Light In Torah

Over the past week, we have been peeling back the layers of the Genesis story. Our focus has been on the emotional and psychological state of Sarai's mind and how she handles life's circumstances in lieu of God's will. The next event within our Abram-Sarai narrative: God visits Abram and renews His covenant promise. To mark the occasion, God changes the names of both Abram and Sarai. Abraham and Sarah now carry God's name in their new names, given by God Himself. And, on top of that landmark event, God leaves another permanent mark of His covenant: circumcision (Gen. 17). It is private and intimate. Once done, it cannot be reversed. With this, Abraham obediently acts, despite the painful process. Sarah re-enters the story during God's next encounter with Abraham. Accompanied by two angels who will soon rescue Lot from the destruction of Sodom, God accepts the hospitality of Abraham and eats a meal near Abraham's tent (Gen. 18:1–8). God tells Abraham that He will...

The timing of every Torah portion is always significant in our lives, with multiple practical lessons. Abraham's multi-stop journey to his calling was filled with life lessons for himself (Gen. 12:1–3) and for us, his seed (Gal. 3:16, 27–29). To look at Abram's journey of self-discovery ( Lekh Lekha ), we find his first stop in Haran—barren, hot wilderness—where the soul with its appetites, emotions, and desires runs hot; it is a soul that is motivated by something bigger than itself. Contrary to the thoughts of some, the Spirit does not want to quench this soul ( nephesh )-driven life. Huh? Why not, you ask? Because the soul is the heat source of motivation from the beginning (Ps. 139:13–16); however, the Spirit does want the soul to be kept "cool" under its control (Prov. 17:27), which Abram demonstrates beautifully as he makes ( asah ) 318 disciples that eventually help him in the battle with the kings, rescuing Lot (Gen. 12:4–5; chapter 14). When he came to Canaan...

Every weekend I review the Torah portion from the previous week and examine lessons that we did not get an opportunity to discuss, usually because of time. We have talked on multiple occasions about how God has a way of packing a lot into a very small space. He does this by using linguistic and structural patterns that connect stories. Each story in Genesis transports us back to the Garden, and each story launches us into the remainder of the Torah and the Tanakh. I want to share with you some thoughts about the oppressive relationship between Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar, and how it acts, potentially, as the seed for something we will see in the book of Exodus. Sarah is still barren, but she has an Egyptian handmaid by the name of Hagar (the stranger) (Gen. 16:1). This story takes place right after that prophetic moment when Abraham was first told that he was going to have a biological child (Gen. 15:4). Well, something else happened at that prophetic moment, too: a dark, prophetic night...

Life is filled with ups, downs, ins, outs, trust, love, failure, and rinse-and-repeat lessons. With that in mind, it is easy for us to get trapped in the "I thought it was a good idea at the time" mentality. Sarai says to Abram, "Look, the Lord ( Yahweh ) has restrained me from bearing children" (Gen. 16:2). Ahh, the Garden of Eden blame game continues. For the woman, it is not a serpent but God who is at fault this time. Her unhappiness and fruitless marriage are all God's doing. So... if He is going to prevent me from having children, I will conceive my own child by circumventing His limited perspective. Now the self-preservation mindset has infiltrated Sarai's mind. Is she just reflecting on what her husband did to her with Pharaoh? Her self-interest will be fulfilled by offering her maidservant as sexual barter. Hmmm. She tells Abram what to do, and Abram willingly listens to Sarai (Gen. 16:2)... memory lane to the Garden of Eden, when the woman listens ...

Many Torah-observant men declare every morning, "HaShem, I am glad I am not a woman." Huh? Is that a sexist statement? Nope! The men who make that declaration know they cannot do what a woman does—hence the statement of thankfulness. And they know that behind every successful man is a great woman. A woman's job, as an  ezer kenegdo  (Gen. 2:18, 20), is never done and is often overlooked by the man she helped make great. As we look into Sarah's life, I have to confess that most of us—speaking of me, myself, and I—don't know our Bible characters too well. Often, their lives get hyper-spiritualized, even when the text tells us otherwise. We know of their victories but seldom their tragedies—unless it is King David or Judas Iscariot. As a result, we struggle to identify with these lofty people. And on the flip side, those who are ultra-rebellious, we consider so low on the spiritual scale... "we would never be like that"! Heaven forbid. Fortunately, for our ...

