This week’s Torah commentary, written by Hebrew Seminary rabbinical student Dr. Cécile Bruriah Gonçalves, Hebrew Seminary Rabbinical Student, has been sponsored by Rabbi Jonah Rank.
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וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ
And God said to Abram: Go forth from your country, your birthplace, and your father’s house…
—Genesis 12:1*
The parashah begins with a voice—a divine voice that fractures the old world and inaugurates monotheism: לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ (lekh lekha, “Go forth”). Yet this voice addresses Abram alone. Sarai is present—silent, invisible; walking, leaving her land, renouncing family—yet no divine word comes to her. The ancient rabbinic commentary on Genesis Bereishit Rabbah notes that Sarai abandons everything alongside Abram. (Bereishit Rabbah 39:14.) The promise of descendants depends entirely on her, yet she is neither consulted nor blessed. Judith Plaskow observes, “Women are present at the formative events of revelation, but absent from the narrative that tells of them.” (Standing Again at Sinai, p. 32.) Abraham’s lekh lekha is a call to freedom; Sarah’s is a forced crossing.
The Fractured Courage of the Patriarch
Abraham is celebrated as a model of faith, yet his courage has cracks. Upon arriving in Egypt, he says to Sarai:
הִנֵּה־נָ֣א יָדַ֔עְתִּי כִּ֛י אִשָּׁ֥ה יְפַת־מַרְאֶ֖ה אָֽתְּ׃ … אִמְרִי־נָ֖א אֲחֹ֣תִי אָ֑תְּ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יִֽיטַב־לִ֣י בַעֲבוּרֵ֔ךְ
I know that you are a beautiful woman… Say, I pray you, that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you. (Genesis 12:11 and 13.)
Early medieval rabbis attempted to justify Abraham by suggesting that he feared for his life. (See Tanchuma Bereshit, Lekh Lekha 5.) But a feminist lens exposes a different narrative: a man exploiting his wife’s body to protect himself. In The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, Rabbis Drs. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss note, “Sarah is Abraham’s accomplice in Genesis 12, where he solicits her help to deceive Pharaoh, thereby saving his life and improving his lot.” (P. 18.) Yet Sarai does not choose this role. She is assigned it, a human shield in a patriarchal story. Where masculine heroism should protected, it betrays. God, not Abraham, intervenes:
וַיְנַגַּ֨ע יְהֹוָ֧ה ׀ אֶת־פַּרְעֹ֛ה נְגָעִ֥ים גְּדֹלִ֖ים וְאֶת־בֵּית֑וֹ עַל־דְּבַ֥ר שָׂרַ֖י אֵ֥שֶׁת אַבְרָֽם׃
The Eternal afflicted Pharaoh and his household with great plagues because of Sarai. (Genesis 12:17.)
The Superior Prophetess
The ancient rabbinic commentary Shemot Rabbah 1:1 boldly claims that Sarai was superior to Abraham in prophecy. God confirms this superiority in ordering Abraham in Genesis 21:12, “כֹּל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֹּאמַ֥ר אֵלֶ֛יךָ שָׂרָ֖ה שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלָ֑הּ” (“Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice”). Dr. Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg remarks, “Sarah’s silence is not the absence of speech but resistance to a discourse that does not recognize her.” (The Beginning of Desire, p. 86.) Sarai’s lack of speech is not submission but lucidity—the awareness that speaking in a world that does not hear is wasted breath. Silence becomes strategic.
Domestic Power and Its Limits
Rabbis Cohn Eskenazi and Weiss observe:
The women in this parashah, Sarah and Hagar, wield power within the household that is crucial to the people’s identity and development… Women are depicted as essential to men’s survival and procreation, as guardians of their children’s future. Yet such roles are circumscribed, revealing a world politically dominated by men.” (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, pp. 21 and 22.)
Celebrating ‘domestic power’ can conceal exclusion from the divine. Sarah may manage the tent but cannot hear God’s voice. She may carry the covenant in her womb but cannot seal it via circumcision.
