Nehar Deah

Lech Lecha

On the Brit Bein Habetarim ("The covenant between the pieces")

Hashem's promise to Abraham at the beginning of our parasha (weekly Torah portion), "For all the land which you see, to you I will give it, and to your seed forever" (Bereishit 13: 15), seems to Abraham, to fly in the face of reality. He does not have a son to inherit from him, as he painfully states: "… you have not given me seed, and so a member of my household will inherit from me" (13:3). This "member of my household" is Abraham's faithful servant, known as "Damascus Eliezer" (verse 2). In answer to his doubts, Hashem promises him that he will have a son, from his own loins, to succeed him and that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars and that they will be given the Land of Canaan. On this occasion, Hashem's words are accompanied by a festive ceremony, known in Jewish tradition as "brit bein habetarim" ("covenant between the pieces"). This name is indicative of the proceedings of the ceremony: a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon are taken by Abraham and he cuts (the Hebrew word used is "batar") the first three and places the halves "each half against [=facing] its other" (15:10). Towards evening a "smoking furnace and a burning torch" are seen passing through the divided animals. The furnace and the torch are common images indicating the presence of G-d, in the same way as we see his presence at the revelation at Mount Sinai in the form of "lightning, thunder and a heavy cloud" (Shemot 19:16), or in his leading the people of Israel through the desert by a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night. On the occasion of this covenant, Hashem is seen as passing between the pieces of animal, thereby affirming his promise and accepting upon himself the responsibility to bring it to fruition. In the only other place in the Bible that a similar ceremony is mentioned (Jeremiah 34:6-22), there is a description of the nation and its ministers who declare a covenant dealing with the setting free of slaves: "they passed between the pieces" of the divided calf (ibid verse 18).

We know of similar ceremonies from other ancient peoples, and from their descriptions we witness the symbolic significance of dividing up animals. In the covenant signed between two kings of states in northern Syria in the eighth century before the Common Era - King Bar-ga'ayah of KTK and Mati'el of Arpad - it is written (translated from Aramaic): "if Mati'el will lie to Bar-ga'ayah, Mati'el will be divided up and his ministers will be divided up as this calf has been divided up". In ancient Babylon, it was customary that the participants in the covenant would touch their throats at the same time as the animal's throat was slit, and in the kingdom of Mari on the Mediterranean bank of the Euphrates (in Syria, near to its border with Iraq), a commonly used phrase, "killing the young donkey", was used to mean signing a covenant. According to Babylonian mythology, even the gods "brought their souls in this, vowed by oil and water and touched their throats" when they crowned Marduk as their king. The basic principle: covenant-binding ceremonies, such as the one Abraham was witness to, were used to give greater weight to the words of the covenant and indicated to the participants the bitter fate of one who did not keep the covenant.

But every silver lining has its cloud. During this impressive ceremony with it's mystical and threatening atmosphere, it is explained to Abraham that the covenant that is being made, will only come to pass after his descendants go through a period of 400 years of servitude in a "land which is not theirs" (which in fact came happened with the slavery in Egypt). Only after this will they "go out with much wealth" in order to return to the dwell in the Promised Land. The reason for the delay: "For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (verse 16), i.e. the sins of the people of Canaan have not reached their full proportions. This explanation presents the future events in the history of the children of Israel, as a preemptive prophecy, and even gives an answer to the moral dilemma that has bothered generations: under what circumstances can one revoke ownership of a land in order to transfer it to another nation? The given answer: the behavior of the resident nation is the determining factor, when it's sins "go too far", they are dispossessed of their land, and it will be given to others. This historiographic viewpoint returns again in the words of Moses to the nation on the eve of its entry into the land: "Not for your righteousness, nor for the uprightness of your heart do you go to possess their land: but on the account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your G-d drives them out from before you and that he may perform the word that the Lord swore to your forefathers" (Devarim 9:5). In addition: the nation of Israel has no reason to think that they enjoy some form of preference by virtue of the covenant that gave them the land. The book of Vayikra, in it's unique way, binds Israel to a system of universal morality and warns Israel against abominations: "that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it has vomited out nations that where before you" (Vayikra 18:28), meaning that the land of Israel will not suffer abominations from any source.

The fact that this topic is raised indicates that already in first temple times there were those who tried to deal with the question of moral justification for the settling of the land of Canaan, ruling over it and its inhabitants. The answer they give is: Neither their might, nor their forces, merit Israel having it's land, but only the merciful kindness of Hashem towards his nation in the "covenant between the pieces". This act of kindness obligates the sons of Abraham to keep to the "way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham, that which he has spoken of him" (Bereishit 18:19).

Professor Mordechai Kogen
Dept. of the History of the Nation of Israel

Literature of the Sages - How many years was the slavery in Egypt?

It seems that the answer is clearly given in the weekly Torah portion, in Hashem's words to Abraham in the "covenant between the pieces": "You shall surely know that you seed will be strangers in a land which is not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and tortured for four hundred years." (15:13). Despite this, in the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the Torah gives us a slightly different figure: "the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years" (Shemot 12:40). We can probably compromise between the two figures given, by the traditional assumption that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt thirty years before their enslavement began, which then continued for a period of four hundred years.

