פרשת נח תשכ"ה - תחילתו של אברם

And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

על פני תרח אביו IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH — meaning during his father’s lifetime (Genesis Rabbah 38:13). The Midrashic explanation is that he died through his father. For Terah accused his son Abram before Nimrod of haying smashed his idols to pieces, and he cast him into a fiery furnace. Haran waited and said to himself, “If Abram proves triumphant I will be on his side; if Nimrod wins I shall be on his”. When Abram was saved they said to Haran, “Whose side are you on?” Haran replied, “I am on Abram’s side”. They therefore cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burnt to death. It is to this that the name of the place Ur-Kasdim (fire of the Chaldees) alludes (Genesis Rabbah 38:13). Menachem ben Seruk, however, explains that אור means a valley, as (Isaiah 24:15) “Glorify ye the Lord in the valleys (באורים)”, and as (Isaiah 11:8) “the den (מאורת) of the basilisk”. Every hole or deep cleft may be called אור.

על פני תרח אביו IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH — meaning during his father’s lifetime (Genesis Rabbah 38:13). The Midrashic explanation is that he died through his father. For Terah accused his son Abram before Nimrod of haying smashed his idols to pieces, and he cast him into a fiery furnace. Haran waited and said to himself, “If Abram proves triumphant I will be on his side; if Nimrod wins I shall be on his”. When Abram was saved they said to Haran, “Whose side are you on?” Haran replied, “I am on Abram’s side”. They therefore cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burnt to death. It is to this that the name of the place Ur-Kasdim (fire of the Chaldees) alludes (Genesis Rabbah 38:13). Menachem ben Seruk, however, explains that אור means a valley, as (Isaiah 24:15) “Glorify ye the Lord in the valleys (באורים)”, and as (Isaiah 11:8) “the den (מאורת) of the basilisk”. Every hole or deep cleft may be called אור.

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.

וימת תרח בחרן AND TERAH DIED IN HARAN after Abram had left Haran (as related in the next chapter) and had come to the land of Canaan and had been there more than sixty years. For it is written, (Genesis 12:4) “And Abram was seventy five years old when he left Haran”, and Terah was seventy years old when Abram was born (Genesis 11:26), making Terah 145 years old when Abram left Haran, so that there were then many years of his life left (i. e. he lived many years after that — as a matter of fact, 60 years, as he was 205 years old when he died). Why, then, does Scripture mention the death of Terah before the departure of Abram? In order that this matter (his leaving home during his father’s lifetime) might not become known to all, lest people should say that Abram did not show a son’s respect to his father, for he left him in his old age and went his way. That is why Scripture speaks of him as dead (Genesis Rabbah 39:7). For indeed the wicked even while alive are called dead and the righteous even when dead are called living, as it is said, (2 Samuel 23:20) “And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada the son of a living man”.