Lech Lecha: Drama

This parsha is the archetype of literature,  We read stories of  ambivalence, desperation, oppression war, conflict, envy.  The stories are moving and the characters are complex.

The hero, Avrum, goes on his Odyssey. He leaves the familiar and follows the lead of an invisible Gd who talks to him, often in riddles. He goes to a land and soon there is a famine.He cannot stay in this Promised land.(What kind of promised land experiences famines? ). Starving, he goes to Egypt.  His level of desperation is revealed  in the most distasteful requests he makes  of his wife.  Even if she were not his wife, how could he ask her to use her beauty for his advancement?  Starvation can justify almost  anything.  The important thing is that they leave Egypt together. 

They return to that land that could not support them, an inhabited land, a land that has become a vassal state to( the 4 kings of )Babylon.  In the war of liberation from the foreign oppressors, Lot, Avrum's nephew, a sojourner in the area, is captured. Family  loyalty seems to motivate Avrum's entry into this first organized mutual killing event (war) - and he is victorious.  The text has already established that the people of Sodom were sinful, but for the sake of his kin,  Avrum  has allied himself with the evil nation.

Gd now communicates with Avrum , promising great reward.  Avrum replies that the promise is empty because he has no offspring.  Gd glorifies the offer -  the offspring will be like the stars in the heaven.  Avrum  believes and he  performs a rite. Animals are bisected. He shoos away the  birds of prey ( the forces of  loss through violation) and falls into a night terror, until  a heavenly fire consumes the offering.  A message is delivered in a dream: Avrum's offspring will be enslaved for 400 years in exile. Is this a full disclosure moment? After their ordeal, they will emerge with great wealth and inherit the land (presumably without the famines).


Avrum now believes that he will have a biological heir. Sara thinks that  she will not be the mother. (Gd's message might have been clearer.)The couple is not sure about how the world is run, so they try to do their part in fulfilling the promise by enlisting Sara's maidservant, Hagar, as a proxy mother.  This action seems to be a misinterpretation of Gd's intention, but it leads to Hagar's pregnancy . Her gravid state spawns contempt for Sara, which, in turn, generates a harsher mistress. Hager runs away from her servitude, but an angel convinces her to return to have her son. He will be the father of a great nation - Ishmael.

Gd rewards the faithful. Misinterpretation  is a  problem.  The  corrections are costly.