Parashat Lech Lecha 5784
In last week’s Torah portion, Parashat Noach, God created a covenant with Noah and with his descendants. In Genesis 6, God gives directions to Noah, which he dutifully obeys. Before Noah enters the ark, in Gen 6:18, God says to Noah, “I will establish my covenant (brit) with you…” but the word brit, or covenant, is not found again in the text until after Noah has left the ark and after God blessed him and his family and promised that He would not again “doom the earth because of man…” (Gen 8:21).
In Gen 9:9 God said to Noah and his sons “I now establish my covenant with you and your offspring to come. In 9:11 He says, “I will maintain My covenant with you…” And in 9:12 through 9:17, God identifies the sign of the covenant, the rainbow, using the Hebrew word brit, 5 times.
The covenant is promised before Noah enters the ark, but it is not actually created until after Noah’s obligations had been fulfilled.
In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Lech Lecha, God creates a covenant with Abram and his descendants. In Gen 12:2-3 God tells Abraham that he will make him a great nation, etc. And Abram then acts as God has directed. But the language there is not covenantal. The word brit is not used.
It is in Gen 15:18, when God says to Abram, “To your offspring I assign this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” that “the Lord made a covenant (brit)with Abram.”
The word brit is not found again until Chapter 17, in which it appears 10 times in the 20 verses from 17:2 through 17:21. This is the densest use of covenantal language anywhere in the Tanakh. And the context is critical. In those 20 verses God promises that Abram would be the father of many nations, that he would be extremely fertile, that the covenant would be everlasting, that the assigned land would be an everlasting holding of Abraham’s line, etc.
In the central verse of that section of text, God identifies Abraham’s obligation under the covenant. “Every male among you shall be circumcised.” The obligation would hold “throughout the generations” and would extend even to the homeborn slave and the ones that were purchased. Every male in Abraham’s household and every male among his descendants would be obligated in that covenant.
In Gen 17:13 God says “Thus shall my covenant be marked in your flesh…”
It is not until we reach Gen 17:23 & 26 that the circumcision event takes place.
In the Noah story, the language establishing the covenant comes after Noah’s action, not before. As difficult as Noahs’s task was, he undertook it on the basis of a promise. And that promise was general, the promise involved all of mankind. Nothing specific to Noah himself was promised.
Abraham did not perform his covenantal obligation until after God had detailed and confirmed His own obligations. And God’s promises to Abraham were specific and personal. Involving his own fertility and his family
The most densely covenantal language in the Tanakh seems to have had the purpose of convincing Abraham to do what he is required to do. It does not seem that Noah required convincing.
Our portion begins with Abram acting on God’s command to “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house…I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you, and I will make your name great…” This is language of promise, similar to the initial promise given to Noah. But it is not a promise made in the language of covenant.
The midrash last week compared Noah and Abraham. Noah “walked with God.” (Gen 9:9) The midrash suggested that Noah was not on as high a spiritual plane as Abraham because the text tells us Abraham walked “before” God (Gen 17:1, the Hebrew lifne means before). But Noah fulfilled his obligation before God’s promise was secured by covenant. Abraham acted on his obligation only after God’s covenant was explicit.
Is the midrash fair to Noah? Is his response to God less praiseworthy than that of Abraham? It is not as clear as midrash suggests.
CRL 10.27.23