As I write this, we are in a fraught moment for the Jewish people worldwide. The massive rise in antisemitism, now amplified by a post-October 7 world, has left many Jewish people feeling unsafe and alone. Perhaps the story found in Genesis 12 can serve as an anchor for us in these tumultuous times.

This Parsha portion brings us back to the book of Genesis, which is packed with significant and well-known stories. We have the call of Abram and are brought to the mysterious scene where God makes his profound covenant with him. We hear the chilling announcement that his descendants will become slaves for 400 long years. We see the beginnings of circumcision as a mark of the covenant, along with the name Abram being altered by God to Abraham.

The first verse of the chapter has been the subject of midrashic embellishment:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

Many will remember learning in Hebrew school the story of Abraham’s father, Terah, and that he was an idol-maker by trade. However, one day Abraham smashed the idols, realizing that they were nothing more than powerless, meaningless wood. Yet in that very act, Abraham invented monotheism. A ten-year-old boy would find that story exciting—but hopefully not enough to start imitating it by smashing things!

Actually, Genesis has no such colorful story. Chapter 12 begins by assuming that Abram recognizes the voice of God, and in verse 4 he obeys and sets out for Canaan. But between verses 1 and 4 lies an entire universe!

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:2–3)

Mentioned here are two of the three great blessings God bestows on Abraham. He will become a great nation, and he will also be a blessing. And to whom would he become a blessing? Specifically, “to all the families of the Earth.” The third great blessing, which is the land, is not yet mentioned in these verses.

Furthermore, in these passages, God promises Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.” This particular promise is repeated later to Abraham’s grandson Jacob1 and (via the mouth of Balaam) concerning the entire nation of Israel.2

At this moment, many Jews around the world are feeling less than blessed. The so-called Golden Age of American Jewry in the post-World War II era seems long gone. Nor are Jews seeing that antisemitism is rewarded with divine curses. Instead, hatred of Jews is growing exponentially, and it’s amplified through what often seems like a hellscape of social media and disinformation.

We must ask ourselves, what can Genesis 12:1-3 teach us at a time like this?

The strangeness of God’s promise to Abraham is that it was made not long before God also told Abraham that his descendants—the ones who were to be blessed and to be a blessing—would spend 400 years in slavery. The scene itself was tense: moments before God spoke those words, “a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him” (Genesis 15:12).

It could seem as though the darkness that enveloped Abraham foreshadowed the darkness that was to fall upon the Jewish people! The New King James translation is even more chilling: “And behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.” The darkness and horror of slavery and mistreatment across ten generations follow the word of blessing.

It’s true that God immediately adds,

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions … And they shall come back here [to Canaan] in the fourth generation. 3 (Genesis 15:14, 16)

Did Israel know about the promises made to Abraham when they suffered the whips of Pharaoh’s taskmasters? That is too abstract for us to surmise. We should ask, then, did a particular father who stumbled under the lashes of that day’s overseer know anything about God’s promises? Did the girl who was not strong enough to carry bricks and was beaten for it carry any hope for the future? If they did, did they take it seriously? Or did they yell in the face of God because whatever their lives were, they were not blessed lives? Did they even have the presence of mind to think about anything beyond getting through each day, moment by moment?

We can’t know the answers to these questions. However, we are no longer slaves in Egypt! Yet we feel the emotional whips of “new Egyptians.” Of terrorists and antisemites: whether on American campuses, or in the suburbs of France, or in the kibbutzim of southern Israel. What can God’s promises of blessing mean for us today?

Somehow, we have the strength to answer from Scripture itself. For when Genesis ends, Exodus picks up—and the Passover story, indelibly etched into the Jewish psyche from thousands of years of seders, takes over. Slavery happened, but so did redemption! The redemptive story of the Israelites as we enter the Pesach season shows us that there is a future hope for Israel. That does not make the unredeemed times any less painful. But it does show us that alongside pain, hope can thrive!

Endnotes

1. See Genesis 27:29.

2. See Numbers 24:9.

3. Does the writer mean that 400 years is only four generations? Usually, a generation in biblical terms is about forty years. The timing is ambiguous.