Lech Lecha; Genesis 12:1 –17:27 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger

This week’s Torah portion begins the journey of our patriarch and matriarch, Abram and Sarai toward a new life. The power of this portion of torah reverberates throughout our tradition, as this is truly the foundational story of our people’s beginning. Starting with Abram’s call to service of God and detailing the framework of a new covenantal relationship between God and Abram.

Throughout the portion the unique relation between God and Abram is explored. Abram hears God and has visions of God and experiences the connection to the Divine through the promise of his descendants. God promises Abram the sacred land of Eretz Yisrael. God promises Abram children and nations descendant from him. God promises Abram protection using the term Magen—shield. “I am a shield to you… (15:1)”

But this covenant is not just a one-way street. Abram also participates in this covenant through ceremonies and rituals of loyalty and obedience. Abram listens and follows God’s words, traveling from Haran to the south to Eretz Yisrael. Abram worships God at Beth-El. Abram participates in the ceremony between the pieces as a symbol of God’s promise to inherit the land. Later Abram’s name is changed from Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah. And finally, in this portion, Abraham experiences the covenant through the rite of circumcision for him and all the males of his household.

This covenant made between Abraham and Sarah and God takes it shape during this week’s weekly Torah reading.

Today this covenant remains in force for the Jewish people. Although we no longer offer sacrifices at Beth-El or walk between smoldering pieces of animal flesh to symbolize the covenant between God and our people. The rite of circumcision of Jewish males remains an important symbol of this eternal covenant. Even as circumcision comes under attack by some in the medical community, this powerful symbol of dedication remains a Jewish value for our male children.

But what for women? Feminists have long raised the question that since this powerful covenantal symbol inscribed in male flesh excludes women by definition, what might be a way to adequately and seriously make this eternal covenant come alive for women? Should the covenant be inscribed physically on women’s bodies? Or should there be some other way that women should be included in the covenantal promise?

If we turn to the Torah portion we find that Sarah is included in several way. First her name Sarai is changed, as is Abram’s. Sarai becomes Sarah she is thus included in the covenant. But the promises of God further include Sarah in the covenant by way of motherhood. Her ability to bear a child even though she is long past childbearing age includes her in a most unique way in this eternal covenant. The covenant is indeed in her flesh, through her ability to conceive even after menopause.
Does this mean that women are only included in the covenant with God through the ability to bear children? No I don’t think that is the correct reading. Motherhood is not the only avenue to being a part of the covenant of the Jewish people. But rather it is the potential. The possibility of bearing children embodied in women that includes us in the covenantal promises. Just as it was the miraculous possibility that Sarah could bear a child.

There needs to be special ceremonies that welcome girl children into the covenant with God. Just as a boy is welcomed in a brit milah ceremony, a girl child should be welcomed in a brit banot ceremony. Just as a boy has the potential to live a life of Torah, Chupah and Maasim Tovim—a life of study of Torah, A sacred relationship beneath the chupah and a life filled with acts of lovingkindness—so too our girl children should be blessed with the same potential.

All too often, new parents of boys make certain their new infants fulfill the mitzvah of brit milah, circumcision. But new parents of girls do nothing to welcome ritually their daughters to the covenant.

Lech Lecha calls us to a new land—as it calls Abram and Sarai to a new land. That land should be the land of inclusion of both men and women in the covenant as God meant it to be.

Posted by Lee at November 8, 2005 04:18 PM