Concepts of Scripture in the Synagogue Service 21Immediately aft er this genealogical notice, Abram begins to function as a
character who acts in the narrative.
Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and
the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the
father of Milcah and Iscah.
Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took his son Abram
and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son
Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go
into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Th e days of Terah were two hundred fi ve years; and Terah died in Haran.
(Genesis 11:29 – 32)Aft er the report of Terah’s death, the text continues:
Now the lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred
and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you
a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you
will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses
you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
So Abram went, as the lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram
was seventy-fi ve years old when he departed from Haran. (Genesis 12:1 – 4)Within the canonical context of the book of Genesis, then, God’s command
to Abram to go to Canaan is a continuation of the story that began in 11:31.
Terah and his family had set out to emigrate to Canaan but had settled en
route in Haran. In Genesis 12:1, God is telling Abram to continue the inter-
rupted journey. Abram’s subsequent journey to Canaan is certainly a sign
of his obedience to God’s command; however, since God is telling Abram
to do exactly what he had been doing in the fi rst place, this act of obedi-
ence is not particularly radical or indicative of intense commitment to this
heretofore unknown deity. In the synagogue Bible, however, Genesis 12:1
begins a new parashah. For the audience of this parashah, God’s command
to go to Canaan is experienced not as the middle of a story but rather as
the beginning of one. When the story begins in Genesis 12:1, there is no
context for God’s command. Rather, it is a stark mandate issued by an un-
known deity. In this context, Abram’s willingness to obey the command is
more surprising and functions as a sign of his extraordinarily high degree
of commitment to YHWH. While there are certainly rabbinic texts that