Why Study History?  -  The Bible As History   -   The World Of Abraham   -                        Abraham's Journey   -   The Promised Land 

 
This series is designed as a basic overview of all the Jewish history -- all 4,000 years of it.

Usually when one mentions the word "history" most people break out in a cold sweat. They remember back to junior high school and they associate history with the memorization of names, dates, places and events necessary only for exams and then forgotten afterwards. This is probably why Mark Twain said, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education."

So before we actually begin talking about Jewish history, let's talk a little bit about why we need to learn history in the first place. What is history? What isn't history? What benefit does learning history serve?

History is, first of all, the testing ground of ideas. We can talk in theory about ideas, but the passage of time clearly shows us which ideas are right or wrong. So, for instance, a hundred years ago a Communist and a Capitalist could debate which system would dominate the world, but recent history has shown us that Communism has failed and Capitalism is sailing along.

There's a tremendous amount of lessons that can be learned from history. As the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

So the basic reason to learn history in general is that people, more or less, are the same. Technology might change, the geopolitical realities of the world might change, but people tend to do the same stupid things over and over again. And unless we learn from the past and remember it, and apply those lessons for the future, we're destined to get stuck in the same rut and repeat the same mistakes over and over.

SPECIAL THEME

In Jewish history this is the theme without a doubt. As the Torah, in the Book of Deuteronomy, teaches:

Remember world history; study the generational epochs. Ask your father and he will relate to you, your elders and they will tell you. (Deut. 32:7)

But Judaism does more than these words imply. Judaism introduces an idea into human history which is incredibly revolutionary in all aspects, but particularly in the aspect of morality and certainly in the aspect of history -- the idea of a God who acts in history. It's a revolutionary idea and one of the fundamental Jewish beliefs.

We believe in a God who is the Creator, Sustainer and Supervisor, which means, not a God who created the world and then went to Miami, but an Infinite Being who is actively involved in creation.

Everything in the universe is under God's control. Therefore, history is a controlled process leading to a destination.

This means that not only do we want to learn history to avoid the mistakes we've made in the past, but because we have a place to get to. There's a goal. That's an incredibly empowering idea in human history -- that we're going somewhere, we have a destination, there's a finish line.

This is another reason not to make the same mistakes -- we want to get to that destination as quickly and as painlessly as possible. History is the map to get us there.

So therefore, in this series, we are not going to focus so much on the names, dates, places -- although it's very important to know those details -- but on the patterns.

The history we have learned when we were in school is the history of power. The big battles, the big empires. The bottom line is that the people who make the noise get the attention. But Jewish history is not the history of power. It's the history of ideas. It's subtle history, below the surface, behind the events.

So when we look at the history from the viewpoint of ideas, we see things in a totally different way. It doesn't change the events, it only changes how we understand the events. It's very important to keep this in mind throughout this series. What we're talking about really is the ultimate cause and effect scenario that's behind the scenes.

JEWISH TIME

Jewish time begins with the creation of Adam who is seen as the physical and spiritual pinnacle in terms of the creation of the world.

As the Book of Genesis relates it, Adam was created on the sixth day in the process of creation, or 5760 years ago. (The year 2000 in the Gregorian calendar, which begins count from the time of Jesus, is 5760 in the Hebrew calendar, which begins count from the time of Adam.) But even though we say that Jewish time begins then, we have no problem in saying the days of creation previous to Adam lasted 15 billion years.

The concept of the universe being extremely old is not a problem in the way Judaism understands the Bible. This is because the Bible's discussion of how the world was created clearly indicates an advancing evolutionary process -- from nothing to something, from energy to matter, to physical matter, to aquatic life, to fish, to birds, etc. This is an evolutionary process going from simple to complex to the most complex thing -- the human being.

One problem with Darwin's theory of evolution is the idea of chance. Judaism believes the world is evolving, but that it's a guided evolution. Chance is antithetical to the Jewish conception of how the universe runs, and it it runs contrary to our the Jewish notion of history.

Nothing is happening by chance, whether it's the evolution of the entire universe or all the affairs of the Planet Earth. As insignificant as we may be, we are on a guided journey.

Judaism says that Jewish time begins with Adam, but there's no problem with saying from the Jewish perspective that there were forerunners of Adam -- hominids that physically looked like human beings, Cro-Magnon man, Neanderthal, etc. Cro-Magnon, actually had a larger cranium than the Homo-sapiens (which is what the descendants of Adam are), but Cro-Magnon didn't do too much over a very long period of time.

