The Choice Way

Parshas Vayera

Posted on October 21, 2010 (5771) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 

And HASHEM said, “Shall I hide from Avraham what I do, now that Avraham is surely to become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the world will bless themselves by him?! For I have loved him (Avraham) because he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of HASHEM to do acts of charity and justice in order that HASHEM might bring upon Avraham that which He had spoken of him. (Breishis 18:18-19)

Avraham is being treated as a partner of The Almighty. A loyal friend would not do something that would upset his comrade’s world without first consulting with him. It’s wondrous to behold such a level of Divine endearment directed at a single mortal individual. It begs a larger question though.

The Ramchal in Derech Etz Chaim writes the following: This is the most powerful medicine that you can find to cure the negative inclination. It’s easy and yet it result is profound, and its fruit is plenty. The person should set aside and fix at least one hour daily a time without any other distractions and consider and focus on only this matter about which I have spoken (to wonder about your purpose in the world) and he should consciously meditate in his heart on the following question: “What did the Patriarchs of the world do that HASHEM desired them so? What did Moshe do? What did David the anointed one do? And all the other great individuals that preceded us, what did they do that they went up into His mind? What would be good for a person to do all the days of his life so that it should also be good for him?

What had Avraham done that distinguished him from all the other people that came before him? What had he done to be chosen? How did he prove himself worthy to G-d?

What might we be able to do that would earn perhaps similar recognition? Could anything be more important in the entire world?

The hint is as subtle as the sun at noon! The verse above identifies two items. Avraham will teach his children to go in the way of HASHEM for all generations! Well, what is the way of HASHEM? How is it such a certainty that Avraham will be able to cast his opinion and his influence across so many future generations?

A woman was buying clothing for her boys for an upcoming holiday when she noticed the rather sad face of a child pressed against the window of the store on the outside. She recognized the boy and remembering that he was an orphan who had recently lost his father. She asked her own children to step aside momentarily while she went outside to speak to the young fellow. Within minutes the mother had kindly coaxed the youth into the store and was urging him to pick out a jacket, pants, shirts, and a tie just as if he was her own. While she stood in line to pay for these items the boy queried naively, “Are you HASHEM?” The woman chuckled and responded in all modesty, “No! I’m just one of his children!” To which the boy retorted, “I thought you were related!!”

The verse explicitly states that the way of HASHEM is “to do acts of charity and justice”. So Avraham is portrayed as living in HASHEM’s spotlight, high on the stage of human history at an advanced age, infirmed, deep in prophecy, yet in search of strangers in the heat of the day to wash, feed, and dignify. Styles and tastes come and go. The political landscape changes like the seasons. An act of kindliness, though is classic-always in-style, and for all time it’s the choice way.

DvarTorah, Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Label Lam and Torah.org.

 

 

 

 

Why Test Abraham?

Parshas Vayera

Posted on November 15, 2019 (5780) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

 

The Mishnah in Avot specifically, and Jewish tradition generally, instructs us that our father Abraham was constantly challenged with great tests in life and was able to survive and surmount all of them. There is an underlying difficulty to this narrative regarding the testing of Abraham. G-d after all is omniscient and knows well in advance what the reaction of Abraham will be to all the challenges that are placed before him. This being the case, then one can easily ask why bother presenting those challenges in the first place.

This fits in to the general question that Maimonides deals with when he attempts to reconcile G-d’s omniscience with the presence of human free will and free choice. His answer is that both exist and coexist and that is part of the secret of the fact that human beings and human logic can never truly understand the Infinite and the Eternal. So that is undoubtedly true in the case of Abraham and his challenges.

Even though ultimately we will be unable to arrive at a definitive answer to this question – almost all questions that begin with the word ‘why’ are never completely satisfactorily answered – nevertheless I believe that we can attempt to arrive at some sort of understanding as to the purpose of the tests that Abraham endured and overcame. The Torah would not have devoted so much space and such detailed descriptions to these events in the life of Abraham if there wouldn’t be eternal moral teachings present in the narrative that are relevant and true to all humans in all generations.

I think the obvious answer that jumps forth from the pages is that the tests are not meant to prove anything to Heaven as much as they are meant to prove the potential of greatness of Abraham to Abraham himself. It is our nature not to realize how great our potential is, how strong we really are, morally and emotionally, and to our surprise what we are capable of accomplishing.

It is one thing to profess that one has faith and is willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the preservation of that faith, whether personal or national. However, it is another thing completely to make those sacrifices, and to experience the emotional difficulties and even tragedies that life often visits upon us. A person never really knows what one’s true makeup is unless tested over a lifetime, with the Talmud’s graphic phrase that we are ultimately tested regarding our final resting place.

Abraham becomes great and stands erect after having successfully dealt with the challenges to his faith and to his vision that life and the environment in which he lived set before him. That is perhaps what the Torah indicates to us when it says that Abraham’s faith was of such power in nature that the Lord deemed it to be the paragon of righteousness. Righteousness is achieved only when challenges are overcome.

Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Berel Wein