Parshat Lekh Lekha
by Rabbi Avi Billet
After arriving in Canaan, Avraham is faced with a test of famine. On his own, absent instruction from God, he chooses to go to Egypt to find food, a move which in many ways sets the precedent for how his descendants would go down to Egypt (on account of a famine) and how they would leave (with wealth given to them by the Egyptians).
One question that is addressed by many commentators is “How does Avraham justify his taking Sarai with him? He is putting her in mortal danger!”
Noting that one is not supposed to rely on miracles (a theme many touch upon), Netziv writes that Avraham was relying on Divine promises. He had been told “Those who curse you I will curse,” which should serve as a protection from harm, but he only realized close to Egypt that that might only refer to possible enemies living in Canaan. And so while he hoped that God would protect Sarah, their proximity to Egypt made it too late for him to leave her or bring her back to Canaan. The Zohar (at the end of Parshat Tazria) notes that Avraham saw an angel accompanying him to protect them, and so when Avraham asks her to say “you are my sister” למען ייטב לי בעבורך (in order that he should be good to me on your account), he was referring to that angel, not his hopes for how “Egypt” might treat him. Avraham never had a fear in Canaan, because he was allied with Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre - people he could see - who provided protection from any of these kinds of shenanigans.
A direct answer to the question is that Avraham didn’t realize how bad it was in Egypt until he got much closer to his destination. (Radak) Had he known how bad it was, he would have stuck it out through the famine in Canaan (Radak). As they did go to Egypt, however, we might imagine his meeting people leaving Egypt who might have reported to him about their own experience. Or perhaps as he entered Egypt, he saw Egyptians looking at them in a way he had never experienced before. (Or HaChaim) Only at this point does he perceive that the people in Egypt are disgusting, licentious, and suspect to commit murder. (Malbim) Some suggest that Sarah’s beauty was noted by him in comparison to those he encountered as he got closer to Egypt (Or HaChaim, Ibn Ezra and others), because in Canaan, her beauty did not stand out, but in the climate closer to Egypt, things were clearly very different. Additionally, since Egypt is referred to as ערות הארץ (a term we later hear Yosef accusing his brothers of coming to check out – which could refer to the “vulnerability of the land” but literally means “the promiscuity of the land”), Avraham understood that Egypt is a very different place than Canaan, in terms of how they treat women. (Panim Yafos)
Ramban rejects the notion that Canaanites were more heavily invested in idolatry and more guarded against sins of immorality – and therefore a specifically safer place for Sarah. More likely, he offers, Avraham and Sarai’s fear of Egypt came because they were going to the capital, where the king would have ordered his henchmen to bring every beautiful woman to his home, after having killed her husband on some false pretense. [Netziv's position - noted above - takes issue with Ramban]
This approach, however, does not answer for how they could have gone to Egypt in the first place. Ramban suggests Avraham innocently thought that the rouse of saying they are siblings would get the Egyptians to be nice to him and allow him (them) to survive through the duration of the famine, and with God’s help (ויבא להם ריוח והצלה מאת האלהים לשוב) they would thrive… or they’d eventually escape from Egypt.
Ramban even notes the lack of evidence that Sarah agreed to the rouse, pointing out that as soon as the Egyptians saw her they took her without even asking if she’s a wife or a sister. She never said anything – it was Avraham who told everyone of their sibling status. This is why Pharaoh later blames Avraham but says nothing about Sarah, who - as a woman in that culture - was expected to say nothing, and certainly not to contradict the man in her life.
Before they arrive in Egypt, Avraham mentions his concern that Egyptians would kill him in order to take away her “married” status. Many commentators ask, “As Noachides, aren’t the Egyptians equally commanded not to murder, as they are not to commit sexual sins such as adultery?” (Da’as Zekenim (in the name of Rabbi Yosef Kara), Radak, and many more) The standard answer is that they’d likely look at it as a numbers game in terms of Noachide rule violations. If the king (many times) or any number of Egyptians (however many times) might have their way with a married woman, that would be a sin every time. Not to mention that Avraham would feasibly be alive to complain to the king (if it’s just regular Egyptians involved), which would exacerbate their collective sins. But if her husband is murdered, the murder is a one-time sin that would allow for all the acts to follow to not be viewed as adultery. (Radak 12:12, Chizkuni, R Chaim Paltiel, Riv’a)
Rabbi Matatya Mablon (quoted by Riv’a) suggested Avraham was also more concerned that the people didn’t learn the lesson from the flood because the sin of murder hadn’t been prosecuted by God, whereas the sin of immorality had been. So he felt they’d be more lax about committing murder to undo her status of being a wife, making her unattached and available to all. [Alshikh questions this, wondering why Avraham and Sarah couldn’t just be up front, and rely upon the idea that Noachides are warned against licentiousness AND against murder, so why assume they’d resort to murder? Further, the Egyptians they ultimately encountered, spoke of her to the king and made no effort to find out anything about her, suggesting his concerns were misplaced.]
