Parshally Understood

Shlomo opens Toldos with the offspring of Yitzchak and Rivka’s barrenness. Both daven; Rivka conceives and feels the babies kicking at opposite places—one at a shul, one at a place of idolatry. She goes to the yeshiva of Shem and Ever and is told she is carrying twins who will become two nations, the older serving the younger. Esav is born first, red and hairy (named for that), with Yaakov gripping his heel. They grow into opposites: Esav the hunter, Yaakov the tent-dweller who learns. Yitzchak loves Esav because Esav asks him questions about taking maaser and terumah from salt, looking like a tzaddik; Rivka loves Yaakov. On the day Avraham dies (Hashem having taken him so he would not see Esav’s first murder), Yaakov is cooking red lentil soup. Esav returns hungry, sells the bechorah for the soup—unwilling to risk the service in the Beis HaMikdash that would kill a man of his habits—and is named Edom. A famine drives the family to Gerar. Yitzchak uses the “she is my sister” line; Avimelech later sees the truth through a window (or by prophecy) and lets them stay. Yitzchak’s crops yield a hundredfold. He reopens the wells stopped up in Avraham’s time, is driven from Gerar for becoming too powerful, digs new wells in the valleys, and fights the Pelishtim over two of them. At Be’er Sheva Hashem reaffirms the blessing; a mizbeach is built. Avimelech comes to renew the old treaty. Esav marries two idolatrous Hittite women who make life bitter for Yitzchak and Rivka; he is compared to a pig that shows its kosher-looking hooves while remaining treif. He marries at forty, the age Yitzchak married.

Yitzchak goes blind (some say from the smoke of the idolatrous offerings Esav’s wives made). He asks Esav to hunt and prepare food so he can bless him. Rivka overhears, has Yaakov bring two goats, cooks them, dresses him in Esav’s clothes, and covers his arms with the goat skins. Yitzchak notes that the voice is Yaakov’s but the hands feel like Esav’s, then gives the fat blessing. Esav returns, learns what happened, and demands a second blessing; when he mentions that Yaakov also took the bechorah, Yitzchak realizes the first blessing went to the right son and gives Esav a lesser one. Esav plans to kill Yaakov after Yitzchak’s death. Rivka sends Yaakov to Lavan in Haran. Before he leaves, Yitzchak charges him not to marry a Canaanite but to take a wife from Paddan Aram. Esav, seeing this, marries a daughter of Yishmael. The episode ends with Yaakov on his way (passing, according to some, the yeshiva of Shem and Ever).

Shlomo picks up right after the Akeidah: Sarah hears what almost happened to Yitzchak and dies at 127. The verse breaks the years as 100 + 20 + 7 to show that even past 100 she remained as free of sin as a twenty-year-old (who is not yet under heavenly judgment) and as beautiful as a seven-year-old. Avraham mourns and asks the Bnei Ches in Chevron for a burial plot. They offer him the best land for free; he insists on buying the Machpelah cave from Efron. Efron first says “take it,” then names an exorbitant price of 400 silver shekels, which Avraham pays. With Sarah buried, Avraham calls Eliezer and has him swear on the bris milah (the mitzvah that cost him the most) that he will not take a Canaanite wife for Yitzchak and will not let Yitzchak leave the land. Eliezer sets out with ten camels and a document stating that everything Avraham owns will pass to Yitzchak. The journey to Aram Naharayim is miraculously shortened (kefitzas haderech). At the well he prays for a clear sign: the girl who offers water to him and to his camels. Rivka appears (some say she was three), the water rises to her, and she draws until all ten camels are satisfied—roughly 140 gallons. Eliezer gives her a gold nose-ring weighing a beka (half-shekel) and two silver bracelets weighing ten shekels, hints of the future half-shekel and the Ten Commandments. Lavan rushes out when he sees the jewelry, clears the idols, and invites Eliezer in. Before eating, Eliezer recounts the whole story; Lavan and Betuel agree it is from Hashem. Gifts are given. Betuel tries to poison Eliezer’s plate, but an angel switches the plates and Betuel dies of his own poison. In the morning the family asks for the customary ten-to-twelve-month wait; Eliezer refuses. Rivka says “I will go,” receives a blessing, and leaves with her nurse and servants. Yitzchak has gone to Be’er Lachai Roi (either to pray for a wife or to bring Hagar back to Avraham). He is davening in the field—the source for Mincha—when the camels appear. Rivka falls from her camel, covers herself with a veil, and is brought to Sarah’s tent. The three miracles that had left with Sarah (fresh challah, week-long Shabbos candles, and the cloud over the tent) return. Yitzchak is consoled.

