Seder 19: Psalm 131---Praying in a Childlike Attitude

 Commentator Willem Van Gemeren (REBC) classifies the brief Psalm 131 as "an individual psalm of confidence."  The psalmist (traditionally David) wants to encourage the community by telling about his own experience with God.  He comes before God in an attitude of humility and contentment "like a weaned child with its mother" (verse 2).  

In an essay about Abraham and Sarah (collected in the book Abraham's Journey), Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik looks at the report of Sarah's death in Genesis 23:1.  Her age was "a hundred years and twenty years and seven years."  Soloveitchik notes that these three groupings of years describe a child, a young adult, and a mature adult.  

He says that we usually think of a person going through these three stages of life consecutively, one stage at a time.  But Sarah and Abraham were in some sense in all three stages simultaneously.  Becoming parents when Sarah was 90 and Abraham 100, they were like younger adults again when Isaac was born and grew up.  

Going one step further, Soloveitchik asserts that every person of faith needs to be the same way.  In the study of God's Word, we advance as we grow in knowledge, sophistication, and wisdom.  Bible study is for mature adults.  

On the other hand, in prayer and acts of faith we need to relate to God with childlike trust and submission.  So we need to be mature and childlike at the same time as we grow in a relationship with God.  Soloveitchik cites Psalm 131:2 in reference to the proper attitude for prayer. 

Seder 11: Genesis 12-13---Separating from Lot

 The biblical narrator often reports the actions of the characters without giving explicit moral evaluations of those actions.  That leaves plenty of room for readers to second guess the characters.  

For example, in Genesis 12:1 God instructs Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you."  

Verse 4 reports Abram's response:  "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him."  Abram was certainly obedient in leaving his country.  But in taking his nephew Lot along, had he really left his kindred and father's house behind?  

Abram and Lot later part ways after disputes between their herdsmen make it advisable for them to separate.  It is after that separation that God affirms the promise of the land to Abram (Ge 13:14-18).  

In a 2011 paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament ("Rethinking the Place and Purpose of Genesis 13") scholar Dan Rickett suggests that the timing of this promise is not a coincidence.  After Lot's departure, Abram has complied fully with the directive of Genesis 12:1.

We are not told why Abram brought Lot along in the first place.  By the time that Abram left, we know that Lot's father Haran had died (Ge 11:27-29), and apparently Abram's father Terah had also died (Acts 7:4).  Perhaps Abram felt responsible for Lot.  

One midrash proposes that Lot insisted on going along with Abram, as Lot's descendant Ruth later would with Naomi (Ruth 1:16-17).  At that point, according to this proposal, Lot wanted to be Abram's disciple.  In this scenario Abram was justified in bringing Lot along on his journey.  

But those who adopt this scenario then have to explain the later parting of the ways between Abram and Lot.  For example, Joseph Soloveitchik proposes that something changed during their time in Egypt.  When they came out of Egypt with greater wealth, Lot may have become more interested in growing his fortune than in blessing the nations, leading to his separation from Abram.  

Seder 10: Genesis 12:1-9---"...The Land that I Will Show You"

 God directed Abram to go "to the land that I will show you" (Ge 12:1).  We are not told how much advance information Abram was given about his destination.  Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik suggests that the journey was meant to develop Abram's "spiritual radar" for detecting holiness.  In this scenario, Abram followed the lead of this radar until he reached the intended destination, and then God appeared to him and confirmed his choice (Gen 12:7).  

Abram would have entered the Promised Land in the north, the most fertile region, but he continued on to the arid southern part of the land (v 9).  This raises the question of why Abram didn't stay in the north.  One proposed answer is that the holiness of Jerusalem drew him to continue southward.  

On his journey Abram came "to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh" (v 6).  Soloveitchik notes that in the patriarchal narrative, the word for place (makom) sometimes refers to a place of prayer (e.g., Ge 19:27; 28:11).  Perhaps Abram prayed  that his great-grandchildren would resist the possibility of assimilation with the Shechemites raised by Hamor's proposal (Ge 34:9-10). Perhaps he also prayed that his descendants would come again safely to the oak of Moreh (Dt 11:30) to confirm the covenant there.