Homo-sapiens on the other hand have been amazing. If you think of what human beings have done in the few thousands -- from simple tools to use of metals, to the space shuttle and nuclear power and computers, it's amazing how quickly we've advanced.

Adam is unique among the other creatures previously inhabiting the earth not just because he gives rise to such an amazingly innovative group of descendants, but because Adam is created b'tzellem Elohim, "in the image of God." This means he has a soul -- a neshama -- a higher, spiritual, intellectual essence. This Divine spark is the God-like thing we human beings all have.

Once Adam is completed, then God, so to speak, takes off His cosmic watch, hands it to Adam and says: "Now we switch to earth time." A day becomes a revolution of the earth on its axis, a year is the earth going round the sun once, etc. We say that God took off His watch 5760 years ago. That's Jewish chronology.

The appearance of Adam corresponds more or less to the beginning of civilization. Historians and anthropologists basically say that civilization begins about 5,500 years ago, which is about when Judaism says Adam was created.

What we know about Adam and his immediate descendants --the most important one of whom is Abraham, the first Jew -- we learn from the Bible. But how trustworthy is the Bible as a history book? We shall take up that subject in the next installment.

by Rabbi Ken Spiro

An enormous amount of information in the Bible has been borne out by archeology. There is not much direct evidence, but there is a huge amount of indirect or circumstantial evidence.

We assume that people throughout human history always studied history, but that's not true. As a matter of fact, if you go back more than a couple of thousand years you'll find people had no interest in history. The first historian in the West is Herodotus, a Greek who lived in the 5^th century BCE. And he's given the title: Father of History.

Columbia University historian, Joseph Yerushalmi, who wrote an excellent, highly-praised book called Zahor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, says that "If Herodotus was the father of history, the father of meaning in history was the Jews."

This is a profound idea.

First, not only were Jews recording history well before Herodotus, but while Herodotus might record the events, the Jews were looking at the deeper meaning, and that deeper meaning can be found most importantly and most significantly within the Bible itself.

The first of these stories that we will examine in the future installments of this series pre-dates Herodotus by about 1,300 years. It is the story of Abraham and it is takes place around the 18^th century BCE, or 3,700 years ago.

Now don't make the mistake of thinking the Bible is a history book. For example, Abraham, when he appears in the Book of Genesis is already 75 years old. He's one of the most significant figures in Jewish history and the Torah doesn't tell us about him as a child or as a young adult -- we pick up his story when he is an old man already.

The Bible is not concerned with giving us all the details of Abraham's life. It is interested only in history as a means of teaching us the important lessons of life -- it's a book of theology in Jewish worldview first and foremost. Therefore, it focuses on the basic information that we need to know.

HOW ACCURATE IS THE BIBLE?

An article was published recently in the Israeli newspaper Ha'Aretz, smashing the Bible, and in the same week, an article was published in US News and World Report -- a cover story, no less -- supporting the accuracy of the Bible vis-a-vis archeology.

Why such diametrically opposed views? Because archeology is a very complicated field. So a few words of caution are in order.

The definition of archeology is "the discovery and interpretation of the physical remains of previous civilizations and peoples." Note that within the definition of archeology is the word "interpretation". How one archeologist interprets the meaning of a particular find can be very different from how another archeologist interprets the meaning of the same find.

Archeology is not a hard science. When an archeologist finds a piece of rock, a vessel, or a piece of a building, he tries to decide what it means. The find has no label on it, unless it's a written document, and even written documents are open to interpretation.

So when people make definitive statements about what archeology does or doesn't say, you have to be very careful, because the bias of the archeologist affects how he interprets the information.

As the early books of the Bible are concerned, there is little direct evidence for the characters in the Bible. There is, however, a huge amount of indirect or circumstantial evidence -- names, places, business contracts, marriage contracts, migratory patterns. An enormous amount of information in the Bible has been borne out by archeology.

That is as far as the early books of the Bible are concerned, but once we get to later books, like the Book of Kings, for example, there is excellent direct evidence, written records of other emperors, etc. But the early events exist more or less in a historical vacuum and, unfortunately also in an archeological vacuum.

Keep in mind that the same thing that applies in a court of law applies to archeology: Lack of evidence is no evidence of lack. The fact that I haven't found Abraham's camel saddle doesn't mean Abraham didn't have a camel or a saddle. And, indeed, there is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence supporting the basic historicity of the Bible.

