*_What is the Theme of Stories of Genesis?_*
*_A Review of the Parashat Vayeshev(And he settled)_*
One of the most fundamental questions about the Torah turns out to be one of the hardest to answer. What, from the call of ELohim to Abraham in *Genesis 12* to the death of Joseph in *Genesis 50*, is the basic religious principle being taught? What does the entire set of stories about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, together with Jacob’s sons and daughter, actually tell us? Abraham brought monotheism to a world that had forgotten it, but where do we see this in the actual text of the Torah itself?
Here is the problem. The first _eleven chapters of Genesis_ teach us many fundamentals of faith: that Elohim brought the universe into being and declared it good; that Elohim made the human person in His image; that Elohim gave us freedom and thus the ability to do not only good but also bad; that the good is rewarded, the bad punished and that we are morally responsible for our actions. *Chapters 8 and 9* also tell us that Elohim made a covenant with Noah and through him with all humanity.
It is equally easy to say what the rest of the Torah, from *Exodus to Deuteronomy*, teach us: _that Elohim rescued the Israelites from slavery, setting them on the road to freedom and the Promised land; that Elohim made a covenant with the people as a whole on Mount Sinai, with its 613 commands and its purpose, to establish Israel as a kingdom of priests and a Set Apart nation_. In short, Genesis 1-11 is about *creation*. Exodus to Deuteronomy is about *revelation and redemption*. But what are *Genesis 12-50* about?
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all recognise Elohim . But so do non-Jews like Malkizedek, Abraham’s contemporary, described as _“priest of Elohim Most High” *(see Gen. 14: 18)*_. So even does the Pharaoh of Joseph’s day, who says about him, _‘Can there be another person who has Elohim’s spirit in him as this man does?’ *(See Gen. 41: 38)*_. Elohim speaks to Abraham,
