Parashat Lech Lecha - Second Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Sarai is taken into Pharaoh’s house, and Abram receives possessions on her account. Then afflictions come, Pharaoh demands an explanation, and Abram and Sarai are sent out of Egypt. But the aliyah does not end with their escape from danger, or even with the description of Abram’s wealth. It follows him back to the place where he built an altar before going down to Egypt. Why does returning to that same place matter so much?
How did Pharaoh learn who Sarai was?
al dvar Sarai eshet Avram
Translation: On account of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
Excerpt from Genesis 12:17
At the beginning of the aliyah, the Egyptians see Sarai’s beauty, Pharaoh’s officials praise her before him, and she is taken into his house. When God strikes Pharaoh and his household with afflictions, the Torah explicitly names the relationship that had been concealed: Sarai is Abram’s wife. Immediately afterward, Pharaoh already knows this and asks Abram why he did not tell him.
How did he find out? Or HaChaim explains that at the time of the affliction, God made it known that Sarai was Abram’s wife. In his reading, the affliction came together with the disclosure of its cause. This explains the transition from the afflictions to the questions Pharaoh puts to Abram. Or HaChaim on Genesis 12:17
Pharaoh confronts Abram with questions, but no answer from Abram is recorded here. The story moves from the rebuke to their departure from Egypt. Sarai’s rescue does not erase the questions the story raises about how they reached this situation. Genesis 12:18-20
The gifts leave Egypt too
ve’Avram kaved me’od bamikneh bakesef uvazahav.
Translation: Abram was very rich in livestock, silver and gold.
Abram leaves Egypt with his wife and everything he owns. Ramban dwells on that last detail: the Egyptians did not take back the gifts they had given him on Sarai’s account. Nor did they claim that the gifts had been given in error because they had not known she was his wife. Ramban sees this as a miracle. Ramban on Genesis 13:1
This observation adds complexity to the departure: Pharaoh is angry and sends Abram away, yet the possessions remain his. The next verse describes him as very wealthy. But the Torah continues from there to his return journey and the place he chose to revisit.
Why return to the same altar?
el mekom hamizbeach asher asah sham barishonah
Translation: To the site of the altar that he had made there at first.
Excerpt from Genesis 13:4
The text first says that Abram returned to the place where his tent had been, between Bethel and Ai, then becomes more precise: to the site of the altar. Radak explains that Abram did not pitch his tent elsewhere on that hill, but in the very place where he had first made the altar.
Radak explains why this precision matters: in a place where a person is accustomed to praying and serving God, the heart is more prepared for it. Returning to a familiar place can help one pray with attention and intention. He also understands the calling on God’s name at the end of the verse as a renewed act, now, after the return from Egypt. Radak on Genesis 13:4
Abram returns with great wealth, after the danger in Pharaoh’s house and the rebuke he heard from him. The place he returns to is already familiar to the reader, but God’s name is invoked there again. This is where the aliyah ends: at the old altar’s site, with an act renewed.
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