Archeology doesn't definitively prove the Bible, and it certainly doesn't discredit it. In fact the more we find, the more we see that there's a tremendous amount of historicity in the text.

In summary, the Bible is not a book of history, yet it contains history and culture, which is more or less borne out by archeology. It's a book of teachings, and it's the ideal way to learn the patterns of history. And if we understand that the reason why we're learning history is to learn lessons, then we have to pay extra special attention to what is going on in the Bible.

PATTERNS IN JEWISH HISTORY

The actions of the fathers are assigned to the children. (Nachmanides)

This is a very famous Jewish saying and Nachmanides was not the only one to say it. What does it mean?

On the microcosmic level, within the stories of Genesis in the Bible, we're going to see that what happens to the ancients will be repeated by their children.

On a macrocosmic level, the personalities and interactions of the early forefathers -- the patriarchs and matriarchs -- are going to be a model for all of Jewish history, and all of human history. This is why we have to pay extra special attention to what's going on at this early phase of the Bible, because here is where the patterns are set.

Additionally, we must remember that the Jewish people are arguably the oldest surviving people on the Planet Earth, and because they have been spread out throughout the world, when we learn Jewish history we have to pay attention to all of human history. It's a great framework. To understand Jewish history means to build a great deal of general knowledge of the history of the world at large.

We can't appreciate Jewish history (or the history of any people for that matter) without understanding the larger context in which it takes place.

by Rabbi Ken Spiro

By understanding the character of Abraham, the "proto-Jew", one can understand what Jews are all about.

Jewish history doesn't happen in a vacuum. No people's history happens in a vacuum. So first we have to zoom out and get a little understanding of where Abraham fits in the world of his time.

Abraham appears at a period of time called the Middle Bronze period, around the 18^th century BCE. (Early civilization is characterized by the metals they predominantly used and the Middle Bronze period includes the period of time from 2200 BCE until 1550 BCE.)

Whereas most anthropologists believe that hominids, forerunners of human beings physically, originated in Africa, human civilization begins in the Middle East in the Fertile Crescent, which is where Abraham was born.

When we say civilization, we are talking about sophisticated arrangements of people living together, not just simple agrarian settlements, not just a few people living in a few huts. About 5,500 years ago in the Middle East, there occurred an evolution of humanity from hunter/gatherers -- people who spend their whole day looking for food -- to people who were able to domesticate livestock. This meant they could raise animals to eat them or to use them for their milk and their hides, and to plow the land to grow crops.

Once this occurred, there was a surplus of food, which led to population growth and people started specializing in types of labor -- you had craftsmen, scholars, priests and warriors. That, in turn, led to the growth of cities.

The earliest civilizations in the world, according to most opinions, began in the area called the Fertile Crescent.

THE FERTILE CRESCENT

The Fertile Crescent encompasses the area flowed by the Nile in Egypt, the Levant (the middle section where Israel is located), and the area flowed by the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

The three great rivers contribute mightily to the fertility, and consequent desirability, of this area. The Nile is an incredible river, the largest river in the world. Without the Nile, Egypt would be a desert. In ancient times, 3% of Egypt was arable land, 97% was desert. Also the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers are two tremendous rivers; they run through what is today basically Iraq and into Turkey, but what historians have dubbed Mesopotamia, which is Greek for "in the middle of two rivers."

There is some debate whether the first civilization sprang up in Egypt or in Mesopotamia (specifically in the section of Mesopotamia called Sumer) but we can be fairly sure that the first hallmark of civilization -- writing -- originated in the Fertile Crescent.

Writing was a tremendous invention though we take it for granted today. It began with pictographs. You drew a stick figure and that stood for "man." Later those pictures evolved into more abstract symbols which stood for phonetic sounds, until eventually there came about a system of three "letters," each representing a sound and combining together to make a word that conveyed an idea. (To this day, Hebrew is based on a three-consonant root system.)

Writing was the single greatest human invention. All the technology of today depends on the collective accumulation of accurately transmitted information, which now comes so fast we can't keep up with it.

