Today’s portion is challenging. I could really use some help from y’all as you chew on it!

The story is about how the decision of Abram to ask his wife to pretend to be his sister played itself out.

Basically, Pharaohs people saw Sarai and brought her to him. Pharaoh bestowed gifts on Abram.

But then, Hashem afflicted Pharaoh and his household because he had another man’s wife.

Pharaoh figured it out, and gave Sarai back to Abram and sent people to protect Abram and Sarai and their possessions.

Before I share my thoughts; I need to acknowledge I share with the lens of my identity as a man. I am really curious as to the thoughts of women here, because I imagine the approach to this portion (Genesis 12:14-13:4) might be different.

But here’s my thoughts;

Judaism has a reputation of being very patriarchal. Men seem to have a lot of power but women not as much. Looking at Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism, I certainly see the changes happening and women having more power; but at the end of the day, Judaism has its roots in the patriarchy.

However, my take, is in this passage we see the incredible power of a woman.

Whether Abram did the “right” or “wrong” thing, I’m not sure. He seemed to be rewarded for what happened (which creates cognitive dissonance for me) – where as I feel he should have trusted Hashem and moved forward and not lied about his relationship to Sarai. Yet that’s not what happened.

But it is clear that Pharaoh did the wrong thing, even though he didn’t know he was doing the wrong thing. He was punished (a disease befell his house). Maybe that’s a wrong way to look at it…but it certainly wasn’t good.

Sarai is painted here as powerful. She is the focus.

What are your thoughts? What do you get out of this story? This passage?