TORAH PORTION: LECH LECHA

Parshat Lech Lecha

5 November 2022 / 11 Cheshvan 5783

Torah: Genesis 12:1-17:27 Triennial: 12:1-13:18

Haftarah: Isaiah 40:27-41:16

In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Parasha by Bex Stern-Rosenblatt called "Lot's Plot", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb poses questions in her D'var Haftarah titled "Service Born From Love", and Ilana Kurshan offers a piece called "Alexa, Build My Sukkah!".

Lot's Plot

Bex Stern-Rosenblatt

Parashah

Genesis tells the origin stories of a number of nations as well as the origin story of Israel. Many of these stories involve an eponymous ancestor and an eventual twelve tribes. This week, as we read the story of Avram/Abraham, the one from whom all these nations descended, we encounter the story of someone who does not quite fit this narrative. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, disrupts the pattern. While our parashah is often understood to be telling the story of Abraham, Lot’s presence is crucial to the first half of the parashah and then again in next week’s parashah. 

Lot’s presence complicates Abraham’s departure. God tells Abraham to leave his past behind and yet Lot, an embodiment of that past, comes with Abraham. We read, “And Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him and Lot went forth with him.” Abram follows God’s command, embarking on an epic journey. Lot too “goes forth,” but strikingly without a command from God to do so.  Moreover, the parashah continues, “And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the folk they had bought in Haran.” Having been told to leave the past behind, Abraham brings much of it with him. Lot is stuck somewhere between subject and object here, being both someone who can act with volition of his own and someone who is acted upon, taken with goods. 

Soon after Abraham arrives in the land, there is a famine and Abraham “went down to Egypt” where he will present Sarah as his sister. The story concludes with the verse, “And Abram came up from Egypt, he and his wife and all he had, and Lot together with him, to the Negeb.” From this, we learn that Lot was with Abraham and Sarah in Egypt. Of course, this is logical. There is no reason for Abraham to have abandoned Lot to starve to death alone in the famine. What is less obvious is what Lot was doing during his time in Egypt and why he was not mentioned at the beginning of the story. One explanation hinges on a reading from the Talmud in Megillah 14a which Rashi cites, saying that Sarah is actually Lot’s full brother, coming from the same two parents. This reading identifies Iscah in Genesis 11:29 as Sarah. The entire sister-wife spectacle plays out in front of a silent Lot, an actual brother who does not open his mouth to implicate Abraham or to defend Sarah, his sister. 

Rather, Lot seems to profit off the undertaking. It is not until after the adventures in Egypt that Lot becomes rich. Where he was once counted among Abraham’s possessions, after the sister-wife story, Lot becomes so rich that there is not enough room for both him and Abraham. We find here the first note of discord between the two of them. When their shepherds quarrel with each other over scarcity of land, Abraham, reminding Lot that they are “brothers,” suggests that they separate from each other. Lot complies, choosing Sodom. Perhaps there was more than just the scarcity of shepherding resources leading them to quarrel. 

Immediately after this story, Lot gets caught up in a major inter-kingdom conflict. Once again, Lot is “taken” and made to “go forth,” this time as a captive. Abraham hears what has happened and defeats the relevant kings, freeing Lot. We will not hear from Lot again until we meet him next week in Sodom. Stay tuned!

HAFTARA

Service Born From Love

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Haftarah

He does not care about us! So seem to cry the exiled population from Jerusalem feeling helpless and abandoned, doubting their own worth, and skeptical that their God has any interest in them: “Why do you say, O Jacob, And speak, O Israel: My way is hidden from the Lord, And my claim is passed over by my God?” says Isaiah (40:27). How can the navi (prophet) bring the people back to believing that an everlasting relationship exists between them and their God?

Sometimes, it is best to take a step back.  The greatness of our previous generations can give us a sense of self-respect.  Some years ago, a rabbi shared an experience he had while working in a school: A particularly troublesome student was sent to him (apparently no one else felt that they managed to get through to this teenager.)  At a loss for ideas, he happened to ask the boy who he is named after.  This was something that no one had asked before, and the child had no idea. “Your homework is to go ask your parents this question,” the rabbi said.  The next day the child came back beaming.  His parents explained that he was named for a grandparent who had been one of the close assistants of an admired rabbi.  They gave him a siddur that his grandfather had used.  From that point there was a marked change in the child’s behavior.  He was the grandson of an important person.  He held his head high and began claiming a spot among his classmates. With time, he became one of the leading students.

In the haftarah God turns to Israel, to Jacob, in a similar manner:



As for you, O Israel, My servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

Seed of Avraham My friend (Isa. 41:8, based on Robert Alter’s translation)

The use of both of Jacob’s names could merely be a poetic device (biblical poetry is often composed in parallels.) But Isaiah’s words are calculated. “Israel” is the name that Jacob receives twice: once after struggling with the angel, and again after he has returned into the land of Canaan and came to pay his pledge at Beth El.  There, some 20 years earlier, he had had a dream of a ladder connecting Heaven and Earth.  There God promised him the land of Israel for the first time.  It is there that Jacob was chosen by God to be the heir who follows Avraham’s path. Jacob was chosen, but Israel is God’s servant.  The choice was God’s.  It was not history taking its course, it was a conscious choice.  