"A SPEAKING SOUL"

From the Jewish perspective the ability to express oneself -- whether through writing or speech -- personifies what human beings are all about. We learn that when God created the first human being -- Adam -- He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7) The Hebrew phrase l'nefesh chayah, "living soul," can also be translated as "a speaking soul." (Targum Onkelos)

Of the two earliest civilizations that developed, Egypt is unusual because it's surrounded by desert and so it is virtually unapproachable. Egypt as a civilization survived for close to 3,000 years. This is an incredibly long period of time for civilization to survive. Why did Egypt survive for so long? Because no-one could invade it. It took the Greeks -- specifically Alexander, the Great -- to finish Egypt off, and then it becomes a Greek colony.

Mesopotamia had no such natural defenses. It was a giant flood plain sitting in the middle of the great migration pattern of all ancient peoples. Whatever conqueror came out of Asia or out of Europe set foot here. It had no natural defenses -- no mountains, no deserts -- and it was a very desirable fertile land.

We see the land changing hands many times and a huge number of civilizations in this part of the world -- Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and then, of course, the Islamic invaders.

AT THE CROSSROADS

In this tumultuous place is where Jewish history begins -- at the bottom of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in the cradle of civilization. This was the logical place for civilization to begin in terms of the development of agriculture and culture. And it's also a logical place for Abraham to appear, because if Abraham is going to affect the world, he has to be at the crossroads of the ancient migration pathways. If he were born an Eskimo or an American Indian, all of human history would have been different.

But Abraham was born in Mesopotamia, in particular in a bustling place called Ur Kasdim, or Ur of the Chaldees, which has been excavated by archeologists in today's Iraq.

This was then the center of earliest human civilization, a cosmopolitan center. And it is from here that Abraham's journey begins.

by Rabbi Ken Spiro

Abraham gave rise to a nation of Hebrews -- people who live "on the other side."

History is a guidebook for the future. The early lessons of Jewish history reveal a pattern, so we have to pay extra special attention to anything that happens at this period of time.

When we meet Abraham in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, he is already 75 years old, which is interesting because we'd love to know what Abraham did as a little kid and what sports he played, etc. But God doesn't want to fill our brains with extraneous information. He only wants to give us the messages we need to learn, because He's trying to teach us and guide us.

The story of Abraham begins when God first speaks to him. This means that Abraham lived his whole life without prophecy, without any kind of outside confirmation that his ideology of monotheism is correct, and this says a lot about Abraham's dedication to truth.

In an entirely polytheistic world, Abraham chose to see the reality of one God and to dedicate himself to a mission -- if necessary, at the cost of his own life -- of bringing that reality to human consciousness. He did so not because God needs people to die for Him, but because that's reality.

It's one thing if God is regularly speaking to you, you'll take any pain to live in that reality, but to just go on the basis of your own conviction takes some doing. And this gives us a little indication of what a great human being Abraham was and what a tremendous idealist he was. He did not mind standing "on the other side" -- and that is the meaning of the word Ivri, "Hebrew."

And this is why I call Abraham "the proto-Jew." From Abraham onward, we see this idealism -- an uncompromising drive to "change the world" -- in the Jewish personality.

Abraham passed on this drive to his descendants, who have been at the forefront of virtually every major advance, cause, or social movement in world history. (Jews have not only been awarded a disproportionate number of Nobel prizes for their intellectual contributions, but have led movements such as communism, socialism, feminism, civil rights, labor unions, etc.) Notes non-Jewish historian Ernest Van den Haag:

Asked to make a list of the men who have most dominated the thinking of the modern world, many educated people would name Freud, Einstein, Marx and Darwin. Of these four, only Darwin was not Jewish. In a world where Jews are only a tiny percentage of the population, what is the secret of the disproportionate importance the Jews have had in the history of Western culture? (Ernest Van den Haag, Ernest, The Jewish Mystique.)

The answer to Van den Haag's question is understanding the personality of Abraham.

THREE PATTERNS

So now let's take a look at how Abraham is introduced in the Bible -- not for purposes of Bible study but to identify the sweeping patterns we encounter here, of which we can identify three.

Number one:

God said to Abram, "Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1)

We see here that God is not like Charles Dickens. Dickens got paid by the word, and he would be as verbose as possible. God is the exact opposite. So the question we have to ask is: Why does God, who uses words so sparingly throughout the whole Bible, repeat this command so emphatically? "Separate yourself completely, not just from your land, but from your birthplace, from your father's house."

If you grew up in a specific house for a specific period of time, that will always be home for you. When you think of home, no matter where you've lived after that and how comfortable you've been, you'll always think about it as home. There's a very deep connection. So God is saying to Abraham: "Separate yourself on the most basic emotional level."