The problem is that this compromise does not solve a greater question that arises from the biblical narrative. According to the timetables and the names that the Torah gives, it seems that Kehat, the son of Levi, was one of those who went down to Egypt with Joseph (Bereishit 46:11) and Kehat was the father of Amram, who in turn was the father of Moses. According to the Torah, Moses left Egypt when he was 80 years old, and it turns out that there is absolutely no way to calculate that Kehat and Amram together lived 320 (or even 350) years. In addition the Torah itself tells that Kehat lived 133 years (Shemot 6:16) and Amram lived 137 years (ibid verse 20), and clearly many of the years of Kehat's life overlapped those of his son, Amram. Because of this difficulty we find many attempts in the sources to show that the period of slavery was less that 400 years, with the commonly accepted answer being only 210 years. This answer appears, for example, in a work called "Seder Olam" ("The Order of the World") which was written in the 3rd century C.E. According to this work, the 400 years begins already with the birth of Isaac, as already from this moment Abraham has descendants which are strangers in "a land which is not theirs" (Canaan). According to this interpretation of Hashem's words in "the covenant between the pieces", we can reduce the 400 years by taking off the years of Isaacs's life up till the birth of Jacob (60 years) and the years of Isaac's life up till he went down to Egypt (130) and in this way we get to 210. In this way we can maintain the exact figures given in the Torah This answers to those who wish to question the veracity of the Torah, something that seemed extremely important to the author of "Seder Olam".

In retrospect, after this figure was established, the sages found (Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 91:2) a form of "proof" within the Biblical narrative itself. When Jacob sends his sons down to bring food from Egypt, in the time of the famine, he says: "I have heard that there is corn in Egypt, go down to there…" (Bereishit 42:2). The gematriah (numerical value of the Hebrew letters), for the Hebrew word "radu" ("go down") adds up to 210. According to this, Jacob's words were prophetic, and he in fact knew that this was the period of time that his descendants would spend in the land that he was sending them to.

Personalities - Damascus Eliezer

In the "covenant between the pieces", Abraham presents "Damascus Eliezer" as the "steward of my household" (Bereishit 15:2) or "the son of my house" (verse 3), who will inherit from him after his death, if he has no descendants. We know of a custom, from the ancient East, that a childless person would, while still alive, adopt someone - often a slave which he freed for this purpose - who would serve him during his life, would bury him and would be his heir. "The son of my house" therefore means a slave, who was freed via a process of adoption, to perform the tasks that a son would normally have done.

What is the meaning of the strange name "Damascus Eliezer"? There are those who see in the word "Damascus", the name of his city of origin (i.e. "Eliezer the Damascene"), a city which lay on the route Abraham traveled from Charan to the Land of Israel. Others see this as a double name, for example "Tubal Kayin" (Bereishit 4:22), possibly the slave's original name ("Damascus") plus the name Abraham gave him when he freed him and made him his heir (this second name has a clear meaning: "G-d is my helper").

It must be pointed out that Eliezer is not mentioned again in the Torah, though the tradition of the ancient commentators (e.g. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 28b), identifies him as the slave, "the elder of his [Abraham's] house, that ruled over all he had", who went to Charan to bring back Rebecca in order that she could marry Isaac (Bereishit 24:2). One cannot bring proof for this assumption from the Biblical narrative, and in fact it is difficult to accept, as the Torah repeatedly emphasizes the fact that the messenger to Charan was a "slave", and it's is difficult to believe that the heir apparent of Abraham, the respected member of his household, would be known by such a title. Despite this, the assumption that it was Eliezer that brought Rebecca has become deeply ingrained into the Jewish consciousness and many would be surprised to learn that it was only a Midrash. The Midrash is well known for naming anonymous biblical figures (e.g. the claim that the interpreter who stood between Joseph and his brothers [Bereishit 32:23] was none other than Manasseh son of Joseph, or the claim that Samson's mother was "Tzlelfonit"). Another interesting mention of Eliezer is found in the sources that deal with the war between Abraham and the four kings that capture Lot, his nephew (Bereishit 14). When Abraham is told by the "palit" (refugee) (that the Torah identifies as Og, King of Bashan, who was "niflat" [ejected, same root form as "palit"] from the flood!) that his nephew has been captured, he enlists "his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen" (verse 14) and he goes out to free Lot. The number of fighters he takes with, 318 is not a round number and the Midrash makes note of the fact that the gematriah of Eliezer's name is exactly 318! When pointing out this gematriah, the Babylonian Talmud states (Nedarim 32b) that Abraham and Eliezer fought alone against the invading kings, teaching us of their superhuman physical strength.

The Midrash even tries to explain the name "Damascus Eliezer" and does this by dividing the word "DaMeSeK" (Damascus) into two words - a technique known as notarikon - giving a new meaning to this name: "draws and gives to drink ("Dolah uMeSeK") from the teachings of his teacher to others" (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 28b), meaning that he drew from the teachings of Abraham and imparted them to others. In this way the Midrash also turns Eliezer into a wise man who spread the teachings of Abraham.