But first God turns to the people and addresses Israel as “My servant.”  That is our choice.  Israel made a choice to stay with God, to have a relationship.  Being a servant of God is a title of great honor.  Moshe is called “the servant of the LORD.”  God addresses us first in the title that we earnt – “servant” and then reiterates that we were His choice.

Now comes the curious description: “Seed of Avraham My friend” (The root in Hebrew connotes love.) What is the difference between one’s relationship with a servant and one’s relationship with a friend?  One relationship might come from a place of awe, of deep respect, the other from a place of unconditional love. Which is deeper?  Which is more compelling? Why is Avraham the one who is considered to have a relationship of love, rather than servitude, with God?  Which relationship with God do we seek? Why?

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Alexa, Build My Sukkah!

Ilana Kurshan 

Over the course of the seven days of the festival of Sukkot, Daniel and I learned all of the mishnayot in Masechet Sukkah with our son Matan – at times while sitting in the Sukkah, and at times before bed. Sukkot as described in the Bible is both a harvest festival and a commemoration of God’s protection in the wilderness while we dwelled in temporary homes. Today many people associate Sukkot with a return to nature – we leave the material comfort of our homes and dwell in temporary huts with a leafy covering, a reminder of our vulnerability to the natural elements and, by extension, our dependence on God. But somehow Matan managed to find a way to find a technological dimension to nearly every Mishnah we studied together, particularly when it came to the laws governing the four species.

The third chapter of tractate Sukkah is about the biblical injunction to take four different species of plants as part of our festival observance. The Torah teaches, “On the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before your God seven days” (Leviticus 23:40). The rabbis identify these items as the etrog fruit, the palm branch, myrtles and willows, all of which must be gathered together in a particular arrangement, shaken at various points in the service, and paraded around the synagogue. In order to be fit for use, the etrog and the palm must be in good condition – the palm may not be severed from its leaves, and the etrog may not split, pierced, or blemished (3:1-6). “It sounds like you need to invent a machine, kind of like a metal detector, where you can pass through your lulav and etrog to test if they’re OK,” Matan suggests when we learn this chapter. “Maybe it could beep if anything is wrong – like if your etrog is missing the stem, or if it’s too green, or if your lulav is too dry.” I imagine everyone in synagogue passing through the lulav-etrog blemish detector before parading around the sanctuary. “Everyone could come on erev chag to test their Lulav and Etrog, so you’d have enough time to get a new one if you set off the alarm.”

If your lulav or etrog is unfit for use on the festival, you can’t simply borrow someone else’s – at least not on the first day of Sukkot. Since the Torah specifies “On the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of goodly trees,” the lulav and etrog must belong to the person who uses them. The Mishnah teaches that if the first day of Sukkot fell out on Shabbat, people would bring their lulav and etrog to the synagogue the day before and leave them there to use on Shabbat, when it’s forbidden to carry from one domain to another (3:13). On Shabbat, everyone would arrive at synagogue and pick out their lulav and etrog from the pile. “But how would you know which is yours?” Matan asks me. “I mean, not every etrog looks exactly the same, but they’re pretty similar. And ;ulavim are almost impossible to tell apart.” I’m not sure. The Mishnah (4:5) tells us that during Temple times, when people would bring their lulav and etrog to the Temple on the eve of the festival, they used to beat each other as everyone fought over whose lulav and etrog was whose. The situation became so violent that the rabbis instituted that people should instead just keep their lulav and etrog at home and use them there. 

“Why not just label each lulav and etrog?” Matan suggests. “You could even use airtags. Everyone could put an airtag on their lulav and etrog, and then they could keep track of which belongs to which person. Or you could have a ‘find my lulav and etrog’ app on your phone, and just ping yours.” When I object that airtags and apps are muktzah and hence forbidden for use on Sukkot, Matan tells me that it is surely OK if it’s about saving lives. “If we’re preventing people from beating each other with their lulav stems, then of course it’s OK to use technology. It’s pikuach nefesh,” Matan insists, referring to the principle that it’s permitted to violate certain laws in order to save a human life. 

Once everyone identifies which is their own lulav and etrog, they take them and shake them at various points during Hallel, a series of psalms of thanksgiving recited on the festivals. The rabbis disagree about when exactly the lulav and etrog must be shaken, and which verses in the service must be repeated. Since Hallel was recited only on the new moon and on festivals, some people apparently were not as familiar with this part of the service, especially given that most people prayed by heart rather than from prayer books during Mishnaic times. Sometimes one person who knew the prayers by heart would prompt another person who didn’t, reciting each line so that the other person could repeat it. However, warns the Mishnah, one shouldn’t rely on a slave or a woman or a child to serve as a prompter, since these individuals are not themselves obligated in the commandment to recite Hallel (3:10). “You don’t need anyone to prompt you,” Matan tells me. “Just use Alexa. She can recite each line, and then you repeat after her.” I wonder if Alexa counts as a woman, or if it doesn’t really matter, since in any case a virtual assistant—a cross between a woman and a slave, perhaps—is not obligated in the commandments. 

Prior to learning Masechet Sukkah with Matan, I associated the holiday of Sukkot with leafy myrtles, fragrant citrons, and the shade of the Sukkah on autumn days, which is supposed to remind us of the cloud of God’s glory that protected the Israelites in the wilderness. But I know better than to tell Matan anything about the association between the Sukkot and the protective cloud. “A cloud?” I can just hear him saying. “What a great way to make sure nothing happens to your lulav and etrog  – store them on the cloud!