More importantly, from the macrocosmic, historical perspective, God is saying to Abraham, and therefore the Jewish people: "Separate yourself completely and go in a different direction."

The journey that God is directing Abraham to undertake is not just a physical journey, it's a journey through history that is going to be different from anyone else's. Abraham is going to become a father to a nation that is not reckoned among the rest of the nations, a nation that dwells alone.

This is the first unique characteristic of Jewish history.

Number two we learn in the next verse:

"I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing." (Genesis 12:2)

This verse conveys God's promise that He will be actively involved in Jewish history: "I will make you ..."

In the 17^th century when Blaise Pascal, the great French enlightenment philosopher, was asked by Louis XIV for proof of the supernatural, he answered, "The Jewish people, your Majesty." Why? Because he knew Jewish history and he realized that for the Jewish people to survive to the 17^th century, violated all the laws of history. Can you imagine what he'd say seeing the Jews made it to the 20^th century?! Jewish history is a supernatural phenomenon.

Jewish people should have never come into existence. With Abraham's wife Sarah being barren, that should have been it. Abraham would have died, and his mission would have died with him. But it didn't. A miracle happened.

Thus we learn that the Jewish people come into being miraculously and survive all of human history miraculously, outliving some of the greatest empires that ever were.

This is so because the Jews are a nation with a unique mission, a nation with a unique history. Things happen to the Jews that don't happen to other peoples.

To live for 2000 years as a nation without a national homeland is not normal. It's unique in human history. To re-establish a homeland in the place that was yours 2000 years ago is not normal. It's unique in human history.

And number three:

"I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and through you, will be blessed all the families of the earth." (Genesis 12:3)

God is saying here to Abraham that he and his descendants -- the Jews -- will be under God's protection. The nations and peoples who are good to the Jews will do well. Empires and peoples that are bad to the Jews will do poorly. And the whole world is going to be changed by the Jewish people.

That is one of the great patterns of history. You can literally chart the rise and fall of virtually all the civilizations in the western world by how they treated the Jews. A part of it is supernatural for sure, whether it's Spain or Germany or Poland or America or Turkey. We will see this as we go through the timeline.

Part of it, by the way, is not so supernatural, because if you have a group of people living within your country -- an educated, driven, dedicated, loyal, creative, well-connected people -- and you're nice to them and you allow them to participate and contribute in a meaningful way, your country is going to benefit. If you crush those people and expel them, you're going to suffer, because of the economic fallout. But, of course, there's much more going on than just that.

So we have a third pattern -- that the rise and fall of nations and empires is going to be based on how they treat the Jews, which is an amazing idea, and one you can clearly demonstrate in human history.

You can see the incredibly positive impact the Jews have had on the world. The most basic of all is that the Jews have contributed the values that are now linked with democracy -- the values that come from the Torah -- respect for life, justice, equality, peace, love, education, social responsibility etc.

So from these three verses in Genesis we see the key underlying patterns of Jewish history.

Abraham's journey is the paradigm. His personal life and the life of his immediate descendants is going to be a mini-version, a microcosm, of what Jewish history is all about.

by Rabbi Ken Spiro

God gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his descendants are supposed to create the nation that's the model for the world.

God gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his descendants are supposed to create the nation that's the model for the world.

The Jewish story begins in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, when God first speaks to Abraham, and continues through to the end with the death of Jacob and Joseph. This segment can best be described as the development of the "family" of Israel, which in the Book of Exodus will become a "nation."

In the last installment of these series we examined the patterns set into history when God sent Abraham on his journey.

Abraham had been born in Ur Kasdim in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq) then moved with his father to Haran (today's northern Syria/southern Turkey) and that is where he got the instruction to go to Canaan, the Promised Land, which will become the Land of Israel.

God said to Abram: "Go from your land ... to the land that I will show you." (Genesis 12:1)

This is a key statement and the promise is repeated several times. For example:

On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites." (Genesis 15:18-21)

"And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary residence, all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession and I will be a God to them." (Genesis 17:8)

We say that Judaism is God, Torah and the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel is not a pay off. God did not say to Abraham: Support me and if monotheism spreads throughout the world, I will give you a good piece of real estate for your own. God gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his descendants are supposed to create the nation that's the model for the world.

