Violence sweeps Israel110

Parshat Lech Lecha relates the giving of the Covenant to Avraham Avinu. G-d told Avram to get up and go to a Land He would show him. He was telling him to separate himself from his family and their ways, to go a different way in his walk with the One G-d. This was the beginning of the calling apart of the Nation of Israel that is defined by the Covenant of Avraham Avinu.

This parsha tells many stories of Avraham's adventures in his journey to a new Land and a new life as an "oleh". There was a famine, so he had to go to Egypt, where the Pharaoh took his wife, Sarah, into his house. Avraham was travelling with his nephew, Lot, whose shepherds fought with his; so they parted ways. Lot went to Sodom, a city notorious for its wickedness. There was a war, in which Lot and others from Sodom and Gomorrah were captured by the invading kings. Avraham fought in this battle and rescued the local people and kings. Avraham was blessed by Melchizedek of Salem (Jerusalem), who was known as a "Priest of G-d Most High". Avraham fathered Ishmael with Hagar. Avraham's and Sarah's names were changed from Avram and Sarai, and they were promised the son who would be the one and only heir -- born to the two of them -- Yitzhak.

In the 15th chapter of the parsha, Avraham was told to make a sacrifice, which became known as the Covenant between the pieces. He split the large animals -- a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram -- with their halves opposite of each other. He also sacrificed a turtledove and a young bird, which were not split. Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Avraham chased them away. As the sky became dark, we're told that a great dread came over Avraham. Then he was told:

"Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a ripe old age. And they shall return here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." 15:13-16

The Land of Canaan, as it was then called, was the inheritance of Avraham and his children, yet to be born. Avraham was prophetically shown that they would come into this inheritance after the slavery in Egypt. Later, in 17:8, Avraham is told : "I assign the Land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the Land of Canaan, as an EVERLASTING HOLDING. I will be their G-d."

When G-d told Avraham "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete", He was telling him that judgment was coming upon the inhabitants of the Land. They had had their time of holding the Land, but their sin was so great that it would not be forgiven. This follows a line of thought from the previous parsha, Noach, in which Ham's son, Canaan, was cursed for Ham's perverse behavior concerning his father. All his children, who included the inhabitants of the Land, were also under this curse for the perverse nature of the father of their peoples. Israel's inheritance of the Land also involved being the instrument of the execution of the judgment that was to come upon them. Yet, G-d's mercy was extended even to accursed people; the judgment was not to be executed until the fullness of the iniquity. The slavery in Egypt was a holding period for the people of Israel, until the proper time arrived when the inhabitant Nations no longer had any right to live in the Land. Too, G-d did not want the heirs of Avraham's covenant to consort with people whose actions were called "abomination".

In our day there is a lot of challenge from the nations and even within Israel to the right of the Jewish people to this Land that G-d gave to Avraham and his children. After the Oslo Accords, there were massive demonstrations against the government of Israel's decision to cede land to the Palestinians. The people demonstrating were maligned and called names by the people in government, who were trying to appease the world by giving up Israel's claim. These people claimed that they were building peace in the only possible way. During that period, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated: "The Bible is not a book of deeds." In 1995 he was killed on a Saturday evening after the Shabbat reading of Lech Lecha -- which IS the deed.

The secular left made a new religion out of the Oslo process. Yitzhak Rabin became the icon of this movement. When violence erupted and most were saying, "Oslo is dead", they couldn't come to terms with it. It would have meant that all that they believed in, all that they had built their hopes on, was false. It would have been such devastation that they couldn't face it. So in the face of all the facts, they clung to the illusion that there was still a process and a partner with whom to negotiate. In spite of all the evidence otherwise, they clung to Oslo and burned candles to Rabin's memory and symbol of peace.

"I assign the Land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the Land of Canaan, as an EVERLASTING HOLDING. I will be their G-d." -- Genesis 17:8 Israel has a G-d. Giving away the Land, hiding behind guarantees from the nations, trusting the enemy to change his heart and not kill us, is not the way to achieve this illusive peace that the Nation craves. Turning from G-d, from the Torah, from the Covenant, only brings upon the people of Israel the very things most dreaded. For the religion of the secular left is one based on fear -- fear of the Arabs and of the reactions of the world.

The Covenant is full of promise of care, but it requires some responsibility of faith on Israel's part, as well. We can know with a certainty, however, that G-d is, indeed on our side and fully capable of taking our case. In the Haphtorah we read:

Seed of Abraham My friend-- You, whom I drew from the ends of the earth, And from its far corners, To whom I said: "You are my servant; I have chosen you, I have not rejected you-- Fear you not; for I am with you: Be not dismayed; For I am your God: I strengthen you and I help you; I uphold you with My victorious right hand. Shamed and confounded shall be All who contend with you; They that strive with you Shall be as nothing and shall perish. You may seek, but shall not find Those who struggle with you: Less than nothing shall be The men who battle against you. For I the L-RD am your G-d, Who grasped your right hand, Who says to you, "Fear not; I will help you. Fear not, O worm Jacob, O men of Israel; I will help you, " --declares the L-RD-- I am your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.