Ur of the Chaldees אור כשדים
Avraham's native city in Mesopotamia, and by tradition the place where he was thrown into a furnace for refusing idols.
Ur is the city from which Jewish history departs. The Torah names it as the birthplace of Terach and his sons and reports flatly that Haran died there in his father's lifetime. Midrash fills in the scene: Avraham smashes the idols in his father's shop, refuses to bow to the fire worshipped by Nimrod, and is thrown into a furnace—from which he emerges unharmed, while the wavering Haran does not.
The city's name means "fire" in Aramaic, and the sages play on the coincidence. The historical Ur was a great Sumerian city on the Euphrates with a ziggurat to the moon god; some commentators place Ur Kasdim further north, near Charan.
After Haran's death Terach leads the family out of Ur toward Canaan—and stops halfway. The road a father abandoned will be finished by his son.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 11:28–31 — the death of Haran and the departure of Terach’s family
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 38 — the idol shop and Avraham with the axe
- Pesachim 118a — the dispute over the furnace of Ur Kasdim and Avraham’s rescue
Rishonim
- Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1 — how Avraham arrived at belief in one God
Basis: tradition.