The Desert of the Exiled
When Sarah, exhausted by barrenness, offers Hagar to Abraham, she confronts a religious system that refuses to see her. God speaks of descendants to Abraham, never to her. Hagar, pregnant, flees into the wilderness. God meets her:
וַֽיִּמְצָאָ֞הּ מַלְאַ֧ךְ יְהֹוָ֛ה עַל־עֵ֥ין הַמַּ֖יִם
The angel of the Eternal found her by a spring of water. (Genesis 16:7)
Enslaved, foreign, and pregnant in patriarchal violence, Hagar names God “אֵ֣ל רֳאִ֑י” (El Ro’i, “the God who sees me). (Genesis 16:13.) The wilderness becomes a theological space for the exiled: those who see God not from the throne, but from the margins.
Naked Faith
Abraham believes because he hears; Sarah believes without hearing. Her lekh lekha moment carries no promise, no word, no certainty—the faith of women through the ages walking in darkness without recognition. Plaskow observes, “Women’s spirituality arises from the absence of direct revelation — from a faith born of silence.” (Standing Again at Sinai, p. 35.) Such faith rests on no privilege and seeks not to understand God but to survive God’s uneven speech.
The Divine Counter-Narrative
Abraham’s story became a model, but faith built on domination is unhealthy. Perhaps for this reason, the Book of Genesis provides its own counter-narrative, where a woman is the primary focus. God punishes Pharaoh because of (his wish to interfere with the marriage of) Sarai (12:17); God commands Abraham to listen to Sarah (21:12); and God speaks to Hagar in the wilderness (16:7). Revelation evades patriarchal power, moving to the margins. God, read honestly, subverts the patriarchy. Rabbis Cohn Eskenazi and Weiss assert, “These stories contribute to Israel’s ‘founding myths’—the stories of the people’s origins and processes of self-definition.” (P. 23.)
The Contemporary Lekh Lekha
Today, the call of lekh lekha is spiritual and moral in nature rather than geographic; leaving the father’s house means leaving patriarchal religious structures, texts, and voices. In the words of Zornberg, “Abraham’s faith remains incomplete until he recognizes Sarah’s speech as revelation.” (P. 90.) To leave the father’s house is to read differently: to leave behind any theology where a woman is merely an instrument of salvation; to leave liturgy that speaks of God only in masculine terms; to leave the idea of covenant as inscribed only on male bodies.
The Stars in Sarah’s Night
God directs Abraham, “הַבֶּט־נָ֣א הַשָּׁמַ֗יְמָה וּסְפֹר֙ הַכּ֣וֹכָבִ֔ים אִם־תּוּכַ֖ל לִסְפֹּ֣ר אֹתָ֑ם… כֹּ֥ה יִהְיֶ֖ה זַרְעֶֽךָ” (“Look at the stars… so shall your descendants be”). (Genesis 15:5.) Stars shine only in the night. Sarah’s night—her silence and unspoken courage—make that light possible. Thus the Zohar suggests “דדכר בלא נוקבא פלג גופא אקרי” (“[that] a man without a woman is but half of the Divine Name”). (See Zohar III:7b, translation by Dr. Daniel Matt.)
Our Triple Lekh-Lekha
This week, our lekh lekha can be threefold:
- Read sacred texts through the eyes of those never quoted.
- Identify silences in our communities, prayers, and homes.
- Refuse to walk toward God without Sarahs and Hagars beside us.
Undoing Abraham to Find God Again
To hear God anew, we may need to undo Abraham—not to reject him in whole, but to strip away his masculine privilege. The original lekh lekha commands leaving the father’s house. The feminist lekh lekha invites leaving a too-patriarchal God. At the wilderness’ end, perhaps two women stand: Sarah, the forgotten prophetess; and Hagar, who named God. Together they whisper in an echo of Genesis 21:12: “כֹּל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֹּאמַ֥ר אֵלֶ֛יךָ… שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלָ֑הּ” (“Whatever she tells you… listen to her voice”).
*All Genesis translations above from JPS Tanakh translation of 1985.