Welcome to Torah Video Mashup, where we bring you the weekly Torah portion as told by your favorite viral YouTube videos.
People complain that our society is going totally ADD, especially when it comes to education. Who knows? Maybe this video is too long. Maybe it would be better if the story of Abraham and Sarah were just a crummy iMovie trailer…
So that’s cool, but you haven’t learned anything. So let’s do this in short chapters.
God then told Abram to leave his country and his father’s house for a land that He 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. That land of course is Canaan, AKA Israel. I wonder if Abraham’s vision came to him like this Israeli tourism video?
There was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, so that Abram and Lot and their households, traveled south to Egypt. En route, Abram told his wife Sarai, to only say that she was his sister, (totally weird) so that the Egyptians would not kill him. She also had to…well…walk like an Egyptian.
Which begs an important question: does anyone actually know the lyrics to that song? Oh well…
Back in the land of Canaan, Lot separates from Abram and settles in the evil city of Sodom, which according to Fundamentalists looked a lot like the nightclub Babylon from the hit Showtime series Queer as Folk. That’s a whole other story.
Never the less, Lot he falls captive when the mighty armies of Chedorlaomer and his three allies conquer the five cities of the Sodom Valley. Abram sets out with a small band to rescue his nephew, defeats the four kings, and is blessed by a mysterious character named Malki-Zedek the king of Salem (Jerusalem). Basically, Abraham is the Chuck Norris of Bronze Age Iraqis.
Still childless ten years after their arrival in the Land, Sarai tells Abram to marry her maidservant Hagar. Hagar conceives, becomes insolent toward her mistress, and then flees when Sarai treats her harshly; an angel convinces her to return, and tells her that her son will father a populous nation. Ishmael is born in Abram’s eighty-sixth year.
Thirteen years later, G‑d changes Abram’s name to Abraham (“father of multitudes”), and Sarai’s to Sarah (“princess”), and promises that a son will be born to them; from this child, whom they should call Isaac (“will laugh”), will stem the great nation with which G‑d will establish His special bond. Abraham is commanded to circumcise himself, and that’s why we have a bris with white fish and your uncle Morty.