Summary of the Parasha

God says to Abram: “Lech lecha”, “Go for yourself”, leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s house. This is the first of Abraham’s ten trials (Pirkei Avot 5:3). At 75, he leaves Haran with Sarai, his nephew Lot and “the souls they had made”, the people they had brought close to God (Rashi). Arriving at Shechem, then near Beit El, he builds altars and calls out in the Name of God.

A famine drives him to Egypt; he asks Sarai to say she is his sister. She is taken to Pharaoh’s palace, Pharaoh is struck with plagues and returns her. The Ramban sees this descent as the blueprint of the Egyptian exile: “ma’aseh avot siman labanim”, what happens to the fathers foreshadows what will happen to the children.

Back in Canaan, Abram’s and Lot’s shepherds quarrel: Lot separates and chooses the fertile plain of Sodom. God then promises Abram all the land he can see and descendants “like the dust of the earth”. Next comes the war of the four kings against the five: Lot is taken captive and Abram rescues him with 318 men. Malki-Tzedek, king of Shalem (Jerusalem), blesses him with bread and wine, and Abram gives him a tithe; he refuses the king of Sodom’s spoils, “not a thread nor a sandal strap”.

At the covenant between the pieces (Brit bein habetarim), God promises descendants as many as the stars, announces 400 years of exile and a departure with great wealth. Sarai, childless, gives her maidservant Hagar to Abram; Hagar flees, an angel meets her by a spring, and Ishmael is born. At 99, Abram receives the covenant of circumcision: his name becomes Abraham, “father of a multitude”, Sarai becomes Sarah, and God promises the birth of Isaac. That very day, Abraham circumcises himself, Ishmael and his whole household.

In many North African communities, the night before a brit milah is a vigil of study and protection, the Tahdid, when the Zohar is read around the newborn.

Summary of the Haftara

“Lamah Tomar Yaakov” (“Why do you say, Jacob”)
Text in Isaiah 40:27–41:16

The prophet comforts a people who think God has forgotten them: the One who never tires gives strength to the weary, and “those who hope in Hashem renew their strength, they soar on wings like eagles”. He speaks of “the one aroused from the east”, whom our Sages identify as Abraham, victorious over the kings. Then God addresses Israel: “You, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My friend, do not fear, for I am with you.”

Parasha-Haftara Connection

The haftara calls Abraham “My friend” and recalls his victory over the kings from the east, the central episode of the parasha. The message is the same: Abraham walked alone into the unknown out of trust in God, and his children, even when worn down by exile, can rely on that same covenant.