{"id":37426,"date":"2018-08-11T23:25:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T20:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=37426"},"modified":"2022-03-05T23:12:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T21:12:24","slug":"sarahs-entering-the-covenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/sarahs-entering-the-covenant\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah&#8217;s Entering the Covenant"},"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":[395,405],"acf":{"old_id":"37426","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"21","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A different type of remembering for a different type of challenge","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are many ways to think about memory and being remembered in the Tanakh. We generally assume that the root <em>z-ch-r<\/em> for \u00a0memory is the most common way to state this idea in the Bible. But there is another root as well: <em>p-k-d<\/em>. According to my Bible concordance, <em>z-ch-r<\/em> appears 222 times and <em>p-k-d <\/em>appears 223. \u00a0We care about this because Genesis 21:1 opens with the verb \u201c<em>p-k-d<\/em>\u201d which can mean \u201cremember for good\u201d or \u201cvisit\u201d as well as \u201cremember for bad\u201d and \u201ccount.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The important thing to know is that when it is used in the sense of \u201cremember for good\u201d \u00a0there is a covenantal element to it. The only other times it appears in Genesis in this way are in connection with Joseph\u2019s promise to the people Israel that God will surely visit them and bring them up out of Egypt (Genesis 50:24, 25). The other places the verb appears in Genesis are in chapters 39 (vv. 4,5), 40 (4), and 41 (34), in the sense of appoint or serve. Readers are alerted to the fulfillment of Joseph\u2019s promise of future visitation when God appears to Moses in Exodus 3:16, and says that \u201cI have surely visited you\u201d (<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pakod pakadti<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If God\u2019s \u201cvisitation\u201d of Sarah has a clear covenantal slant, then what does it mean here in chapter 21? \u00a0Many feminist scholars suggest that it means that although women are physically not part of the covenant of circumcision, it is the act of giving birth inscribes Jewish women in the covenant. \u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myjewishlearning.com\/article\/women-and-the-covenant\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rabbi Ruth Sohn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> writing in the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Torah-Commentary-Tamara-Cohn-Eskenazi\/dp\/0807410810\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Torah: A Women\u2019s Commentary<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> states \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe circumcision is a male ritual to include men in a physical way in the covenant that women make real in their flesh when they bear the next generation.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The traditional commentator Rashi suggests that the meaning of the visitation of Sarah is pregnancy (Rashi on Genesis 21:1). Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel all have difficulty becoming pregnant and conceiving and it seems clear that overcoming barrenness is part of the plan for their covenantal participation. \u00a0Rabbi Sohn suggests the matriarchs play a decisive role \u201cin determining the transmission of this male covenant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sense of \u201c<em>p-k-d<\/em>,\u201d then, is much more than \u201cremembrance for good.\u201d I believe it means something akin to \u201cremembered for covenantal participation.\u201d When we see its appearance, we need to understand that it is signaling us to grasp the covenantal significance of anyone connected to it. 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