Avraham then marries Hagar (now called Keturah) and has six more sons. He gives everything to Yitzchak and sends the other sons eastward with gifts so they will not compete for the inheritance (some say the gifts were forms of sorcery he did not want Yitzchak to have). Avraham dies at 175; the years are broken as 100 + 70 + 5 to show his continued purity. Yitzchak and Yishmael bury him in the Machpelah, evidence that Yishmael has done teshuvah. Yitzchak is blessed and settles near Be’er Lachai Roi. The parsha closes with Yishmael’s twelve sons and his death at 137, the numbers again broken to mark holiness, and the territory of his descendants from Chavila to Shur.

Shlomo opens with a happy birthday to Yehuda, then picks up three days after Avraham’s bris. Hashem makes the day especially hot so the guest-loving Avraham can rest, but Avraham still sits at the tent entrance waiting. Three angels arrive in human form: one to heal Avraham, one to announce Yitzchak’s birth, and one to destroy Sodom. Avraham runs to host them, has them wash their feet, and prepares a full meal (some say it was matzah). The angel announces that Sarah will have a son within the year; she laughs, denies it, and the moment passes. Hashem then tells Avraham that Sodom and its sister cities will be destroyed for their crimes. Avraham bargains down from fifty righteous people to ten. The episode pauses for the famous Sanhedrin story of Eliezer in Sodom and the bloodletting lawsuit. Two angels continue to Sodom, where Lot insists on hosting them despite the ban on hospitality. The mob surrounds the house; Lot offers his daughters, the angels pull him inside, and the attackers are struck blind. Lot’s sons-in-law mock the warning. The angels hurry Lot, his wife, and two unmarried daughters out, forbidding them to look back. Lot is allowed to settle in the small city that becomes Tzoar. Fire and sulfur overturn the cities; Lot’s wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. In a cave, the daughters believe the world has ended, get their father drunk, and the older names her son Moav while the younger names hers Ben-Ami (later Amon).

Avraham and Sarah next go to Gerar. Abimelech takes Sarah, believing she is Avraham’s sister; an angel stops him in a dream and he returns her with gifts, asking Avraham to pray for him. During her stay the palace’s orifices were sealed; they reopen once she leaves. Yitzchak is born, receives a bris, and the barren women around Sarah also conceive. At the weaning feast Yishmael’s influence becomes a problem; Sarah insists he and Hagar leave. Hashem tells Avraham to listen to her. In the desert of Be’er Sheva, Yishmael is near death; Hagar sets him under a tree and cries. An angel shows her a well and he is saved, because judgment is based on the present, not the future. Avraham and Abimelech make an alliance sealed by seven ewes over a disputed well. The tenth and most famous test follows: the Akeidah. Two backgrounds are given—the Satan’s challenge or the exchange between Yitzchak and Yishmael about who has sacrificed more. Avraham saddles the donkey himself, travels three days with two attendants, leaves them behind, and ascends with Yitzchak. Yitzchak asks to be bound so the offering stays kosher. As Avraham raises the knife an angel stops him; a ram caught in the thicket is offered instead, with the wish that it be accepted as if it were Yitzchak. Hashem reaffirms the promise of countless descendants who will inherit the land, and Rivka’s birth is announced so Avraham knows the line will continue. The episode ends by teasing next week’s Chayei Sarah.

