{"id":36280,"date":"2018-07-29T17:41:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T14:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=36280"},"modified":"2022-02-20T11:23:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T09:23:34","slug":"a-bold-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-bold-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bold Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[418,429,354],"acf":{"old_id":"36280","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33923,"related_cahpter":"12","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"How could a child who rejected the way of his father become a father of children who would not reject his way in turn?","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This chapter<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and indeed Jewish history, begins with the words, \u201cGod said to Abraham, Go from your land, your birthplace and your father\u2019s house to a land I will show you\u201d (Gen. 12:1). This is the boldest beginning of any account of a life in the Hebrew Bible. It seems to come from nowhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Torah gives us no portrait of Abraham\u2019s childhood, his youth, his relationship with the other members of his family, how he came to marry Sarah, or the qualities of character that made God single him out to become the initiator of what ultimately turned out to be the greatest revolution in the religious history of humankind, what is called nowadays Abrahamic monotheism. I have argued, that biblical narrative is far more subtle than we usually take it to be. It is deliberately written to be understood at different levels at different stages in our moral growth. There is a surface narrative. But there is also, often, a deeper story that we only come to notice and understand when we have reached a certain level of maturity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we are young we hear the enchanting \u2013 indeed empowering \u2013 story of Abraham breaking his father\u2019s idols, with its message that a child can sometimes be right and a parent wrong, especially when it comes to spirituality and faith. Only much later in life do we hear the far deeper truth \u2013 hidden in the guise of a simple genealogy at the end of the previous parsha \u2013 that Abraham was actually completing a journey his father began.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was idolatry in Abraham\u2019s family background. But Genesis 11 says that it was Terach who took Abraham, not Abraham who took Terach, from Ur to go to the land of Canaan. There was no immediate and radical break between father and son.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indeed it is hard to imagine how it could have been otherwise. Abram \u2013 Abraham\u2019s original name \u2013 means \u201cmighty father\u201d. Abraham himself was chosen \u201cso that he will instruct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord\u201d (Gen. 18:19) \u2013 that is, he was chosen to be a model parent. How could a child who rejected the way of his father become a father of children who would not reject his way in turn? It makes more sense to say that Terach already had doubts about idolatry and it was he who inspired Abraham to go further, spiritually and physically. Abraham continued a journey his father had begun, thereby helping Isaac and Jacob, his son and grandson, to chart their own ways of serving God \u2013 the same God but encountered in different ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Excerpted from: <a href=\"http:\/\/rabbisacks.org\/journey-of-the-generations-lech-lecha-5776\/\">http:\/\/rabbisacks.org\/journey-of-the-generations-lech-lecha-5776\/<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":59557,"id":59557,"title":"2sam1-father-and-son","filename":"2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/saul-and-jonathan-the-love-of-father-and-son\/2sam1-father-and-son\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam1-father-and-son","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":59556,"date":"2019-07-16 13:07:17","modified":"2022-04-05 11:55:55","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-1200x800.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":800,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"A Bold Beginning","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"How could a child who rejected the way of his father become a father of children who would not reject his way in turn?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":59557,"id":59557,"title":"2sam1-father-and-son","filename":"2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/saul-and-jonathan-the-love-of-father-and-son\/2sam1-father-and-son\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam1-father-and-son","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":59556,"date":"2019-07-16 13:07:17","modified":"2022-04-05 11:55:55","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-1200x800.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":800,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam1-father-and-son-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"old_create_date":"","links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102209,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36280\/revisions\/102209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}