Nehama's Gilyonot by Dr. Moshe Sokolow

Note:

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THE SIDRAH OF LEKH-LEKHA:
WHAT GRADES DID AVRAHAM GET?

Prologue:

The Mishnah in Avot (5:3) notes that Avraham was tested ten times. It doesn't actually describe any of the tests, nor does it allow how well he fared on them, other than to say that he passed.

Textually, in fact, only the `Akeidah is cited, explicitly, as a test (nisayon); the balance of Avraham's tests1 can only be inferred from the Torah's accounts of his experiences. In this week's sidrah we will explore some likely tests and measure the extent of Avraham's compliance with them.

What We Learn From the `Akeidah

Since the `Akeidah, as we noted, is our only explicit test, let it set the pace for our inquiry. Let Avraham's ultimate test point the way towards the earlier ones.

While logic itself dictates that Avraham's emigration to Canaan constitutes his earliest test, we needn't rely upon logic, alone; we have literary evidence as well.

    1. First of all, the compound imperative of "go yourself" forms a kind of literary envelope to the life of Avraham, encompassing his first through last tests.
    2. threefold instruction: Parallel to the ‘Akeidah’s use of a threefold instruction, the opening scene of Avraham’s relationship with God utilizes a threefold instruction. This is more than mere numerical correspondence; as the level of specificity increases in each case, so does its personal intensity. It was harder for Avraham to designate only one of his two boys as "his son," even harder to admit only one as "singular," and hardest of all to acknowledge only one as "beloved." Similarly, it is easier to depart a "country" than a "birthplace," and hardest of all to abandon "family."
    3. no precise destination: The final literary link in the enveloping chain is the striking similarity between "to the country I will indicate to you," and "atop one of the mountains which I will inform you." Both seem to call for implicit trust by the one being tested in the One administering the test.

Imperative or Indicative?

What, exactly, was Avraham commanded? Was he instructed only to emigrate, or did his instructions entail more than just a change of scenery?

Put another way: What if Avraham had moved to Canaan, but instead of living in a tent opened on all four sides--the better to see and be seen--he had opted to live there in an isolation booth. Would he have satisfied God's requirements? Would he have passed the test?

In textual-exegetical terms, the question is: Where does the imperative--which begins with lekh lekha--end? Does it end with el ha’aretz asher ar’eka, in which case (a) emigration, per se, is all that was required of him, and (b) ve-e’eskha, etc. (vss. 2-3), details the reward he could expect for his obedience, or do vss. 2-3 belong, still, to a compound instruction2 which entailed (a) the initial act of emigration, as well as (b) settlement in Canaan of such a nature that becoming a source of universal blessing would be its (natural) outcome?

 "A" For Effort, but a Failing Grade in the Course

Assuming that Avraham was commanded not only to emigrate but also to settle in Canaan and there to earn God's expansive blessing, then, as RAMBAN sees it, he failed:

(Avraham's) departure from the land about which he had been originally commanded, on account of the famine, constituted a transgression on his part, because God would surely have saved him from starving to death. On account of this action his descendants were sentenced to exile in Egypt at the hands of Pharaoh, since the punishment fits the crime.

His very departure, then, from Canaan to Egypt was an error of commission which betrayed a skepticism about God's ability to spare him from famine and, therein, fulfill his expectation of blessing.

 Three Amora'im: More Failing Grades

Neither is RAMBAN the only one pointing a finger at Avraham's failure rather than to his success. The Talmud (Nedarim 32a) records this trio of Amoraic opinions regarding the Egyptian bondage:

    1. R. Abahu debits the bondage to Avraham’s impressing his learned householders into military service to free Lot3;
    2. Samuel attributes it to his reservations over God’s ability to deliver His promised land4; and
    3. R. Yochanan imputes it to Avraham’s failure to proselytize the captive Sodomites, by returning them to the King of Sodom5.

In essence, each of these three Amoraim sees yet another failure.

 What Did Avraham Fear?

Immediately after the battle with the four kings, God appears to Avraham in a vision, saying: "Fear not, Avram, I am your protector, your reward is very great" (15:1). If God had offered him His protection before he went to battle it would be understandable. What protection, however, does he need now? Three possibilities are raised in the Midrash6:

    1. He was conscience-stricken lest he had harmed an innocent party. God replies that they all received their just deserts.
    2. He feared reprisals. God promises His protection.
    3. He feared that he had received his reward in this world and had nothing left for the world to come. God assures him that all that has come to him thus far is gratis, and that his real reward still awaits him.

