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Until Lech Lecha, the Torah focused on all of humanity. Adam, Chava, Kayin, and Hevel are human archetypes. The first pair represent the tensions between husband and wife, the latter the rivalry between siblings. Then comes another pair of stories – the Flood, and the building of the Tower of Bavel – this time about society as a whole. Each is about the tension between freedom and order. All four narratives are about the human condition. Their message is universal and eternal, as befits a book about God, who is universal and eternal. In the first eleven chapters of Bereishit, we see the God who created the universe, made all of humanity in His image, blessed the first humans, and made a covenant with all humankind after the Flood. The God of the universe is the universal God.
Why then does the entire story shift in Bereishit 12? From here onward it is no longer about humanity as a whole but about one man (Avraham), one woman (Sarah), and their children, who - by the time of the book of Shemot - have become a large and significant people, but still no more than one nation among many.
What is happening here? Does God lose interest in everyone else? That surely cannot be the case. We have many examples to show us that God cares about all of humanity.
When Yosef looks back on his time in Egypt, he tells his brothers that it turned out well, as he was able to save many people in Egypt from starvation, as well as his own family. When God sends Yonah to Nineveh, the Assyrian city, it is to persuade the people to repent and thus avoid their destruction. Yonah doesn’t understand why at first, but he comes to see that God is concerned not only with Bnei Yisrael but with the Assyrians too.
So why does our Torah for the most part shift focus to Avraham, and from them on only follow him and his family? The stories in Bereishit 1-11 teach us that people do not naturally live as God wishes. They sin. They even kill one another. So after the Flood, God becomes not only our Creator but also our Teacher. He instructs humanity, and He does so in two ways: He sets out general rules – the covenant with Noach – and then He chooses an example, Avraham and his family. They are to become role-models, compelling examples of what it means to live closely and faithfully in the presence of God, not for their sake alone but for the sake of humanity as a whole. Avraham is recognised as a man of God by his contemporaries, even though they are not a part of his specific covenant.
The same is true of Yosef, the only member of Avraham’s family in Bereishit whose life among the Gentiles is described in detail. He is constantly reminding others about God.
Jews are not called on to be Jews for the sake of Jews alone. They are called on to be a living, vivid, persuasive example of what it is to live by the will of God, so that others too come to recognise God and serve Him, each in their own way, within the parameters of the general principles of the covenant with Noach. We are not called on to convert humanity, but we are called on to inspire humanity by being compelling role-models of what it is to live, humbly but unshakably in the presence of God, as His servants, His witnesses, and His ambassadors. This is not for our sake alone but for the sake of humanity as a whole.
To be a Jew is to be one of God’s ambassadors to the world for the sake of being a blessing to the world, and that necessarily means engaging with the world, acting in such a way as to inspire others as Avraham and Yosef inspired their contemporaries. That is the challenge to which Avraham was summoned at the beginning of this week’s Parsha, and it remains our challenge today.
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