There are three things we should never forget: where we have been, taking inventory of where we are, and always, always keeping in mind where we are going. One of the challenges we face in our studies is remembering where we have been. Last week in our studies, we focused on Genesis 6–11. Because there is only so much time in these morning studies, we did not spend adequate time on those chapters. Chapter 12:  Lekh Lekha .  At the age of seventy-five, Abram makes the decision to leave his family's idolatrous past to fulfill God's calling on his life. Chapter 13:  Abram shows complete faith in God's sovereignty by allowing his nephew and number one disciple, Lot, to choose where he wants to dwell (the mountain or the well-watered plain, like the Garden of Eden). Chapter 14:  Abram, the outsider businessman, defeats the four kings with his 318 men—a task five kings could not do—bringing peace to the world and rescuing Lot from captivity. Chapter 15:  We see prophe...

At one point, the whole earth was of one language ( saphah ) and of one speech ( dabar ). The unified individuals journeyed from the East ( miqedem ) to a plain in the land of Shinar, where they would settle and make bricks to be burned, and mortar to replace stones (Gen. 11:1–3). As we traveled through Pakistan, we noticed the frequent dotting of the landscape with brickyards. Men, women, and children perform back-breaking labor for small wages. Each time I saw this visual, my mind was reminded of Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel story. We are living in a WOKE world where every government is forcing us into building their infrastructure tower to reach the heavens while simultaneously removing God out of the picture. As in the Genesis story, the individuals were unified in their communication and their walk, for they were coming from the East ( miqedem ). This, by the way, is not a reference to direction but is a spiritual statement that they were walking away from the God of all crea...

Before we move forward, let us uncover some self-revealing themes. Let us go back in time and connect a couple of prophetic thoughts from the earlier chapters of Genesis ( Bereshit ). Lamech is the first one to break the pattern of one wife (Gen. 4:19). Instead of going to himself ( Lekh Lekha ), Lamech "took to himself" two wives: Adah (ornament, something beautiful) and Tzillah (his shadow), inferring that both women were not treated equally. Tradition has it that one was for procreation and the other for pleasure. You may recall that the Israelites were told to take off their ornaments ( adi ) for violating their covenant with Yahweh (Ex. 32–33). After the golden calf, they were pretty ugly. Adah had true beauty, ornamented with faithfulness to her husband. Tzillah was the preferred wife, who served Lamech's sexual desire and maintained her physical beauty for him alone. She stayed in his "shadow," preferred. She reflected Lamech's desires. It was a type ...

Two times in Scripture God uses the term  Lekh Lekha —"go to yourself." Both times it is in the life of Abraham (Gen. 12:1; 22:2). Ironically, but not surprisingly, the first time we find the root of this word ( halakh —to walk), we are taken back to the rivers that surround the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:14). When a child leaves his father's house, he or she must walk out with a personal faith. This includes all the rewards of faith and the tests of the heart. While in Haran, Abram and Sarai were making a huge impact with their hospitality, making ( asah ) 318 disciples (Gen. 12:5; 14:14) and training them for war. Haran was a great place, but this was not the final destination for them. The Genesis account has as many missing pieces as it does information. For instance, in this post-flood, post-Tower of Babel time, where is Shem? We know by his lineage that he is still around; his lifespan overlaps those of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We do not know where he settled after al...

This week in Parashat  Noach , I made a note to myself to look into Genesis 9:20–25 because of the concepts of fruit, uncovered, nakedness, garment, and curses. Do these sound familiar? These concepts are parallel to those in the Garden. Let us look at this together. The story: "Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. And Noah, a man of the earth, began to plant a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took the garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. Then ...