Lech L'cha...problematic verses...."my sister not my wife"

Let’s take a look at Parshat Lech L’cha chapter 12: verses 10- chapter 13:1 Many interpretations have been written about this scene in the Torah. One such commentary found in the Art Scroll Tanach merely says, “This is another test of Abraham’s faith. Immediately after he settled in the new homeland where G-d promised him every manner of blessing, there was a famine, where upon G-d commanded him to leave the land for Egypt.” (That commentary was based on Midrash.) If you are like me, that commentary seems to miss noting something which is part of the larger picture. Perhaps it was a test of faith and Avram passed that test, but it was also a test of his character and in this instance, he sorely missed the mark. When Avram goes to Egypt he understands that his wife’s beauty can be used as a bargaining chip so to speak with the Pharoah as long as she says she is Avram’s sister not his wife. Notice how he asks her, “Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me for your sake, and that I may live on account of you.” If you look carefully at the text, there is no response from Sarai. Her feelings are not taken into account. In many ways she is treated as less than an equal partner in their marital relationship. Avram is exerting his male power to save his own skin. I tend to think he was not asking her to help him out, rather he was instructing her to do so. There is one noticeable change that occurs as a result of this incident. It can be seen when comparing the Hebrew in Genesis 13:1 with Genesis 12:5. In the earlier sentence, we read: “Avram took his wife (ויקח) Sarai” This phrase is used in relationship to leaving Haran for the land of Canaan. The use of this term indicates a relationship which is not equal between the one doing the taking and the one being taken. Avram also took his brother’s son, his wealth, and “souls they made in Haran (i.e. converts). In the latter sentence, after the incident in Egypt, the text does not use the term ויקח rather it states ויעל אברם ממיצרים הוא ואשתו “so Avram went up from Egypt, he with his wife.” We don’t know what Sarai said to her husband after she was released from the Pharoah’s house, but one can imagine that it caused a shift in Avram’s understanding that Sarai was part of the Divine plan with which he saw himself involved. Perhaps she finally put down her foot expressing her anger at having been used as a pawn in order to save Avram’s “tachat.” The one thing you have to admit when reading the Torah, it does not attempt to gloss over the humanity of our forebearers. We see them with all of their greatness and all of their weaknesses. Unless one looks at the nuances in the Hebrew, however, it is possible to miss the change in the relationship that took place between Avram and Sarai before leaving for Canaan from Haran and after going back to Canaan from Egypt. How should we look at the stories in Torah that make us uncomfortable? Should we try to rewrite them to suit our current sensibilities? Should we sweep them under the rug? What is the value in grappling with these stories? If you were to speak to Sarai today from our modern understanding of sexual abuse, what would you say to her? What would you say to Avram?