Sarah’S Story

By Yvonne Kaplan

This is the story of a journey. It begins in Ur Kasdim in Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. The long walk follows the direction of the Euphrates River. The story is told by Sarah and gives insight into her deepest thoughts and emotions. The journey is fraught with difficulties, and she takes the reader with her on this unknown path because of the constant need to move onward. There are unexpected encounters and some dangerous situations which must be dealt with and overcome. The story shows Sarahs fortitude and courage and the strength of her beliefs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Nov 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482876277

Yvonne Kaplan

Yvonne Kaplan has always had a love of the written word. She was a gold medalist in the National Eisteddfod in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been reading books for the library for the print handicapped for almost four decades. She believes that communication spans continents and cultures.

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Copyright © 2016 by Yvonne Kaplan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa

Contents

Chapter 1    Ur Kasdim

Chapter 2    The Proposal

Chapter 3    Canaan

Chapter 4    Egypt

Chapter 5    Lot

Chapter 6    Sodom

Chapter 7    The Dream

Chapter 8    Circumcision

Chapter 9    Gerar

Chapter 10    Isaac

Chapter 11    Ishmael

Chapter 12    Passing The Torch

Dedication

To the memory of our son and brother, Jeremy, Yair.

You continue to live on with us every day.

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Chapter 1

UR KASDIM

W e all have our place in this world, and we are all exactly where we are meant to be. I knew this even when I was a small child. We lived in Ur Kasdim, in the southern region of Mesopotamia, between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. There were mountains in the north where rain and snow fell. Then the great rivers would come down in flood, spilling fertile silt along the banks. Crops of barley, wheat, onions, turnips, grapes and apples grew abundantly. But the floods were unpredictable, so that if the crops were not harvested in time, much was destroyed by the angry waters. We were allowed to run free. There was a large group of children of all ages with whom we played. Sometimes we ran around the date palms. Sometimes we bothered the herders who looked after the sheep, goats and cows. They would pretend to be angry and chase us off, but actually they welcomed the intrusion because it lifted the boredom of watching the animals. The herders knew about the animals: when they would deliver young, what grazing they needed to stay healthy, how to protect them from predators. The farmers knew about planting: what soil was good for growing the different crops, how to shelter the plants from insects, and how to build irrigation canals to bring the water from the river to the fields. My close companion was usually my sister Milcah. She hated getting muddy. She was always fussing with her attire. She knew how to drape her garment to make it look long and flowing. She knew how to arrange her hair so that it caught the sunlight. She fashioned ornaments out of pretty stones made smooth by the river. She was indeed a beauty. Next to her fair colouring, I was olive-skinned with long, thick dark hair and smouldering eyes. People told me that I was beautiful, but to me, inner beauty was the most important.

I knew instinctively about the world. I had dreams about the order of the world, and how each creature fitted into the plan. Sometimes I dreamed about something which had not yet happened – and it always unfolded exactly as it did in my dream. My family laughed when this happened, and gave me the name Yiscah which means to foresee. Whenever someone wanted to know about the future, they came to ask me. However, I could not just call up this gift – it only came to me in dreams, and I had no control over these dreams. But they made me aware that there was a power greater than men, which caused the world to function. I spent a lot of time thinking about this subject.

Abram, the brother of my father, was also a thinker. Sometimes we would walk together, and he would say, These clay idols which my father makes, they surely do not have the ability to change the outcome of people’s prayers. I have watched the sun move across the sky. I have felt the intensity of its’ heat. Without the warmth of the sun, plants do not grow. Yet when there is drought, and the sun is too hot, all things wither and die. Do you think that the sun is a god?

I would answer him: I have observed the sun. For part of the year it is very strong. During the winter it loses some of its strength. Would a powerful god lose strength some of the time?

He would reply, I thought it might be a god because of its strength, but at night the sun disappears, and the moon and stars shine brightly. I thought that perhaps the moon and stars were gods, but at dawn they are no longer in the sky. The people of Ur Kasdim worship the moon-god Nannar. They have built a three-cornered tower to her in the middle of the square. Yet I have observed the moon become small and then grow again. Surely a god would remain constant all the time?

We would discuss these matters at length. The answers were not immediately apparent, and we would argue back and forth, stating what we had observed, and why the idols which our father and grandfather, Terach, made out of clay, were probably also not gods. Abram came to the conclusion that the force which ruled the world was The Creator, the One true G-d.

We had happy times. My Grandfather Terach, spent all day fashioning idols out of clay, and then fired them in his furnace. He sold them in the market-place to people who came from all around. This meant that my father, Haran, and my uncles Abram and Nachor and their families lived well. We had comfortable houses, built from mud bricks, with windows facing inwards to a courtyard, so as not to see, or smell, the people who lived around us. We had servants to clean and cook, sheep to slaughter and eat, milk and cheese and produce from the fields. Sometimes