AVRAM, YOU’RE FROM WHERE?!
Lech L’cha, Oct. 23, 2015
p. 69, Lech L’cha, Genesis 12:1. The Lord said
to Avram, “Go forth from your native land and from 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; I will make your name great and
you shall be a blessing.” Note 1. …from Ur to Canaan…
We know where Avram is going,
but where was he coming from? Was his
hometown, Ur, some Middle Eastern dustbowl, devoid of culture, religion, and
shopping malls?
On a day off from
volunteering in Jerusalem this past summer, I discovered a fabulous exhibit at
the Bible Lands Museum. Ur, Avram’s
hometown, was the subject of this exhibit.
It turns out that Ur was center of all international trade in the Middle
East. The city was established 6000
years ago. Avram lived there at the apex
of Ur’s cultural, political, and religious life.
Sumerian Worshipper Statue
What was so significant about
Ur? It wasn’t rich in natural
resources. Mostly, it had mud and water
at the juncture of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. From the mud and the water, they created clay
tablets inscribed with a cuneiform system that was the birthplace of
economics. Our system of 60 seconds to 1
minute; 60 minutes to 1 hour, 24 hours in a day, and 360 (plus) days in a year,
was conceived in Ur.
Ur was the main thoroughfare
for all precious metals in the world. Obsidian and silver came from Turkey;
Lapis Lazuli from northeastern Afghanistan; Copper from Asia Minor; Alabaster
from Iran; Carnelian and Steatite from India; Purple shells from the Persian
Gulf; Cedar from Lebanon; Ivory from the Indus Valley; Granite from Egypt; and Tin
from Europe.
Great ideas followed the same
routes as precious metals through Ur. The story of the Great Flood flowed from the
Epic of Gilgamesh via Ur into the Torah.
The Great Flood described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, says that “god
decided that humans were evil and god created a flood to destroy the seed of
humanity…a huge boat preserved vegetation and the seed of human kind…” This
parallels last week’s Torah portion, Noah.
The newly discovered (September 2015) table V of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Yet, Avram turned his back on the most highly evolved
civilization in the world for an unknown future. Why? Would
you have done it? Would you have left
your cel phone, your house, your job, your friends? Lech L’cha. Go and find your true self. You will part of something. You will be a blessing. Your life will change and you will be
changed by it. “Be different,” says
noted commentator Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “Not
for the sake of being different, but for sake of starting something new: a religion that will not worship power and
the symbols of power, rather a religion based on mitzvoth, doing what is right
and what is just.”
In age after age, century after century, Jews continue
to reinvent the journey, prepared to do what the poet Robert Frost immortalized:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
And you shall be a blessing.
Shabbat Shalom,
Hasha Musha
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