Alshikh quotes a passage in Vayikra Rabba (32:5) that part of the purpose of Avraham and Sarah going down to Egypt was to set a precedent for how their descendants would exist in Egypt hundreds of years later. Just as Avraham and Sarah did not fall prey to being intimate with any Egyptians, the Bnei Yisrael later on would remain a separate race from the Egyptians, with no intermarriage or similar relations. This suggests a reason for why Sarah needed to come down to Egypt, irrespective of whether she’d be taken by Pharaoh… perhaps with their collective prophetic abilities, we might add, they knew it would somehow work out.
Alshikh continues suggesting that when Avraham said וחיתה נפשי בגללך – that my soul will live in your merit – he was saying that if you (Sarah) sacrifice yourself to possibly be taken, that merit alone will provide the guarantee that God will not allow them to harm you in any way.
Panim Yafos has an entirely different interpretation of Avraham’s thought process.
Avraham thought that if Sarah was willing to give up her life – even though she would not be obligated to (as the Rabbis note in the Talmud Sanhedrin 74b that if she is ‘uninvolved’ in whatever is done to her (קרקע עולם), she is blameless) – the Egyptians would have the following thought: ‘if she were unattached, she would not have to give up her life, as the deed would not be forbidden.’ Thus they would come to the conclusion that she is married. And they’d then kill him… knowing that once she is indeed unattached, she wouldn’t sacrifice her life because she wouldn’t need to under any circumstance.
However, Avraham would not be allowed to ask her to give up her life, because she knows she is his wife, and her giving herself up would cause them to turn around and kill him instead because it is much more worth it for them to keep her alive no matter what, even if she will never agree to be with any of them. They have much less problem killing a man than they have killing a woman , אפ"ה אין דרכם להרגה, מש"ה אין לה סכנת מות – Avraham’s argument being ‘they won’t kill you, no matter what you say, agree to do, or don’t agree to do.’ Were they to choose to kill him, there’d be no way he could save himself, and certainly no way he could advocate on her behalf and have her released in any manner.
Expanding this a little further, the Beis HaLevi assumes that saying they are siblings gives her an “out,” because as a single woman, she can decide whether she wants to be married to anyone. In his wildest dreams, Avraham never imagined that the king himself (Pharaoh) would take her. Everyman Egyptian would at least follow the common law – you can’t force a woman to do something she doesn’t want to do. But while the king could force her, there was “no way” she would find herself in the king’s presence under any circumstance.
One could argue that Avraham did not have a choice as to whether to bring her to Egypt. He had no idea what the society was like, and therefore only learned very close to Egypt what might happen.
Much of this is likely connected to the fact of Mitzrayim being a direct descendant of Cham (son of Noach) who proved through his having a child on the Ark and the way he treated his drunk father that certain kinds of sins were to be his descendants’ specialty, and that his legacy was ultimately at least one reason why Avraham would later instruct that his servant find a wife for Yitzchak from “the old country” – the land of Semites.
There are some cultures that honor and respect women, who only tolerate consensual acts – when both the man and woman wish to be with one another – and who otherwise leave people alone to conduct their own business and pursue their own “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” And there are others who do not respect women, who engage in horrific acts of sexual violence, and who don’t respect lives of those who are not one hundred percent on board with their own depravity.
As descendants of Avraham we are blessed to be in the former category, and we appreciate those who are on board with those values.
As for those who are on the other side, those who, for example, would massacre Jews (and Christians in the Middle East and Africa) because their culture allows for it… their contribution to humanity is in the negative. The world would do well to see what Avraham saw. And may God provide the assist that helps us defeat those who act like or even worse than the Egyptians that Avraham encountered.
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