Survival

Lech Lecha


Genesis 12:1 -17:27


Précis: This parasha, “get you up” or “go yourself” (lech lecha) begins with “the call” of Abram to leave his home and journey to a new land. At God’s command, Abram and Sarai journey to Canaan. When famine strikes, they travel to Egypt, where Sarai is taken into Pharaoh’s harem after Abram calls her his “sister,” but she escapes without harm. They then leave Egypt, with Abram now a rich man. To avoid family squabbles, Abram separates himself from his nephew Lot (who moves to Sodom), but Abram is forced to rescue Lot in the first military action described in the Bible. Abram reaches a negotiated settlement with the locals, and God promises him an heir. Because Sarai is barren, she offers Abram her servant (Hagar), and Hagar gives birth to a son, Ishmael. Abram is then promised a son through Sarai, to be his true heir. Abram’s name is changed to Abraham, and Sarai’s to Sarah, in recognition of the new Covenant with God, which is then symbolized by circumcision.

Genesis 15:4-7 “Then the word of God came to [Abram]: ... ‘a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be...'”


This parasha focuses on the creation of the Jewish nation. How is it that we have survived for the 3.5 millennia since Abraham’s time, while most (if not all) other peoples were dispersed, conquered, or simply disappeared? This story of our origin provides important clues to our ongoing survival.


Jews have survived not because we were isolated at the edge of the civilized world, but rather because we maintained our identity while living within the dominant cultures in which we found ourselves, be it Babylonia, Greece, Rome, Spain, Poland, Russia, America, or any other of the “homes” in our history. The Jews survived not once, but multiple times.


In the cited verses, God promises Abram prosperity, progeny and land ownership. Yet, this promise is never fulfilled within the stories of Genesis. Even the ensuing story of the Exodus is not properly a story of restoration to the land, because the Jewish People had never really possessed it.


It is something other than prosperity and the land (mostly lacking throughout Jewish history) which have ensured the survival of the Jewish People. I would maintain that there are two rationales to explain this most unique story of survival. The first is a traditional, theologically based one: the Covenant between God and Abraham (and his descendants). This Covenant is real and abiding. Whether one believes that God intervenes directly in human affairs or not, one is hard-pressed to deny that something (or Someone) has had a role in the survival of the Jewish People through the 35 centuries since Abraham. It defies the laws of mere chance that the Jewish People has survived.


A second rationale for our mutual survival is the development of Jewish institutions, particularly of Torah study and a complex ritual life, which together formed a cultural collective sense of identity. Viewed in this light, Torah is a Jewish survival handbook.


As the inheritors of this tradition, and as descendants of Abraham, it is an obligation, accepted by each succeeding generation, to maintain the Covenant as we best understand it. We do this through observance, study, and support of Jewish communal institutions, and by our support of Israel as well. This is the meaning of the promise made to Abraham, and the rationale for the phrase “Am Yisrael Chai!”.