Parshat Lech Lecha - 5761 The
First RASHI - Revisited In the essay
related to Parshat Bereshit, I mentioned that
we need the first RASHI
now as never before, as we battle with the Muslims over the right of
possession of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem in particular.
In his first comment on the Torah, RASHI quotes Rabbi Yitzchak as
asking in the Midrash Tanchuma, "Why does the Torah begin where it
does? Should it not begin in
Shemot 12:2, where the Jewish People are given their first communal Mitzvah,
Sanctification of the New Moon at the beginning of each month?" Rabbi
Yitzchak, in the Midrash,
answers, "It was to teach the world the principle stated by "David
HaMelech," King David, in Psalms 111:6; namely, 'He has declared to His
People the power of His works.' So that if the nations of the world say to
Israel, 'You are thieves, for you took possession of the land of the Seven
Nations by force,' they will be able to answer, 'All the world belongs to
G-d. He Created it, and gave it
to whomever He wished. It was
His Will that it first be allocated to those Nations, and it was by His Will
that it be taken from them and given to us.' " I pointed
out there that this understanding of Rabbi Yitzchak is incomplete, for the
Muslims can argue, "Just as He gave it to you once, so He has now
determined to take it from you and give it to us."
So when we look more closely at Rabbi Yitzchak's words, we see that
he meant that the whole Book of Bereshit
and the beginning of the Book of Shemot make it clear that HaShem
promised to Avraham, Yitzchak and
Yaakov, that the Land of Israel would ultimately belong to their
descendants, the Jewish People. The
beginning of that chain would be with the "seed
of Avraham," and that
"seed" refers to
Yitzchak, and not to Yishmael! The
decisive proof of this comes when HaShem tells Avraham to listen to Sarah
when she demands that Avraham send Hagar and Yishmael away, "for it is in Yitzchak that your seed will be called" (Bereshit
21:12) I would like
to extend here the idea of Rabbi Yitzchak to include that, in this Parshah
of "Lech Lecha," we see Avraham performing
an act of conquering, very
real in itself, but also by which he symbolically
took possession of the Land for his descendants,
and that this act was ratified by
HaShem in the "Brit Bein HaBetarim," the Covenant
that took place "among the pieces."
By this act, Avraham was performing "Maasei Avot,"an
"Act of the Forefathers"
that is considered to be "Siman LeBanim," a "symbolic and
reference act for later acts in history
performed by their descendants." This idea was found in "Binah BaMikra," the collection of "Divrei Torah" on the Parshiyot of the Week by HaRav Yissachar Yaakovson that was originally conceived, in 1950, as educational radio presentations on "Kol Yisrael" in the newborn Jewish State, in order to familiarize the population with the great texts of its heritage. The
author/editor cites M.D. Kassuto who points to the relationship between the
War Among the Kings, recounted in Chapter 14, and the "Brit bein
HaBetarim," described in Chapter 15.
In Chapter 14, a cataclysmic "World War" is described, in
which five subjugated Kingdoms rebel against an Alliance of Four Kings, and
are soundly defeated. Avraham
is called upon to undertake the heroic role of fighting against the
victorious and vastly outnumbering forces of the Four Kings, in order to
rescue his nephew, Lot. In
Chapter 15, that recounts the "Brit bein HaBetarim," Avraham is
promised, in the course of that Covenant, the Land that was just conquered
by the Four Kings, whom he has defeated. Thus, the
later conquests by Moshe and Yehoshua, of Lands abutting and comprising
"Eretz Yisrael" were in fact re-conquests of Land that had already
been conquered in actuality, but also
symbolically, by the courageous Father of the Nation, Avraham Avinu. One thing we see is that a "Promise by HaShem" of a certain outcome is not enough to guarantee its actualization. An element of "hishtadlut," "human effort," is required to bring even a promise by the One Whose Seal is Truth from potential to reality. Avraham had to go to war against the Four Kings, in order to achieve the ratification by HaShem of his ownership of the Land in the "Brit bein HaBetarim." HaShem of
course came to the miraculous aid of Avraham as with his 318 troops, he
administered a decisive defeat to his opponents.
As he would come to the miraculous aid of Moshe, on the outskirts of
the Holy Land, and of Yehoshua in the body of the Land as, led by the "Aron,"
the Ark of the L-rd, they marched against their opponents. And as He
came to the miraculous aid of the Jewish People in 1948, after the nightmare
of the "Holocaust," perhaps also foreshadowed by two centuries of
slavery in Egypt, in the "Milchemet HaShichrur," the War for
Independence, after nearly two thousand years in Exile. So that if our "cousins," the Arabs, had only honestly read the Bible, and not tampered with it, they would have seen that it was to the Jewish People that the Holy Land of Israel was given by the L-rd. And that it is on the Temple Mount that the Third Temple will be built by the "Mashiach." The face of "Eretz Yisrael" is hard to gauge. On one hand, there is much ignorance and corruption and immorality. Yet, at the same time, there is more Torah being learned there now than perhaps at any time since Biblical times. Therefore, we will not lose hope of Redemption and of "Teshuvah," Repentance, and of great things to come, including the fairly imminent arrival of the "Mashiach." It is likely that we have entered the period of time known as "Ikvesa de-Mashicha," the "ushering in of the time of the Mashiach;" but, even if not, and because of our unworthiness, our wait is still to be prolonged, we will say with our ancestors, "And even if he may delay, I anticipate every day that he will come." (Twelfth Principle of Faith of the RAMBAM)
Rabbi Pinchas Frankel |
