Lech-Lecha
Lech-Lecha, Lekh-Lekha, or Lech-L'cha ( leḵ-ləḵā—Hebrew for "go!" or "leave!", literally "go for you"—the fifth and sixth words in the parashah) is the third weekly Torah portion (, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis 12:1–17:27. The parashah tells the stories of God's calling of Abram (who would become Abraham), Abram's passing off his wife Sarai as his sister, Abram's dividing the land with his nephew Lot, the war between the four kings and the five, the covenant between the pieces, Sarai's tensions with her maid Hagar and Hagar's son Ishmael, and the covenant of circumcision (brit milah). The parashah is made up of 6,336 Hebrew letters, 1,686 Hebrew words, 126 verses, and 208 lines in a Torah Scroll (Sefer Torah). Jews read it on the third Sabbath after Simchat Torah, in October or November. Readings In traditional Sabbath Torah reading, the parashah is divided into seven readings, or , aliyot. In the Masoretic Text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Parashah Lech-Lecha has three "open portion" (, petuchah) divisions (roughly equivalent to paragraphs, often abbreviated with the Hebrew letter (peh)). Parashah Lech-Lecha has several further subdivisions, called "closed portion" (, setumah) divisions (abbreviated with the Hebrew letter (samekh)) within the open portion divisions. The first open portion divides the first reading. The second open portion covers the balance of the first and all of the second and third readings. The third open portion spans the remaining readings. Closed portion divisions further divide the fifth and sixth readings. First reading—Genesis 12:1–13 In the first reading, God told Abram to leave his native land and his father's house for a land that God would show him, promising to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless those who blessed him, and curse those who cursed him. Following God's command, at age 75, Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and the wealth and persons that they had acquired in Haran, and traveled to the terebinth of Moreh, at Shechem in Canaan. God appeared to Abram to tell him that God would assign the land to his heirs, and Abram built an altar to God. Abram then moved to the hill country east of Bethel and built an altar to God there and invoked God by name. Then Abram journeyed toward the Negeb. The first open portion ends here. In the continuation of the reading, famine struck the land, so Abram went down to Egypt, asking Sarai to say that she was his sister so that the Egyptians would not kill him. The first reading ends here. Second reading—Genesis 12:14–13:4 In the second reading, when Abram and Sarai entered Egypt, Pharaoh's courtiers praised Sarai's beauty to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's palace. Pharaoh took Sarai as his wife. Because of her, Abram acquired sheep, oxen, donkeys, slaves, and camels, but God afflicted Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues. Pharaoh questioned Abram why he had not told Pharaoh that Sarai