Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Lekh Lekha Genesis 12:1-17:27

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - “And he (Abram) moved on from there to the mountains, from the east to Bet-El; and he pitched his tent with Bet-El to the west and Ai to the East. And he built there an altar to the Lord, and he called it in the name of the Lord” (Genesis 12:8).

The cornerstone of the Ramban’s (Nahmanides’) Biblical interpretation is that “the actions which were done by the ancestors serve as sign-posts for the future of their descendants.” The first altar to G-d which Abram builds upon his entry into the Promised Land is in Shekhem - Elon Moreh (Genesis 12:6,7), the city which the Israelites are destined to enter when they cross the River Jordan under Joshua. Shekhem is likewise the City of sibling rivalry, the place where Shimon and Levi killed the newly circumcised inhabitants who had remained silent while Dinah was captured and raped, despite their agreement with the othersons of Jacob; it is also the site of Joseph’s grave, and the locus from where David and Solomon’s United Kingdom was split into two separate kingdoms.

Abram built his third altar to G-d in the oaks of Mamre which was in Hebron (Genesis 13:18), where our matriarchs and patriarchs are buried and where Biblical history really began. And Abraham built his fourth altar to G-d on Mount Moriah, the place of the binding of Isaac, “the (Temple) Mount from which the “Lord will be seen” (Genesis 22:14) by the whole world when all nations will ultimately accept a G-d of peace.

But the altar which seems to the least significant, the one which is not even identified with a specific city but which is merely situated between Bet El and Ai, is the second one in our Torah reading (Genesis 12:8); and it is specifically to this place that Abraham returns after his Egyptian sojourn and where he builds yet another altar (Genesis 13:3,4)! What is to be the future significance of this area in the desert only identified as being between Bet El and Ai?

Rav Mordechai Allon, the great Torah teacher of Jerusalem, gives a most insightful explanation, to which I would add what I believe to be an important theological reflection. Bet El is the place of Father Jacob’s Israel - defining dream of “a ladder rooted on earth with its top reaching to the heavens; angels of G-d are ascending and descending on it” (Genesis 28:12). It is Jacob’s vision immediately before going into exile, and it is the place to which he will return as Israel and build an altar to the Lord. The message is clearly one of uniting heaven and earth, positing a sacred partnership between the earthly powers from below who are ascending to G-d and the Divine powers from above who are descending to the province of human beings.

Let us now move on to Ai. First we must remember that the first great conquest of Joshua and the Israelites was the city of Jericho, whose walls “came tumbling down” when the Israelites - amidst the blowing of ram’s horns and in the presence of the Ark of the Lord - surrounded the city for six days once each day and seven times on the seventh day. Jericho fell, its inhabitants perished, and all its wealth was declared forbidden for human use and holy to G-d. “And the Lord was with Joshua, whose fame spread throughout the land” (Joshua 6:27).

Unfortunately, there were many - under the influence of Akhan the son of Karmi of the leading tribe of Judah - who betrayed Joshua’s declaration sanctifying the booty to G-d and looted the wealth of Jericho for themselves. The Israelites then went on to attempt the capture of the City of Ai. Joshua sent out spies, who returned with the Intelligence report that two or three thousand Israelite soldiers would be sufficient to take the city; three thousand soldiers were dispatched, the soldiers of Ai killed 36 of them and chased the Israelites away, “causing the hearts of the Israelites to dissolve and turn to water” (Joshua 7:1-5). Joshua rends his garments and prays all day before the Ark of the Lord.

At G-d’s behest, he routs out those who looted the sacred booty and has Akhan and family punished with death. The entire nation then goes out to war against Ai. Joshua sends out 30,000 of his men for an ambush, “and they lay in wait between Bet El and Ai to the west of Ai” (Joshua 8:9). The Israelite army succeeds in demolishing Ai.

What actually happened? In modern terms, there was a gross failure in the Israeli Intelligence information, similar to the Intelligence failure at the time of the Yom Kippur War. Despite the massive deployment of enemy troops from Egypt and Syria - and warnings from Jordan - Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to call up the reserves and strengthen the Bar Lev line. What caused such a gross error? Apparently, after the lightning victory of the Six Day War, the “powers that were” believed Israel to be invincible, that no Arab army would dare go to war against us. And indeed, the car stickers after the Six Day War cried out, “All glory to the Israeli Defense Forces,” deleting any reference to Divine miracle!

Such was the brazen arrogance of Akhan and his cohorts who took of the booty, refusing to recognize that the spoils belonged to G-d. “Our strength and the force of our hands wrought the victory,” they declared, and so they felt that the wealth of Ai legitimately belonged to them. And because they had become almost drunk with power and self-importance, they egregiously underestimate the power of Ai.

After the Yom Kippur War - which we ultimately won with even greater miracles than in the Six Day War - much of Israel learned its lesson. After this war, the car stickers read, “Israel depends on the Lord.” But the real truth is the message of Jacob’s dream: there is a ladder connecting heaven and earth, humans must work together with G-d in effectuating His Divine will; we must do whatever is in our power to do and understand that ultimate victory depends on G-d’s intervention as well. Only if we understand the message of that partnership will we do our very best, but without falling into the pitfall of complacency which comes from the arrogance of believing that we did it alone. This was the crucial message which should have been learned by the Israelites in the fateful battle between Bet El and Ai!

Shabbat Shalom.