Why Avraham?
INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
Parashat Lekh Lekha
Why Avraham?
By Rabbi Yaakov Beasley
1
Now Hashem said unto Avram, Get
you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house,
unto the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make
your name great; and you will be a blessing.
3 And I will bless them that bless you, and he that curses you
will I curse; and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (Bereishit
12:1-3)
Most of us recognize the
dramatic opening of our parasha.
Hashem calls upon Avraham
(at this point, referred to in the Torah as Avram) to leave his familiar
surroundings, his ancestral homeland, and his family. Even though the Torah mentioned
Avraham briefly at the end of last weeks parasha, it is in our
parashas opening that Avraham makes his grand entrance onto the Biblical
stage, influencing forever the course of world history.
Our first introduction to
Avraham tells us of two things both his intended journey and his ultimate
destiny.
Hashem makes four promises to
Avram: Ve-eeskha le-goy gadol, I will make you into a great nation, ve-avarekhekha,
and I will bless you, va-agadla shemekha, and I will make your name
great, ve-heyei berakha, and you will be a blessing. Although the exact destination of
Avrahams journey is not yet clear, the purpose is - Avraham and his descendants
are to blossom into a great nation that will become a shining light and a source
of blessing for the entire world.
However, as much as the Torah
revealed in these verses, what is most striking and glaring is what we are not
told. The Torah does not tell us
anything about Avrahams life story before he was selected by
Hashem to fulfill this mission.
Nowhere are we told what Avraham did to merit this divine chosenness. The Torah speaks only of Avrahams
future, but says nothing about Avrahams past.
To appreciate the difficulty
that this textual lacuna poses, consider that the Torah proposes more than just
Hashem choosing Avraham over his
contemporaries. What is occurring at
the beginning of this weeks parasha is no less than the most radical
change in the relationship between the Divine and the world since creation. Until now,
Hashem focused on maintaining a direct relationship with all of
humanity. Whether it was the initial
attempt to provide Adam and Chava with everything, to commanding Adam and Chava
in Gan Eden with just one requirement, His communications with Kayin during his
failures and frustrations, and then the effort to restart during the generation
of Noach, when the expectations (which developed in Jewish thought into the sheva
mitzvot bnei Noach, the seven Noachide commandments) were made more
explicit, the understood subtext that underlay all of these stories was clear
these are the expectations that Hashem
had of the entire world, not a select group of individuals. Now, after the failure at the
Given the radical
transformation that occurs at the beginning of the parasha and the
consequent importance of this choice for all of human history, we would have
expected that the Torah would provide us with an explanation of why Avraham was
the person who merited being charged with carrying out this new mission. Later, when
Hashem deliberates whether or
not to inform Avraham of His intention to bring judgment upon Sedom for their
misdeeds, we receive the first hint of an answer:
17
And Hashem said, Shall I hide
from Abraham that which I am doing; 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely
become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, to the end that he will
command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of
the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.(18:17-19)
In other words, what distinguished Avraham from the others was not that he was
necessarily the most righteous individual of his time. Instead, he was distinct in his
willingness to inform the world of the Divine message of righteousness and
justice. Most importantly, his efforts to do so began at home. Unlike the efforts of many, who
attempt to spread the word through strangers, Avraham realized that unless he
could inspire his own family members of the Divine truth, all his other
accomplishments would be for naught.
Most people are aware of the
attempts by the midrash to fill in the gaps in the historical record. In various places (Bereishit Rabba
38:13 and Pesikta Rabbati 21, among others), the Rabbis describe
Avrahams formative years in Ur Kasdim.
What emerges from their efforts is an inspiring picture of a young man
who combined at an early age (3 according to some, 40 according to others)
intellectual and spiritual precociousness with tremendous courage and strength
of character. The stories tell about
his discovery on his own of one God, confronting his fathers idolatrous way of
life (in a scene reminiscent of Gidons breaking of his fathers idols in
Shoftim 6), and his willingness to die in a fiery furnace no less for
his monotheism (drawing on another Biblical precedent the story of Chanania,
Mishael and Azariya in Daniel 4).
That these stories are meant to be taken as more than rabbinic hyperbole
is noted when we consider that the Rambam cites them with considerable detail in
his discussion of the laws of idolatry in his legal work, the Mishneh Torah
(Avoda Zara 1:2-3). Those
familiar with this work know that it is a halakhic, legal work that only rarely
includes aggadic midrashim or historical recollections.
And yet, these sources do not
answer the question; they beg the question.
If knowing Avrahams biography is of such central importance, why isnt
it presented in the Torah text? Why arent we told of all of his accomplishments
and formative experiences? Here is how R.
Soloveitchik ztl formulates the question:
The story of Abrahams early years - how he found God - is not recorded in the
Bible ... We would have liked the
Chumash to tell us about his sleepless nights when he was struggling with
himself, when he began to rebel against pagan society, when he left that
society. But we know nothing about
him until a mature age... (Abrahams
Journey [NJ, 2008], pp. 19,
41-43, 45-48)
The Ramban (11:28) was the
first of the commentators to address this difficulty. He answers that the Torah did not
wish to give a voice to the philosophical arguments and religious disputations
that were part of Avrahams early, formative years. R. Yoel bin Nun develops a different
idea. If the Torah were to give a
reason why Avraham was chosen before our parasha, it would appear that
the act of Hashems choosing
Avraham was a onetime act based on his earlier actions. Instead, the act of choosing was a
continuous process, granting additional significance to every action Avraham
takes in Sefer Bereishit.
There is one final question
that must be answered why did the Torah begin the process of moving to
We will conclude our study
with R. Soloveitchiks attempt to reconcile the two opinions:
Ibn Ezra says that Terach went in response to the divine command that Abraham
received from God... If we accept
this interpretation, we can solve another riddle.
Our Sages stated that Terach repented and embraced the new faith his son
was preaching... However, what we
miss is the story of Terachs conversion...
when did it happen?...
According to the Aggada, Terach was the one who informed King Nimrod of
Abrahams abusive and blasphemous treatment of the hallowed images and idols... Later - I dont know how long it took
- the same Terach saw the light and realized that Abraham was right... This was a tremendous change in
Terach. What prompted Terach to act
so strangely?... Surely the great
revolution in Terachs thinking was precipitated by doubts, soul-searching, and
reappraisal. In a word, it was the
transformation of a baal teshuva that was responsible for the decision
to abandon
[1] Running counter to this approach, the nineteenth century Chassidic thinker, the Sefat Emet, cites a tradition from the Zohar that the call lekh lekha was not, as the straight forward reading of the pasuk implies, a private call solely to Avraham. Instead, it was a universal call for all to hear. According to this amazing insight, in essence, Hashem was holding an open casting call; the offer of I will make you into a great nation was made to anyone who was willing to listen. Based on this understanding, the Torah is, in fact, revealing to us the reason for the selection: And Avraham went as Hashem had spoken to him (12:4) of all the people in the world, he was the only one who listened to what Hashem told him and acted accordingly.