Parashat Lech Lecha, Gen. 12:1-17:27

This week's parasha has been generously sponsored in loving memory of Meryl Gardner's mother, Harriet H. Cohen.

Kolel is grateful to Meryl for her ongoing support and appreciates its weekly sponsors. To sponsor a parasha, click here.

 

Ivri, Yehudi, Yisraeli

Study with Baruch Sienna

 

This week is the portion of Lech Lecha, God's famous call to Abraham to leave his birthplace, his parent's home and land and travel to a new place that God will show him. Actually it is at the end of last week's parasha that we are first introduced to Avram (later in this week's portion renamed, Avraham). But it is this week that we read of the covenant that God establishes with Abraham: God promises Abraham numerous descendants, and the land of Israel (here called Canaan), and in return, Abraham must circumcise himself (at age 90!) and future children at eight days old. (Ishmael is already 13 years old when he is circumcised.)

Little is known of his early life in Ur or Haran. (The famous story of Abraham 'smashing the idols' is a rabbinic midrash.) So we don't know exactly why he was chosen by God. Still, we like to think of Abraham as the father of the Jewish people (although that title more accurately applies to Jacob since the Jewish people in the Torah are always referred to as Bnei Israel (the children of Israel-- Jacob's new name) and never as Bnei Avraham. In addition, other people (such as the Arabs), can justly claim Abraham as a patriarch through his son Ishmael.

Rabbi Richard Israel z"l in his collection of essays titled 'The Kosher Pig" tells the story of struggling to answer a taxi driver's innocuous question, 'Where are you from?' (While trying to formulate the answer, the prescient driver guessed, 'You must be Jewish.') I am sure many of us can relate. When someone asks 'where are you from' they are asking, 'who are you?' 'How do you identify yourself?' Even if we were born in Canada or the US, when someone asks where are we from, they mean, where is our family from, before coming to Canada. So whether it is one generation ago, or four generations ago, unless you are a member of one of the aboriginal First Nations, you have to come from somewhere else other than North America. But those of us who are Ashkenazim, for example, usually hestitate to say, Poland, or Russia (or wherever). Even though my great grandparents came from those places, I have no cultural or ethnic connection to them; I don't know a word of their languages, I don't relate personally to their culture or history. Theoretically, if I could trace my family back way past before Russia, I suppose my family came from Babylonia, but that doesn't seem right either. I suppose before that, my ancestors go back to the land of Israel, but saying 'Israeli' sounds wrong too.

I wonder if Abraham had a similar problem. He came from Haran, but wasn't a 'Haranite' since he was originally from Ur before that. But he deliberately left Ur behind, so he probably wouldn't want to be considered a 'Ur-ite' either. We can't call Abraham an Israeli, since Israel (Jacob's new name), Abraham's grandson wasn't yet born. The Land of Israel was called Canaan then but we can't call him a Canaanite, because there were already people with that name, and anyways, Abraham wasn't from Canaan originally. And we can't call him a Jew ('yehudi') , even though Avraham is considered the first Jew, as there was no Judaism yet (since the Torah wasn't given until Sinai). It might be more accurate to call Abraham the first monotheist, rather than the first Jew.

In Hebrew, the term for Jew is 'Yehudi', derived from the tribe of Judah, (perhaps we should think: Jewdah!), one of Jacob's sons, and the southern tribe (and later Southern Kingdom). Today, all Jews (except those who trace their families' lineage as Cohen or Levi) are from the tribe of Judah (even though they are called 'Israel'). The ten tribes of Israel, the northern kingdom, were destroyed in 722 by the Assyrians- although some have attempted to link various exotic tribes to these 'Ten Lost Tribes'. No one in the Bible is referred to as 'yehudi' except Mordecai and Esther. It was only when the Jews lost their nation/state, and became primarily identified with their religious identity that they became known as 'yehudim.' The Jews of the diaspora in the books of Esther and Ezra-Nehemiah are called 'Yehudim'.

The Torah calls Abram, Avram Ha'Ivri, Abram the Hebrew. When the archaeological site Tel El Amarna was excavated, some scholars excitedly identified 'ivri' with the newly deciphered word Hapiru, a word that referred to a semi-nomadic group that lived in the Fertile Crescent. That identification is hotly disputed, and many scholars now believe that the term refers to a social group (of low status) rather than an ethnic group. The term 'ivri', (appearing here for the first time) is invoked exclusively to identify Israelites/Jews to non-Jews, so, for example, Joseph and Jonah are also both referred to as 'ivri' in those contexts. The 'Hebrew midwives', and the Israelites whose fight is broken up by Moses in Egypt are refered to 'ivri'ot' and 'ivri'im' respectively. We no longer refer to Jews as 'ivri'. Before the name for the State of Israel had been decided, the term was used by early Zionists who didn't want to use the term 'yehudi' possibly because it had religious/diaspora connotations. Eliezer ben Yehudah, for example, proclaimed: Ivri, dabeir ivrit; Hebrews- Speak Hebrew. When the State of Israel was founded there was much discussion as to its name; Medinat HaYehudim along with the names Judea, (or New Judea) the Roman name (also derived from Judah), and Zion were all considered and rejected. Trying to navigate all these identifies--Jew, Ivri, and the land of Israel-- Israel's declaration of independence, read by Ben Gurion, proclaimed, "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel."

Rashi understands ivri in its simplest (pshat) meaning, from across [the other side] of the river [Euphrates], the implication being perhaps, that Abraham was from the 'other' side of the tracks. The midrash interprets it more metaphorically, saying "the whole world was on one side, while he was on the other side" (ie. being the only one to believe in the one true God) (Gen. Rabbah 42:13). The covenant of circumcision, Abraham's name change, and answering God's call to 'Go forth'... are essentially all about identity. So what is Abraham's identity? Part of it was standing in opposition to the world.

And what is ours? Jew? Hebrew? Israeli? What is your answer when you're asked, "Where are you from?"

 

Shabbat Shalom.

BDS