Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Lech Lecha,” Genesis 12:1-17:27) — which might be considered the original “come out” teaching in Scripture — where the first Patriarch, Abram (later Abraham) is told to “get thee OUT” of your country, leave what you have known, and “go to the land that I will show you.”

It’s a historic, literally “Biblical-level” Act of Faith.

But that is where the story of the life of one of the most important men in Scripture, and the ‘Father of our Faith,” only begins. Here’s the Erev Shabbat reading:

This parsha lays out several truly ‘fundamental’ elements. One, referenced often in the Apostolic Writings (aka ‘Old’ Testament) is that the man re-named Abraham in this story “believed YHVH,” and his actions repeatedly made that clear, and He “counted it to him for righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6, referenced by Paul/Shaul in Romans 4.)

Mark begins the Sabbath midrash with what some might consider a surprising understanding, given that is counter to what many may have heard, as he notes, “twisted,” and it lies at the heart of this story:

Galatians has been taught “backwards.” What does Hagar, ‘the Egyptian,’ represent? And if Paul, as he said, wrote to the former pagans in Galatia that he was worried that they were already “turning away” from that faith demonstrated by Abraham to the “weak and beggarly elements” from which they had been delivered, what does that mean?

And, ultimately, just who is the ‘son of the bondwoman’?

Once you see through the lies we have been fed – “inherited from our fathers” (some more literally than others) – it will be unseen.

Please share this one if you find it valuable.

The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash: