Oh my… a lot happens on this week’s episode! We ended last time with the cliffhanger…

Who is Abram, and what happens next?

Well, hold on to your seats! He Gets up and goes. Literally! Starting a 3 millennia tradition of changing countries because… why not?

And he is not alone. His wife, his nephew, and a bunch of other people go with him.

But not all goes well… you know, families! Lot (there is one in every family!) goes to the other side of the river, and our friend Abram ends up going to Egypt because of a famine

And here it comes… the prequel to “My sister – My bride”! The always efficient (as we will see in the following chapters) “My wife, tell them you are my sister”!

All goes well, and he ends up back in Canaan with more money and his wife!

And then there is war.

And then there is more family drama. The other woman, the other child… An Angel appears, there is a well (you know… the water thing, and the drama subsides!

And then things get interesting. You know… there is a covenant, a promise. But it does not come for free. Not only Abram has to commit to following some rules… (wait… where are the rules?) but he needs to get a sign for the covenant in his body. And I am not talking about a cool haircut or a tattoo…

We all know what happens. Brit Milah. And with that, a change of names. Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai goes now by the more modern and fashionable name Sarah.

The next chapter will introduce “the child that laughs” and other fun stories to share with friends and family!

Stay tuned!

Note: I have this time two maps… I am redoing them all, using the JPS from Sefaria, rather than the Everett Fox translation as in my Parsha Bereshit’s map.

The first map is just the names (I’ve taken some liberties that will be explained in another post).
The second map is the names plus some family / social relations (Brother, father, slave, maidservant, etc)

Hope this helps you with this week’s Parsha study.

Your friendly Torah Mapper, Lucas