Lech-Lecha Reflections: The Inner Journey

The Torah introduces Avraham without (Abraham) saying why he was chosen. In fact, when first presented, at the end of last week’s sedra, it was not clear that he was chosen at all. He and his family, including his father Terach, started travelling to Canaan. Suddenly, at the start of this week’s sedra, Avraham receives the call to travel to an unnamed foreign land, which turns out to be Canaan again.

The Torah states, “They [Avraham and his family] went to go to the land of Canaan and they arrived in the land of Canaan.”  (12.5) The passage is notable for what it does not say. This is not an epic quest involving monsters and hazardous obstacles lasting months or even years. It’s not The Odyssey or other pagan myths. Avraham’s external journey, which may or may not have been brief in reality, is covered briefly. Avraham’s real journey is an inner journey of dealing with disappointments (the long years of childlessness, the rejection of Yishmael (Ishmael), the failure to acquire more than the smallest foothold in the land before his death) as well as the famous ten tests. It is truly a journey of faith rather than one of conventional pagan heroism.

Robert Alter, in The Art of Biblical Narrative, points out that the heroes of Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), unlike the heroes of pagan myth, are realistically-portrayed figures who grow as people during their stories. (This, Alter suggests, is why Tanakh, unlike other ancient Middle Eastern religious texts, is written in prose, not poetry – prose is more able to convey the depth and complexity of the human personality.) This is certainly true of Avraham. The early parts of his story, particularly the incident with Pharaoh, do not reflect so well on Avraham. He seems in genuine fear for his life and Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman/Nachmanides) criticises him for not trusting in God and instead first leaving Canaan during the famine and then passing Sarah off as his sister instead of admitting she was his wife and trusting God again to keep him safe.

Although this mistake will later be repeated with Avimelekh in the land of the Philistines, something seems to change in a positive way for Avraham during the war of the four kings and the five kings. He has already separated from Lot, trying to influence him against going to the Cities of the Plain by saying “If you go left [north in biblical idiom] I will go right [south] and if you go right, I will go left.” As Sodom and the other Cities of Plain lie to the east of them, this seems a subtle hint that Lot should not go there, but he does so anyway.

When Lot is taken hostage by the four kings, it seems that it is done specifically because he is Avraham’s kin. The verse tells us “And they took Lot the son of Avram’s brother and his wealth and they went. He dwelt in Sodom.” The fact that Lot is described as Avraham’s nephew when we already know this serves to emphasise the relationship: this was not any old hostage, but Avraham’s nephew. The casual way it mentions that Lot dwelt in Sodom, almost as an afterthought, indicates that he was really taken because he was Avraham’s nephew, not because he dwelt in Sodom.

The enemies of the Jews have always known that they can get at us through our families. Rabbi Zvi Grument, in Genesis: From Creation to Covenant, sees concern for family as the reason that Avraham’s family is chosen. Even before Avraham’s birth, Terach names his first son after his father, Nachor, the first time such a naming is recorded in the Torah (actually, figures in Tanakh are very rarely named for known relatives). Then, Avraham and Nachor marry the daughters of their late brother Haran, apparently to look after them after the death of their father.[1] According to Rabbi Grumet, it is this concern with family that marks the Avrahamite clan as suitable bearers of the covenant. Avraham knows he has no choice but to go to war to rescue his errant nephew.

The Midrashic tradition sees this war as full of apocalyptic potential, a parallel to the campaigns of the Assyrians that removed the ten northern tribes of Israel from history and nearly destroyed the southern kingdom of Judah too as well as to the war of Gog and Magog at the end of days. This, then is the trial by fire for Avraham, the first great war on the Jewish people. In Egypt, he had been scared to be seen as the husband of a beautiful wife for fear he would be murdered, but now, with only 318 men, he takes on four armies and wins, apparently through strategy (he attacks suddenly at night and catches them in a pincer movement) and trust in God (much like the IDF today).

The experience seems to change Avraham. When God next speaks to him, he asks him a question, the first time we see Avraham speak to God rather than just passively listening. He expresses his worries for the future if he has no children. He understands that his mission is about family, but he has no children to pass on his way of life to.

God’s response is to create a covenant with him, one more specific than the one with Noach (Noah). This covenant is in two parts, the Covenant Between the Parts and the Covenant of Circumcision.

Before the Covenant Between the Parts, God tells Avraham that his offspring will be like the stars of the Heavens. Avraham is faithful to God’s promise and this is considered “righteousness” for him. He also asks how he can know he will possess the land, which seems at odds with his trust in God, but in fact means how can he know that he or his descendants will not act in such a way that they void the covenant. The Covenant Between the Parts answers this by presenting God and Avraham as indivisible parts of a whole, like the animal pieces that Avraham is made to pass through. This does not guarantee an easy life. There is an explicit reference to the coming Egyptian exile as well as allusions to later sin and exile that the Midrash sees in the morbid imagery of carrion birds and darkness. Nevertheless, Avraham and God are bonded together now inseparably.

The Covenant of Circumcision comes many years later, at least fourteen years later, as Yishmael was not conceived at the Covenant Between the Parts and is thirteen years old at the time of the Covenant of Circumcision. If the Covenant Between the Parts meant God would always be there, this shows that there are obligations on Avraham and his descendants. Avraham and his male descendants are to identify as part of the covenant in the most powerful way, on their bodies. It symbolises that self-control of the most primal urges is at the heart of the covenant, perhaps in particular that sex and reproduction would be limited to covenantal partners, not outsiders, so that any children would always be born into the covenant.

Across our sedra, Avraham has grown into the covenantal role that God has arranged for him, from simply following instructions to being in a mutually-obligating covenant with God. However, he has yet to father a son within the covenant. This will be the main theme of next week’s sedra.

[1] That Sarah is Yiscah daughter of Haran is implied by the cumbersome phraseology of the Torah verse and emphasised in the Midrash.