The history of the Jewish people is the subject of this text, a history that has its beginning with the first patriarch Avraham. While the Tora is a religious document with an ethical-spiritual message, at the same time, it is the story of the epic of the people who will be chosen by God to bring His message to humanity.
The Tora is a composite: spirit and matter, human beings and Creator. It is the encounter between “heaven and earth”, the first elements mentioned in Bereshit. It is a thin fabric of religious imperatives and everyday concerns, a fact that comes to light in the complexity of the character of its protagonists. The first patriarch is an outstanding individual, who will radically change the perception of a unique Supreme Being and the meaning of this faith for human behavior.
However, Avraham should not be confused with God, he is an exceptional human being, but with the limitations that nature imposes on man. Avraham is an idealist willing to break entirely with his past and listen to the Divine command to undertake a great adventure. Because it is not only about Lech Lecha, the physical abandonment of the paternal home, Avraham is also required to break with the thinking of the time so that he can embark on an unknown and dangerous intellectual journey. As an iconoclast, he will break with the idolatry of the past and preach the novel notion of the existence of a God who is not visible to the eyes, but who can be internalized by feeling, thought, and faith. Avraham responds to the precarious food situation of the Promised Land by fleeing to Egypt, at which point he considers that, to save his physical integrity, he must ask his beautiful wife to pose as his sister.
The founder of monotheism would be supposed to have faith in God to save him from any immoral attempt by the Egyptians – at least that’s what the Judeo-Spanish exegete Nachmanides thinks – and not to require his wife to lie for fear of death. In defense of the attitude assumed by Avraham, the exegete Radak affirms that a person should not rely on miracles, on Divine intervention and, therefore, Avraham’s attitude was correct. There is even the argument that Sarai, his wife, (her name is later on changed to Sara) was a close relative as if åshe were a sister.
However, one can understand the terror that must have gripped the patriarch at a time of ever-present despotism, when human life lacked great value in the eyes of monarchs. Avraham was possessed by unconditional faith, but simultaneously manifested the weaknesses of a human being. Even Sarai’s beauty, which comes to light on the trip to Egypt, has a double meaning. On the one hand, there is “yofya“, her dazzling face, but at the same time, there is his “chen“, grace and charm as a reflection of her spirit and sensual delicacy.
At first, Avraham had been attracted by Sarai’s inner beauty, by her sensitivity and warmth. Now, faced with the carnal desires of the Egyptians, Avraham realizes that the superficial beauty that his wife radiates can become the reason for his downfall. They will be fundamental themes of the sacred text: the immediate satisfaction of a desire or the postponement of its realization.
Perhaps, the fundamental message of the Bible will be to bear witness that only God is perfect, while a man will always aspire to perfection, because even the patriarchs, the fundamental messengers of faith, were at times found wanting. But, unlike others, patriarchs will teach the reality of amendment, the possible return to the Creator. The first two patriarchs only succeeded with some of their sons, while the others went astray along misleading and confusing paths. Only in the case of the third patriarch, Yaacov, do we see that after mistakes and successes, trials and errors, resentment and fidelity, his descendants set out on the path of faith and fraternal solidarity, to engender the twelve tribes that will give birth to the people chosen by God, the People of Israel.
MITZVAH: TORA ORDINANCE IN THIS PARSHA
CONTAINS 1 POSITIVE MITZVA
- Genesis 17:10 Circumcision precept
