(י) וַיְהִ֥י רָעָ֖ב בָּאָ֑רֶץ וַיֵּ֨רֶד אַבְרָ֤ם מִצְרַ֙יְמָה֙ לָג֣וּר שָׁ֔ם כִּֽי־כָבֵ֥ד הָרָעָ֖ב בָּאָֽרֶץ׃
(1) Adonai said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
(2) I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. (3) I will bless those who bless you And curse him that curses you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.” (4) Abram went forth as Adonai had commanded him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. (5) Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the persons that they had acquired in Haran; and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in the land of Canaan, (6) Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, at the terebinth of Moreh. The Canaanites were then in the land. (7) Adonai appeared to Abram and said, “I will assign this land to your offspring.” And he built an altar there to Adonai who had appeared to him. (8) From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and he built there an altar to Adonai and invoked Adonai by name. (9) Then Abram journeyed by stages toward the Negeb. (10) There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
Ten generations elapsed between Adam and Noah. The descent of man from Adam's sin to the commission of murder, idolatry, and immorality are traced for us till the retribution of the flood. A further ten generations elapsed between Noah and Abraham. The sins of men increased after the flood...[until the Tower of Babel and the] dividing of humanity into languages and nations, till the Almighty decided to single out one particular individual from amongst them, and charged him with the mission of founding a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
This Divine act of singling out one human being has the taint of discrimination and unfair privilege. As R. Yehuda Halevi puts into the mouth of the king of the Khazars in his philosophic classic the Kuzari, "Would it not have been better had God given approval to all [of humanity] alike?" The answer to this question is worked out for us in a Midrash on a verse in Jeremiah.
Nehama Leibowitz
Food for Thought
- We've talked about the cultural repertoire that led to our first two mythic Torah portions, Creation in Bereshit and the flood in Noah. Now Lech L'cha brings us the story of 75-year-old Abram – "the first Jew"– with no backstory. Why? What purpose does this serve the narrative?
- For what reasons might the Torah tell a narrative in which God chooses their direct descendant to start a holy nation?
(ה) לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ – רַבִּי עֲזַרְיָה פָּתַח (ירמיה נא, ט): רִפִּאנוּ אֶת בָּבֶל וְלֹא נִרְפָּתָה עִזְבוּהָ וְנֵלֵךְ אִישׁ לְאַרְצוֹ. רִפִּאנוּ אֶת בָּבֶל, בְּדוֹר אֱנוֹשׁ. וְלֹא נִרְפָּתָה, בְּדוֹר הַמַּבּוּל. עִזְבוּהָ, בְּדוֹר הַפְלָגָה. וְנֵלֵךְ אִישׁ לְאַרְצוֹ, וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל אַבְרָם לֶךְ לְךָ.
(5) "Go forth (Lech L'cha)" - R' Azaria cited in this connection the following verse: "We tried to heal Babylon, But she was not healed: forsake her, and Let us leave her and go, Each to his own land" (Jeremiah 51:9).
"We tried to heal Babylon" refers to the generation of Enosh; "but she was not healed" –to the generation of the flood; "forsake her" in the generation of the dispersion; "Let us leave her and go, Each to their own land" "And Adonai said unto Abram: Go forth."
The midrash traces the failures of humankind in three stages. Adonai tried to heal humanity, but it would not be healed. Adam and his descendants failed. A new start was made with Noah and his descendants. After the babel of tongues, humanity became divided into nations, and no further efforts could be made to heal it. Humankind would not return to its pristine unity and brotherhood, without a third start, in which one people would be singled out for blessing: "And in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed," till all the peoples which do not now "understand one another's speech" will become once again one family.
The above Midrash justified the necessity for selection since all other men had failed, but it does not explain what justified Abraham's election.
Nehama Leibowitz
Food for Thought
- Why might the biblical authors have not included a reason for Abraham's election?
- What benefit does our narrative have in Abram heeding God's command: "Lech L'cha - Go forth from your house, your birthplace, your father's house, to the land that I will show you."?
- How does the religiosity of this story relate to us modern, Reform Jews?