Abraham’s call to leave a culture steeped in idol worship was a call to leave all that was familiar to him.
The "finely carved" bath averages some two-meters in depth, with independent pools and spillways and a central passage taking water into a drainage duct.
One element of the washing is called “shifshuf yadayim,” which literally means “rubbing the hands,” and is initially described in the Tosefta (Yadaim 1:2), a 2nd-century CE compilation of Torah law.
The term devekut is often rendered in English as “cleaving.” Alas, using an English term that is not part of common speech hardly clarifies the experience being described.
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