A SPIRITUALLY SENSITIVE PLACE

The Land of Israel is a special place; it's the only place on the planet earth where the Jewish people can achieve their mission. A model nation cannot come to be anywhere else. So, it is very important to understand the Jewish relationship with the land.

And because it's a special place, a spiritually sensitive place, a place of tremendous potential, it's also a place where one has to behave in a special manner. The Jews were only given the land because of their mission. If they abandon the mission, they lose the land. This is another very important lesson in Jewish history which is repeated, and it is also one of the most often repeated prophecies: "If you don't keep Torah, the Land will vomit you out."

Throughout the early part of the Bible, God is constantly talking about giving the Jewish people the Land of Israel and reaffirming that commitment.

Indeed, the great 11^th century Biblical commentator Rashi, asks a question of the very first sentence in the Bible: Why does God begin with the creation of the universe?

If the Bible is a book of theology for the Jews, why not begin with the creation of the Jewish nation and go immediately to the story of Exodus. That's when the Jews become a nation, get the Torah, and go into the land.

And Rashi answers, quoting an ancient oral tradition that in the future, the nations of the world will say "you are thieves" to the Jewish people. You have stolen the land from the Canaanite tribes. So God begins the Bible here at the creation of the universe to tell the world: "I am the Creator of the Universe. Everything is mine. I choose to give the Land of Israel to the Jewish people."

CLAIMS OF CONQUEST

Every other nation in the world bases its claim to its land on conquest. A people came (for example, the English or the Spanish) conquered the indigenous people (for example, the Indians) took the land, settled it, and called it by a new name (for example, United States of America). "Might makes right" is the historical claim of almost all nations in history.

However, the Jewish people base their claim on God's promise. It is a moral claim because God is God and God is by definition truth, and God is by definition morality. God gave the Jewish people the Land of Israel. Without that, the only claim the modern State of Israel can make is it is stronger and was able to take the land from the Arabs.

This is a very important thing, and essential for the State of Israel -- which is not a religious state and often far removed from Jewish values -- to realize that the Bible gives the Jews a moral claim.

Indeed, the early founding fathers of the modern state, even if they were not religious, were deeply steeped in the realization of Biblical heritage of the Jewish people and their connection to the land. Ben Gurion had an appreciation of the necessity of anchoring a modern, even secular Israeli state in Judaism and Jewish tradition. (We'll get more on Zionism later in this series.)

ISHMAEL

After Abraham arrives in the Promised Land, he is faced with a dilemma. His wife Sarah is barren, and she wants Abraham to have an offspring. So she suggests that Abraham take a surrogate wife, Hagar, who joined Abraham's camp when he passed through Egypt. Hagar is the daughter of the Pharaoh and she had elected to travel with Abraham as Sarah's maidservant. Great people have great servants. And so Abraham takes Hagar as his second wife and from that relationship is going to come a child by the name of Ishmael.

Ishmael will not want to carry on Abraham's mission. Ishmael will go off and found his own lineage; this is all recorded in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 16.

In human history, we're going to have two great monotheistic faiths, which are going to appear later, after Judaism is already established for more than 2,000 years: Christianity and Islam.

Islam is a religion which originated with the Arab peoples. The Arabs, according to their own tradition and according to the Jewish tradition, are the descendants of Ishmael. One of the great attributes of Arab culture is hospitality. And the Bible tells us that Abraham was famous for hospitality.

It seems therefore that even though Ishmael does not carry on Abraham's mission he can't help but be great. He's blessed. By the way, the Bible says specifically that Ishmael is going to be great and that he's going to be at odds with the rest of the civilized world.

"You shall call his name Ishmael ... And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall live in the presence of all his brothers. (Genesis 16:11-12)

SUPERNATURAL BEGINNING

When it is clear that Ishmael will not carry on the mission, God tells Abraham, who is then 99, that Sarah, who is 90, is going to become pregnant. And this is how Isaac is born, supernaturally.

As we noted earlier, this is what defines the Jewish people. The Jews never should have been there. The Jews certainly shouldn't have survived, yet they did and still are here.

Before Sarah conceives God tells Abraham:

"Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an eternal covenant to his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael ... I have bless him and I will make him fruitful and will increase him exceedingly. He will become the father of twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish My covenant with Isaac who Sarah will bear to you at this time next year." (Genesis 17:19-21)

So Isaac is the person who will carry on the mission of Abraham, the mission of the Jews.

Next Lessons 6 - 10