Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with God telling Avram to leave his birthplace and travel to a land where his descendants will become a great nation. So, Avram and his wife, Sarai, accompanied by their nephew Lot, journey to the land of Canaan. Avram builds an altar there, but a famine forces them to flee to Egypt, where Avram and Sarai present themselves as brother and sister, out of fear that Avram would be killed on account of Sarai’s great beauty. Sarai is taken to Pharaoh’s palace, but a plague prevents the Egyptian king from approaching her. Pharaoh then somehow understands that Sarai is Avram’s wife, and he reunites her with Avram, giving them gold, silver and cattle.
When they return to the land of Canaan, Lot separates from Avram and settles in the evil city of Sodom, where he falls captive when the mighty armies of King Kedarla-omer and his three allies conquer the five cities of the Sodom Valley. Avram sets out with a small band to rescue his nephew, defeats the four kings, and is blessed by Malkitzedek, the king of Salem (Jerusalem). Avram seals a strange covenant with God involving a vision of fire descending and moving between severed animal pieces, in which the exile and persecution (galut) of Avram’s descendants is foretold, and their eventual return to the Holy Land is affirmed. Still childless ten years after their arrival in the Land, Sarai tells Avram to marry her maidservant Hagar. Hagar conceives, but becomes insolent toward her mistress, and then flees when Sarai treats her harshly. An angel convinces her to return, and tells her that her son will also become a great nation. Ishmael is born in Avram’s eighty-sixth year. Thirteen years later, God changes Avram’s name to Avraham (Abraham, meaning “father of multitudes”), and Sarai’s name to Sarah (“princess”). A child is promised to them whom they should call Yitzhak (Isaac, “will laugh”). Abraham is instructed to circumcise himself and his descendants as a sign of the covenant. Abraham does so for himself and all the males of his household.
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וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃ Hashem said to Avram, “Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you…” -Bereisheet (Genesis) 12:1
Rabbi Hanokh was asked about the verse:
וַיִּשְׂאוּ֩ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֨ל אֶת־עֵינֵיהֶ֜ם וְהִנֵּ֥ה מִצְרַ֣יִם נֹסֵ֣עַ אַחֲרֵיהֶ֗ם וַיִּֽירְאוּ֙ מְאֹ֔ד וַיִּצְעֲק֥וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אֶל־יְהֹ–וָֽה׃ The Children of Israel lifted up their eyes and, behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they were very frightened; and the Children of Israel cried out to Hashem. - Sh’mot (Exodus) 14:10 They asked him, “Why were they so afraid, since they already knew that God was helping them?” Rabbi Hanokh answered: “When they were in Egypt, the experience of slavery was all they knew; they couldn’t see how deeply they were affected by it. But now that they had a taste of freedom, they thought they had left that all behind, and that they were fully liberated. Instead, they ‘lifted their eyes’ and saw their slavery ‘coming after them.’ They were terrified to learn that they weren’t really free yet. So Moses responded: וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֣ה אֶל־הָעָם֮ אַל־תִּירָ֒אוּ֒ הִֽתְיַצְּב֗וּ וּרְאוּ֙ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַ֣ת יְהֹ–וָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם כִּ֗י אֲשֶׁ֨ר רְאִיתֶ֤ם אֶת־מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ הַיּ֔וֹם לֹ֥א תֹסִ֛פוּ לִרְאֹתָ֥ם ע֖וֹד עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃ And Moses said to the people: Do not be afraid, stand still, and see the Divine liberation which will happen for you today – for as you see Egypt today; your seeing of it shall not continue anymore, forever.’ “This means that when you really see your own bondage, when you can truly perceive how stuck you are, the seeing itself saves you; the seeing itself is the Divine help!” This remarkable teaching of the 19th century Hasidic master Rabbi Hanokh reveals the inner dynamic of spiritual liberation: while the tradition imagines God as a separate entity that liberates us, this teaching hints at the greatest mystery which is hidden in plain sight: the awareness that “sees” is itself Divine; to “stand” with attentiveness to our entanglements is to realize our freedom from them. This is Jewish meditation – so profoundly simple, but not necessarily easy to implement. Like the Israelites who couldn’t see their own enslavement while they were in Egypt, the shift from being identified with our conditioning to being able to see our conditioning can take a tremendous effort, though it is an “effortless effort.” וּרְאוּ֙ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַ֣ת יְהֹוָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם – and see the Divine liberation which will happen for you today… This “effortlessness” is represented by the dualistic imagery: it is God that saves us; all we have to do is “see” it happen “today” – meaning, be present with this moment. But for most of us, our default is to not to see our identifications, but to see the world through our identifications. Like a person who stares constantly their phone, we fetishize the obsessions of ego, “looking up” only occasionally when the walls of the heart are accidentally breached, or when a temporary lapse in the noise of the mind allows the radiant silence to shine through, even if for only a moment. But, we need not be “screen” addicts; we can put down the “phone” of the ego anytime. Listen: The Beloved is calling you to dinner – there’s a banquet prepared. Let go of your judgments about yourself and others. Let go of how you wish things were. Let go of your obsessions, assertions, denials, angers, grudges… there is something so much better than all of that, if you would be willing to set it aside, to look up… לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵֽאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖... Go for yourself from your land, from your family… All those opinions, assertions, cravings, disappointments – they seem so real, so important. But they aren’t the real you. They are imprints from “your land” – your culture, your inherited identity, patterns from your family, your experiences, your traumas – but you need not be imprisoned by them: אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ: – to the land I will show you… We’re being called to the banquet hall and the feast is waiting. It’s true, the “call” is constant, ever-present, and things that are constant are easily ignored. But, you can tune into the message if you’re willing to wake up from the ego’s hypnosis. The key is to stop, to see the pull of the ego, to see the fullness of this moment, as it is. וַיִּֽבֶן־שָׁ֤ם מִזְבֵּ֨חַ֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה וַיִּקְרָ֖א בְּשֵׁ֥ם יְהֹ–וָֽה: And there he built an altar and called upon the Name of the Divine… When we become present, we build a space in time; we create a refuge to withdraw from the ego’s momentum for long enough to get free from it and to call upon the “Divine Name” – meaning, to see things as they are, as arising from the Mystery, rather than as a mere projections of ego. This is the Path of ע Ayin – waking up from the dream the mind, into the Presence of Reality as it appears, Now; it is the path of freedom from the entanglements of ego, and communion with the One who reveals the bright new “land” of this moment…
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