Lech Lecha / Genesis 12:1 ~ 17:27

Lech Lecha: Take Yourself, Go Forth

G~d tells Abram to leave his native land and travel "to the land that I will show you." He promises that Abram will become a great nation. So, Abram and his wife, Sarai, along with Lot, the son of Abram's brother, and other family members leave Haran and head off to a place unknown. They briefly settle in Shechem until a famine forces them to seek food in Egypt. Abram is concerned that when they reach Egypt, Pharaoh will want Sarai as his wife and will kill Abram, so Abram tells her to say they are brother and sister. Pharaoh is, indeed, taken by Sarai's beauty, and as Abram predicted, think that she is Abram's sister. She was taken to Pharaoh. Ultimately, Sarai is returned to Abram, and Pharaoh provides Abram with great wealth, but forces Abram and his entourage to leave the country. They travel to Canaan.

This story is not about unethical practices, but rather emphasizes the way peoples on the fringe of society succeed. We will later seen a similar story in which Abram and Sarai, then called Abraham and Sarah, again refer to themselves as brother and sister in an effort to protect themselves.

After leaving Egypt, Abram and his nephew, Lot, part ways. They had a dispute about their herds, because the land where they settled could not support the all their animals. They parted amicably, with Lot heading towards Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people were "wicked, hardened sinners."

There are other peoples living in the land. Four kings battle against five kings, and in the battle, Lot and his family are captured. Abram learns of Lot's capture and gathers 318 men from his group and rescue Lot and his family. This is the only Biblical reference to Abram as being a man of war. He is generally depicted as a peaceful person.

Abram and Sarai have no children. Sarai gives her maidservant, Hagar, to Abram in order that he may have a son. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. Sarai becomes jealous of Hagar and Hagar leaves with her son. Through an angel, G~d tells Hagar that her son will become a great nation.

In their old age, Abram and Sarai learn that they will become parents. G~d changes their names to Abraham (meaning the "father of a multitude") and Sarah ("princess"). Abraham is instructed to perform the mitzvah of the bris milah, or circumcision, as a sign of the covenant between G~d and Abraham and his descendants. Upon hearing that he will have a son in his advanced age, he laughs. G~d tells him, nonetheless, that Sarah will bear a son who shall be named Isaac.

Abraham then age 99, follows G~d instructions, and circumcises himself, his son Ishmael and all the males in his household.

In the secular year of 2011, Lech Lecha falls on November 5, 2011.