Lech Lecha: migration

This week’s parsha deals with the movements of people. It opens with Gd instructing Avram to go. Go to a place that I will show you.  Just go. It will be good for you ( Rashi). 

 Traveling involves risk.

You leave your land.

 You leave the place where you can claim you belong, go to new place where people can say: “you don’t belong here.”

There is a loss of possession, a loss of enfranchisement, a loss of protection.

 You lose the connection to the familiar: your birthplace, the ancestral home, the ancestral cemetery, the ancestral sky.

You lose your comfort with the language: communication becomes harder and less welcome. 

You lose your inheritance and (parts of) your heritage.

 

Avram was told that his descendants would receive the land of Canaan. Terach, Avram’s father, had begun the journey. He had taken the family out of Ur and Canaan was the stated destination.  But Terach did not make it all the way, he settled in Charan. There, an important branch of the family, that becomes the matriarchy, flourishes. It is  led by Lavan. Return to Charan is characterized as a disastrous alternative for  Jacob and his descendants. The Passover Hagada says:

 

וְלָבָן בִּקֵּשׁ לַעֲקֹר אֶת־הַכֹּל. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם

but Lavan sought to uproot the whole [people]. As it is stated (Deuteronomy 26:5), "An Aramean was destroying my father and he went down to Egypt, and he resided there

Perhaps this informs Avram’s decision, when faced with the famine in Canaan (the Promised Land), to go to Egypt, rather than return to Charan… a choice that must have been tempting. The people’s destiny could tolerate the extreme compromises and sacrifices involved in going to Egypt, but not a return to Charan where it would be assimilated into the local idolatry.  In Egypt, Avram and his group would be foreigners. His life would not be valued, he could be killed to make his wife available; but he would not blend into the local culture, his mission would not disappear. The Avram group go to Egypt and have a taste of slave life, the master takes what he wants, and Avram ( and his descendants)  deal(s) with it.

 

Avram had another choice to escape the famine: The valley of Sodom is closer; it does not require crossing the desert.  In the next parsha, Hagar and Ishmael will nearly die of thirst in that same desert! When Lot, Abraham's nephew and ward sees the valley, it is described: 

וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־כׇּל־כִּכַּ֣ר הַיַּרְדֵּ֔ן כִּ֥י כֻלָּ֖הּ מַשְׁקֶ֑ה.... כְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם בֹּאֲכָ֖ה צֹֽעַר׃  

Lot looked about him and saw how well watered was the whole plain of the Jordan, all of it...all the way to Zoar, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt.

The region was rich enough to attract the invading armies of Persia and Babylon. Why did Abraham choose Egypt?

 Abraham recognized that a migrant to Egypt might be killed to make his beautiful wife available, but the Pharaoh could allow him to live and even offer protection. Sodom may have been worse. In the next parsha, it seems worse. When the angels visit Lot, the people of Sodom insist upon access to “the strangers." Lot’s offer of his virgin daughters does not deter the lust of these people. 

Avram clearly abhors the Sodomites.  After he rescues Lot (and the captured of Sodom) from the four Assyrian kings,  and he is offered all the booty, he tells the king of Sodom: 

אִם־מִחוּט֙ וְעַ֣ד שְׂרֽוֹךְ־נַ֔עַל וְאִם־אֶקַּ֖ח מִכׇּל־אֲשֶׁר־לָ֑ךְ וְלֹ֣א תֹאמַ֔ר אֲנִ֖י הֶעֱשַׁ֥רְתִּי אֶת־אַבְרָֽם׃ 

I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of what is yours; you shall not say, ‘It is I who made Abram rich.’

The treasure that he received from Egypt does not seem to have this problem... despite the circumstances. 

The invasion of the army of the five kings, the attempt to incorporate the region into the empire, is a contrasting population movement…military conquest. Although Avram demonstrates his ability to defeat this invading army, he does not choose this approach to stake a claim to the land.  Without an heir, his conquest would be transitory and probably constantly under challenge.

My life has been deeply influenced by migration decisions. My distant ancestors migrated to Poland.  My parents, forced out of Poland, chose to come to America.  I chose to live in Seattle.  All these Charans. All these Egypts.

All people descended from migrants.  Does coming to the land earlier constitute a meaningful claim? Every migration is an invasion and an escape.  It is a threat to the prevailing system and culture.  It is an opportunity for the new immigrant and the current inhabitant – who is the descendant of a previous immigrant.