The Broken Family Tree

I do so apologize for not printing this on Friday, but it has been a week where time has not been on my side and when time was there my eyelids would not allow me the ability to work on a computer.  I want to start off by giving you something I have neglected to do.  I should be giving you the date on the Hebrew calendar so you can understand things a bit better.  Saturday was the 27th of October, 2012 for Americans, but for the Jew it was the 11th of Cheshvan 5773.  This Hebrew date will fall on a different American date each year, so don't stick to these two dates as being set in stone for each other.  A little history for Cheshvan 11th:  It is the day traditionally known as the day of Methuselah's death (the oldest man to have ever lived - Genesis 5:27) and also for the death of Rachel, the wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 35:19).  Just a bit of trivia for your pocket.

 

This week's Parashat is from Genesis 12:1 - 17:27 and although it is a rather lengthy reading I will not go far before camping out.  Last week we saw that God destroyed everything on earth except for two of most of the animals and seven of a few others along with eight humans. Those eight people had seen the work of God in the most powerful way EVER!  The worst natural disasters human kind has ever known can not compare to the disastrous flood they had just lived through yet, the ground had barely dried when one of the three sons causes a problem.  The other two try to make it all right, but dad finds out and pronounces a curse on Ham and blesses Shem and Japheth.  That Parashat ends with the genealogy of those three young men.  What we see is that Ham's descendants end up being Sodom and Gomorrah and one of Shem's descendants is Abram.  The family tree is now broken.

If we look closely at chapter 13 verse 12 we are told that the people of Sodom were wicked and sinful toward the Lord God, exceedingly.  There had only been ten generations from Noah to Abram, from the greatest act of God ever known to the most wicked city ever recorded in history.   Ten generations, 367 years after the flood wickedness had come to set up shop once again.  Didn't take long, did it?  Now, think with me for a moment.  Did the wickedness come through Ham because he had an inherent evil streak OR did it happen because Noah cursed him?

 The idea of blessing and cursing is something we, as western thinkers, know very little about.  We talk about blessings and cursings and read about them, but we really don't understand them.  All I want to do at this point is to make you think a little harder each time you see the word "blessing" or "cursing" and hopefully you will pay more attention when you see one of these words in the scripture from this point on.  In fact, look at the very beginning of our Parashat.  God, himself, tells Abram, "I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you."  Genesis 12:2-3.  I can not wait to expound on this idea with you another day!  Shalom!