given enormous gifts of animal and human servants.
For the (apparent) crime of detaining God’s elected one too long, God sends horrible plagues to Mitzrayim, and apparently this is enough to demonstrate to Pharaoh what is wrong. The text is painfully unclear as to whether Pharaoh has sexually advanced himself upon Sarai or not. In any case, Pharaoh says, “Take your wife and go,” so they leave Mitzrayim and go back to Kena’an far wealthier than before.
In fact, now their tribes are too big for the land they’re on, and the herdsmen of Avram and his brother, Lot, begin to squabble. Avram makes the peace, the fraternal holdings spread out on the plains of the Yarden, and Lot is the one who moves eastward and approaches the wicked city of Sedom.
Once Avram is free of the political burden of his brother, God shows him great vistas, and he builds another altar. The politics catch up with him, though. Lot is taken in a war, and Avram rallies his servants and goes as far as Syria to recapture him. Avram’s military prowess so impresses the righteous king of Shalem — also a priest of אל עליון, the Most High God — that he provides blessings, feasts, and gifts. Avram humbly declines the gifts, asking only to feed his men. Such is his greatness.
Now Avram has earned the right to ask things of God. God once again promises him great reward, and this time, Avram responds: How can any of this be? You have given me no heir. God responds that Avram will have an heir, then takes Avram outside and tells him to look up in the sky and count the stars, for that will be the number of his descendants.
Avram’s response to this is described beautifully:
והאמן ביהוה ויחשבה לו צדקה
Avram affirmed faith in יהוה — this is the word “amein” — and it turned his thoughts to righteousness.
In this state, God gives Avram a specific list of animals to offer, and Avram splits them in half (except the birds). An eagle comes down to eat them, and Avram drives them off. Then a תרדמה comes upon Avram, the prophetic sleep first experienced by Adam when Chavah was separated from him.
The vision Avram has in תרדמה is described as horrifying. The other shoe is dropping. God tells him his descendants will wander and serve in foreign lands for 400 years. Then that nation, which is not named, will be judged, and Avram’s descendants will leave there wealthy and come back here, though the business will still not be finished.
We know, though the text does not say, that this refers to Egypt. It’s a macrocosmic version of the experience Avram and Sarai just had there.
After this, a strange vision is given: a smoking furnace apppears, and a burning torch passes between the pieces, presumably of the animals Avram divided. These are the symbols of a covenant God forms with him that his descendants will inherit this land.
My only comment is that these practices are strange, scary, and quite involved. The text gives no reason to doubt any of the message from any direction, but clearly Avram’s practice is… unusual. In fact, tradition would say it’s unprecedented.
Immediately following this prophetic experience, Avram must set about rectifying the heir issue. He and Sarai are quite aged, and since Sarai has not borne a child yet, Sarai sends their handmaid, Hagar, to him, and they marry. Sarai finds this to be a mistake; Hagar conceives and then looks down on her. Sarai appeals to Avram about it, and Avram says Hagar is her servant, so she should handle her however she sees fit. Sarai deals harshly with her, and Hagar flees.
Did Sarai act unfairly?
Seems like it. A messenger of God comes to take care of her, tells her to return, and in exchange makes a promise to Hagar of mothering a great nation, much the same as the promise made to Avram. The messenger gives her a name for the child: ישמעאל — God Hears. But the messenger says Yishma’el will be “פרא אדם”, savage earthling, constantly warring.
Famously, the names of Avram’s two sons — the latter of whom has not yet been conceived — are switched in the Qur’an. Yishma’el is the father of the lineage of Islam. The two transmissions have different points of view on the sons’ nature and birthrights, but they can agree on which name belongs to whom.
At age 99, God makes clear to Avram that he is not done. The covenant is restated, and Avram falls upon his face. God adds a letter to his name. No more will he be the father (av) from Aram. He is now the av of many nations. Accordingly he changes Sarai’s name to Sarah, meaning princess. They have become royalty.
As a sign of the covenant made here, Avraham is given the task of circumcising all males in the lineage, a physical demonstration of what is transmitted.
God promises Avraham that Sarah will now bear a son, which Avraham finds hilarious because of their age. God must also find this funny because he gives Avraham the name of that son: יצחק. Laughter.
God then distinguishes the lineages of Yishma’el and Yitzhaq. Yishma’el will father 12 princes and a great nation, but the covenant will be with Yitzhaq, who will be born in one year.
In the meantime, Avraham circumcises himself, Yishma’el, and all the males in the household, preparing the covenant for transmission.
⛺️
