A Blessing and a Demand
Bereshit 12: 1 - 17: 27
“Lech Lecha” is the third Torah portion (Parasha) in the book of Genesis. It following “Bereshit” and “Noah.”
The narrative sets out to tell of the election of Abraham, the first father of Israel.
The blessing received by Abraham here is different than those received by Adam and Noah in the previous chapters. Those blessings promised only fertility. Abraham’s blessing, by contrast, is a promise as well as a demand:
And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing
And I will bless those who bless you, and those who damn you I will curse, and all the families of the earth through you shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12: 2-3)
Let me put a magnifier, so to speak, over the components of what is arguably one of Judaism’s foundational components of its identity.
- I will make YOU A GREAT NATION,
- I will BLESS YOU
- MAKE YOUR NAME GREAT,
- YOU SHALL BE A BLESSING.
- I WILL BLESS THOSE WHO BLESS YOU,
- THOSE WHO DAMN YOU I WILL CURSE;
- ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH THROUGH YOU SHALL BE BLESSED.
What is absent, in this complex promise that began all, is that the promise of the Land is not included.
Even in the first verse, when the de facto history of Abraham begins, the command is to leave his country of birth; there is not yet at specifying to which country he is to go. At that pivotal moment, which country to go is not the decisive factor.
It is only when he arrives in Canaan that he hears for the first time the words “I will give this land to your seed.”
It is not a land which is holy, a sacred ground. Nowhere in the TaNaKh is the land spoken of as God’s dwelling- place, nor can it be described as his sanctuary.
Clearly the land plays an important role, albeit a secondary one.
Not to get confused, the understanding of the land in the TaNaKh is never just about land, never only land possessed and managed. It is a medium to establish a unique social and political entity; a gift where the promise based on agreement is to be sealed.
Because the promise, is based on an agreement that has to be fulfilled, the TaNaKh is always concerned that Israel may forfeit its right to the land.
There are historical reasons why Judaism failed many times throughout its history to fulfill the expectations in its covenant. But, that has nothing to do with what Judaism is meant to be, something which the Abraham’s stories intend to show.
The book of Bereshit argues for the land as the place where it can better develop the blessings it has received; certainly not for a land of rituals and life-regulating laws.
The land should be the laboratory where “all the families of the earth should be blessed through Abraham’s descendants. That despite Israel’s tremendous contribution to all the nations of the world Israel’s blessing is presently tainted is very much the result of forces that do not even start to do what Israel does for humanity. When one cannot compare to another, its wish is for the other to disappear.
Abraham’s history occupying about fourteen chapters, (or roughly twenty pages,) in the biblical book of Bereshit (Genesis) is full of ups-and-downs, detours and near misses.
And yet, an estimated 54% of the world’s population, some 3.8 billion people, revere him as the common ancestor of all religions of Semitic origin, principally Judaism, Christianity, and Islam but also religions with smaller adherents, including Rastafarianism, Samaritanism, Druzism, Mandaeism, Bábism, and the Baha’i Faith, and for a reason.
The prophet Zechariah looking back several centuries later at the ups-and-downs of the Jewish people’sHistory presciently said:
And as you have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you and you shall be a blessing. Have no fear; take courage!
An Authentic Abrahamic tradition, Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, however, would be one that would follow the reason given in the Torah for Abraham’s preeminence:
For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord, by doing what is just and right (Genesis 18: 19)
