Torah Study Blog

Regular attendees of Torah Study have become accustomed to encountering troubling tales in the Bible. Frequently, the Bible stories we’ve been told have been subject to editing, so that we get a cleaned-up version of the longer story. The fact is that the Bible contains adult stories that are complicated, and sometimes disturbing.

This week’s Torah portion contains the third telling of a salacious tale in the book of Genesis. Before we get there, let’s review the first two:

The first version comes in Genesis 12 and relates one of the adventures of Abraham and Sarah (referred to as Abram and Sarai in this part of the Bible, but we will call them Abraham and Sarah for the sake of clarity for our listeners). Abraham and Sarah were living in the southern part of Canaan and a drought caused a famine in the region. It would have been natural for the Israelites to journey to Egypt at a time of famine because the Nile River allowed Egypt to have a fairly reliable food source

Just before entering into Egypt, Abraham realized that the Egyptians would desire Sarah for themselves because she was so beautiful. Believing that, as Sarah’s husband, Abraham might have been killed so that the Egyptians could have Sarah for themselves, Abraham suggested to Sarah that they pose as brother and sister. Sarah agrees with the plan, and Pharaoh presents Abraham with valuable livestock and slaves for the privilege of having sex with Sarah.

A plague strikes Egypt and Pharaoh realized he was tricked. He sent Abraham and Sarah away – with their newfound wealth.

The second version comes in Genesis 20, when Abraham and Sarah were sojourning in a Philistine region called Gerar. Abraham claimed that Sarah is his sister, because he believed that they were among lawless people and he would be killed because the men there would desire Sarah.

King Abimelech of Gerar desired Sarah, and Abraham sends her to him. In the only case of male impotency in the Bible, Abimelech was unable to consummate the act. Which proves to be a good thing because God

appeared to Abimelech in a dream and revealed that Abraham and Sarah were husband and wife, and Abimelech would have been guilty of a great sin. When questioning Abraham about the deception, Abraham claimed that Sarah actually is his half-sister, so it was not really a lie.

Abimelech gave Abraham and Sarah livestock, slaves, money and land. Then Abraham successfully prayed to heal Abimelech’s impotency.

The final version, in today’s Torah portion, comes from Genesis 26, and is about Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac’s wife, Rebecca. Because of famine (like in the first version, but not the second), Isaac and Rebecca traveled to the Philistine land of Gerar (like in the second version, but not the first). Isaac was afraid for his life because the men will desire Rebecca because of her great beauty.

When the men of Gerar asked about Rebecca, Isaac claimed to be her brother. Sometime later, King Abimelech (yes, the same king) looked out his window and saw Isaac fondling Rebecca. Abimelech called Isaac to him and asked why Isaac claimed to be Rebecca’s brother when, obviously, he was Rebecca’s husband. Abimelech was distressed that someone of his community might have done the great sin of having sex with a married woman – so he offered Isaac and Rebecca protection in his land. Isaac becomes a successful farmer on the land Abimelech gave him, and he grew “richer and richer” (Genesis 26:13).

What do we make of these stories? We know that the writers had no problem with the trickery of our patriarchs. Abraham and Isaac, apparently with the willing help of Sarah and Rebecca, put one over on their neighbors and they become quite wealthy because of their dubious actions.

In the first version, Abraham and Sarah collude with the ultimate goal of gaining wealth. Nevermind that Abraham has acted as pimp to his wife!

In the second version, Abraham claimed that he did not lie because Sarah is actually his half-sister. The Rabbis of old picked-up on this to agree with Abraham that he was not a liar. However, Rabbi Jaech pointed out to us that there is no evidence in the Bible that Sarah and Abraham were related, except for this one line from Abraham. Therefore, either he lied in the first version when he does not admit they are siblings, or in the second when he does. Either way, he lies.

In each telling of the story, the story evolves a bit and gets a little better. In the first, Sarah has sex and Abraham gets rich. In the second version, Sarah does not actually have sex, but Abraham still gets rich. In the final version, Rebecca is never alone with the king and sex never happens. Isaac gets protection from the king, which enables him to become rich.

We are all storytellers. We have narratives that we tell about our own lives, or about incidences in our lives. The Bible is our foundational text, and these are stories that our ancestors chose to tell. Rabbi Jaech does not try to shield our congregation from the ugliness in the Bible. She believes that, if we are going to call these biblical texts foundational, we need to understand them and the wisdom they can teach us, without hiding the ugliness they show. They do not need to be excused and we can learn from them, without having to accept them.

We do not like that we don’t know about Sarah’s or Rebecca’s feelings in these situations. These matriarchs may not have been responsible for the deception, but they went along with it. These texts come from a time and place that reflect that time and place. Today, we hold different values.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter