Lech Lecha: To Be Human

The imperative לך לך מארצך, ‘go from your land’, begins the chronicle of the Jewish people. These key words in Jewish history are often translated in literal, physical terms, a command from G-d to Avram to leave his father Terach’s land and household, to leave the landscape which he has known all his life and go into G-d’s unknown. Avram’s unquestioning acceptance of His words, of His very existence, is not laboured upon in the text; G-d asks and Avram dutifully follows. Tanach simply reads‘וילך אברם כאשר דבר אילו ה, ‘So Avram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him’. These words depict a huge shift in Avram’s life as he takes a logical step of faith, and with them Tanach’s narrative trajectory starts to form: Avram becomes a central character, starting on a path of divinity and an unprecedented covenantal relationship with G-d in which his longevity through the generations is guaranteed.

Whilst the literal reading of G-d’s לך לך imperative is a fair exegetical approach to take given the fact that the following pesukim detail Avram and Sarai’s journeys through Cana’an, Shechem, Bet-El and the Negev, it can be argued that it can be read in a far more existential way, relating, instead, to an inward journey Avram must embark on in order to truly embody his new status as the ‘initiating’ follower of G-d. In his paper on the narrative function of biblical names, Gahl E. Sasson writes that ‘the words lech lecha (get thee out) can be translated as “go into yourself” or “go for yourself”’, an interpretation of the Hebrew which reinforces this idea that, as well as making a physical journey, Avram is tasked with going inside himself to grow as a human being so that he can become Avraham, the patriarch so central to Judaism.[1]Given his already astounding and devoted actions, this interpretation of the opening words of the parasha suggest that Avram will linearly continue to grow as a righteous human being, making his actions in the following verses of Genesis 12:10-20 so puzzling. Faced with famine, Avram takes his wife Sarai to Egypt, and, fearing his life due to her beauty, asks her to say that she is his sister (Gen. 12:13), sending her into the hands of the Egyptians to protect himself. Lech Lecha, which begins with such hope for the birth of a new nation, suddenly descends into quite a troubling storyline. How can a man who has proven his righteousness and earned a covenant with G-d act in such a way?

To understand this perturbing question, we must look into the text itself and how it depicts Avram’s actions and their consequences. As they approach Egypt to flee famine, Avram turns to his wife and suddenly realises her beauty, describing her as an אשה יפת-מראה, ‘a beautiful woman’, viewing her as if for the first time. In his Or HaChayim commentary on the text, Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar suggests that Avram had never seen her beauty before now, the text’s use of the above phrase, instead of the simple יפת מראה, implying that her beauty was unique.[2] Understanding that the idolatrous Egyptians did not sleep with someone else’s wife, instead murdering the husband so that they did not commit adultery, Avram implores Sarai to declare herself his sister so that he might be out of danger, a cultural interpretation which is expounded upon in the Da’at Zekenim Tosafot commentary on the verse.[3] Avram saves himself and increases his prospects of wealth in Egypt, telling Sarai that if she does this then he ‘will be treated well’,  ייטב-לי בעבורך. Both Ramban and Radak comment on Avram’s behaviour here, noting that it is less than desirable.[4] He appears completely self-serving; he becomes a trickster, defrauding Pharaoh’s officers and leaving his beloved and beautiful yet barren wife in a foreign land to be potentially violated and held by Pharaoh. He lies, knowing that he will benefit from his wife’s abandonment, something which is confirmed in Gen 12:16, where the text uses the same language to describe how he is treated – ולאברם היטיב בעבורה, ‘and He [Pharaoh] treated Avram well’. In the infancy of his characterisation, our biblical hero fails; he sins almost immediately, removing himself from the danger he leaves his wife in. Academic Yair Zakovitch reflects on this, noting that it is Sarai who is implicitly punished in this situation, even though it is Avram’s action, ‘his sin, which is deserving of punishment’.[5]  Sarai is only freed through divine intervention, G-d striking Pharaoh and his household with a plague (Gen 12:17). That this is a direct consequence of the Pharaoh taking Sarai is shown in Pharaoh’s anger towards Avram, saying ‘why have you done this to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, “she is my sister”, so that I took her as a wife?’ (Gen 12:18-19). If the famine and Egypt is a test from G-d, Avram quite clearly fails.

This is not the only time in Tanach where Avram pulls this stunt either. In next week’s parasha, Vayera, we see Avram and Sarai, now Avraham and Sarah, travel to Gerar, where Avraham tells King Avimelech once more that Sarah is his sister to save himself and his prospects (Gen. 20:1-2). Again G-d intervenes, telling Avimelech the truth of their relationship in a dream, but unlike in this week’s parasha, Avraham has his wife returned to him and gains riches without the violence of a plague. It is a softer version of the earlier narrative in this week’s parasha. As Zakovitch writes, this account ‘greatly resembles the events of the story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt’ yet it ‘lightens Abraham’s guilt’, showing him in an increasingly clearer light.[6] His actions in Egypt during Lech Lecha appear troubling, yet they prove that Avram is human, capable of mistakes but able to learn from them through G-d’s actions, learning an ethical and religious way to approach life. He must hark the command of לך לך and delve into himself, into his soul, to learn how he might improve and be truly deserving of the covenantal promises set out in Lech Lecha’s opening verses. The truth is that the way Avram acts in this episode is simply human. He, like Noach with the vineyard before him, is fallible; he stumbles, continues on and repeats those same stumbles until he learns and grows. The discomfort we as Jewish readers feel when reading of our founding forefather’s mistakes should not sit within us as distress but as inspiration for the non-linear lens through which we should view our own human growth. Like Sarai’s beauty, each of us is unique, susceptible to particular paths and possible mistakes. With this in mind, לך לך, the command originally given to Avraham Avinu in Tanach, becomes a contemporary one. It becomes a command given to each of us, one we must all fulfil in our own unique way as we delve into ourselves and who we are, learning and growing as we traverse the unknown path.

—

[1] Gahl E. Sasson, ‘The Symbolic Meaning of Biblical Names as a Narrative Tool: Moses, Abraham and David’ in Storytelling, Self, Society, Vol.11 No.2 (2015), pp.298-313, pg.305

[2] Rabbi Hayyim ben Moshe Ibn Attar, Or HaChayim on Genesis, trans. Eliyahu Munk (1998) via Sefaria

[3] Various Tosafost, Da’at Zekenim on Genesis, trans. Eliyahu Munk (2009), via Sefaria

[4] For the interested reader, it is worth looking through their commentaries on this section of Tanach – they are available on Sefaria

[5] Yair Zakovitch, ‘Disgrace: The Lies of the Patriarch’ in Social Research Vol.75 No.4 (2006), pp.1035-1058, pg.1040

[6] Zakovitch, pg.1041