Shlomo starts with a mazal tov to his brother Yitzi on his bar mitzvah, then picks up Lech Lecha. Hashem tells Avram, Sarai, and Lot to leave Haran for Canaan, about 400 miles away, along with the gerim they’ve gathered. At Shechem Hashem promises the land to Avram’s descendants; Avram builds a mizbeach. Continuing between Beis El and Ai, a famine hits (the next of Avram’s ten tests after the command to leave). They go down to Egypt, where Avram asks Sarai to say she’s his sister. She’s taken to Pharaoh, who is struck with plagues before anything happens; they leave with wealth and return to the mizbeach. The shepherds of Avram and Lot quarrel over grazing, so they separate. Lot heads toward the Jordan and Sodom; Hashem again promises Avram countless descendants and the land, and Avram builds another mizbeach in Hebron.

The war of the four kings (led by Chedorlaomer) against the five (including Sodom) ends with Lot captured. Avram goes out with 318 men—the gematria of Eliezer, so possibly just the two of them—while Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre guard the supplies. They win, recover everyone and everything, and Avram refuses the spoils so no one can claim the wealth came from the king of Sodom. He gives maaser to Malki Tzedek. In the Bris Bein Habesarim, animals are split and a fire passes between them; Hashem tells Avram his descendants will be slaves in Egypt under four kingdoms before emerging free. Still childless, Sarai gives him Hagar (Pharaoh’s daughter, according to many). Hagar conceives, mocks Sarai, and flees; an angel sends her back with the promise of a son, Yishmael, born when Avram is 86. At 99, with Yishmael 13, Hashem changes Avram’s name to Avraham, reaffirms the land and offspring, and commands bris milah, which they perform that day. Sarai becomes Sarah with the promise of a son; Avram laughs in joy, and the name Yitzchak is explained either by the laughter or by its gematria (10 tests, 90 for Sarah’s age, 8 for the bris, 100 for Avraham’s age).

Shlomo opens with a birthday shout-out to his brother and an anniversary one to his parents, then gets into Noach. Was he a real tzaddik or only relative to a generation of bums? Either way, he and his three married sons (Shem, Ham, and Yafes) are the ones Hashem saves. The teva is built from gopher wood with pitch inside and out: 300 by 50 by 30 cubits, or roughly 450 by 75 by 45 feet, three floors, a window (or a light-giving stone), built over 120 years while the neighbors mocked him. Seven pairs of kosher animals and one pair of the rest board by miracle. The flood lasts a full year: 40 days of rain and underground waters that cover every mountain, 150 days of high water, then a gradual drop until the ark rests on Ararat. A raven circles, a dove returns with an olive leaf, and a week later the earth is dry. Noach offers from the kosher animals, Hashem is pleased, and the seven Noahide laws are given to the world.

After the rainbow covenant (which Pharaoh later misreads when he drowns the babies), Noach plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and ends up uncovered. Ham mocks; Shem and Yafes walk backward and cover him. Noach curses Canaan and blesses the other two, then dies at 950. The episode skips the genealogies and moves to Migdal Bavel: one language, a tower meant to show Hashem who’s boss, and the sudden split into 70 languages that scatter everyone. Ten generations later we meet Avram and Sarai. The close covers the first two of Avram’s ten tests: 13 years hiding from Nimrod, the smashing of Terach’s idols with the hammer left in the biggest one’s hand, and the fiery furnace. Haran waits to see if Avram survives before choosing a side; Avram walks out, Haran does not.

Shlomo Wolbe walks through Bereishis from the first day of creation to the eve of the Flood. Hashem creates the world with the Torah as the blueprint: light and darkness, the split of the waters, land and vegetation, sun, moon, and stars, fish and birds, animals, and finally the human being, the reason the whole project exists. Day seven is rest. Adam is formed from earth, a soul is breathed into him, and he is placed in Gan Eden with one rule: eat from anything except the Tree of Knowledge.

From there the episode follows the story inside the garden. Adam names the animals (including the old family reading of kelev as kol lev, all heart). Chava is built from his side. The nachash talks her into the fruit, she shares it with Adam, and shame, hiding, and punishment follow: the snake loses its legs, childbirth becomes painful, and the ground no longer gives food for free. Hashem still clothes them before sending them out. Kayin the gardener and Hevel the shepherd bring offerings. Hevel’s is accepted, Kayin’s is not, and the first murder follows, along with Kayin’s curse and the mark that protects him. Ten generations later the world has gone bad enough that Hashem regrets creating it, except that Noach finds favor. The ark, and what happens next, waits for next week.