The first two possibilities are, respectively, moral and political. The first is consistent with the Avraham who subsequently pleads with God to spare Sodom in merit of its innocent inhabitants, and the second is reminiscent, to us, of the concern Jacob exhibited after the incident at Shekhem (34:30): ("lest they join forces to slay me and I will be destroyed along with my family").

The third possibility, however, is a religious one. Here we are privy to Avraham's--and, probably, every genuinely righteous man's--innermost apprehension: The fear that God's bounty has far exceeded his meager merit, as Jacob would subsequently put it (32:10):7.

 Va-Yahsheveha LO Tzedakah: Whose Was the Righteousness?

Avraham, while inherently certain of his overall success, nevertheless had good reason--if RAMBAN and our Amoraim are right--to be apprehensive about the reward his success merited him. Little surprise, then, that God offered him reassurance.

What attracts our attention as much as the promise of koh yiheyeh zar’ekha (15:5), that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars, is the phrase which follows immediately thereafter (15:6):

"He (Avraham) trusted in the LORD, and he (He?) accounted it as righteousness."

The question--alluded to by the parenthesis within the translation--is one of pronominal reference: Who did the accounting, and whose was the righteousness? RASHI and RAMBAN disagree. RASHI says that God is the subject of the second clause and that He counted Avraham's trust in Him as a measure of his righteousness. RAMBAN, however, feels that Avraham--the subject of the first clause--is the subject and that he regarded God's willingness to reward him, in spite of his own real, or imagined, shortcomings, to be an act of righteousness (or: charity?)8.

Conclusion:

The question we posed earlier in this lesson was whether lekh lekha constituted a test--administered by God to his acolyte, Avraham, with the concomitant reward of veheye berakhah  --or whether it comprised an instruction, issued by God to a proven devotee, with a corollary of anticipated blessing.

Avraham's spotty record of success and failure, as we have charted it, argues for the former (against, for example, the kivshan ha-eish school which clearly advocates the latter). Indeed, we --along with Yehudah haLevi, for instance9 -- actually find quite appealing the notion that God and Avraham enjoyed an evolving relationship in which their attachment grew incrementally over time, cultivated, and even abetted--catalytically--by successive tests.

SUPPLEMENT

Avraham and David, Nehama and the Rav: An Analysis of a RASHI

In his commentary on 15:1, RASHI provides the following synoptic paraphrase of the Midrash we have treated above:

After he experienced the miraculous destruction of the kings he voiced this concern: Perhaps I have received all the reward due me for my righteousness? Therefore God said to him: "Do not fear, Avram, I will protect you"--from being punished for killing all those people. As for your concern about reward--"Your reward is (still) great."

In her Studies in Bereishit10, Nehama Leibowitz draws our attention to the fact that RASHI has, subtly, changed Avraham's concern from one of having killed innocent parties11 to a more general concern over the spilling of blood. This, she notes, is reminiscent of God's expression of concern over David's spilling of blood, for which He denied him the opportunity to build the Temple. "The word of the LORD came unto me saying: You have spilled blood freely and fought great wars. You will not build the house which will bear My name, because you have spilled so much blood upon the ground before Me" (1 Chronicles 22:8).

Now just a minute! Avraham risks his life in a noble attempt to release people from captivity. In the process, he--almost inevitably--defends his life at the expense of the criminal marauders. Did he really have a choice? To have avoided all risk of spilling blood would have been tantamount to abandoning his nephew. Can this be condemned?

David wasn't fighting battles for glory and fame, he was prosecuting the LORD's plan for the conquest of the promised land. The enemies he slew knew the risks they were incurring through their resistance. Did he really have a choice? To have avoided all risk of spilling blood would have been tantamount to abandoning the divine promise of inheritance. Can this be condemned?

We may better understand the paradox Avraham and David faced by reading "Catharsis," an essay in which Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (the "Rav"), z"l, explains that halakhic heroism is not to deliver the coup de grace, but contrarily, even perversely, to stay one's hand and, like the Patriarch Jacob, let one's adversary go free.

The Torah wants man, who is bold and adventurous in his quest for opportunities, to act heroically, and at the final moment, when it appears to him that victory is within reach, to stop short, turn around, and retreat. At the most exalted moment of triumph and fulfillment man must forego the ecstasy of victory and take defeat into his own hands...

This dialectical movement, now matter how incomprehensible to modern man, forms, as we stated above, the very heart of Halachic living. In a word, the Halacha teaches man how to conquer and how to lose, how to seize initiative and how to renounce, how to succeed, how to invite defeat, and how to resume the striving for victory12.

Notes:

1. Apart from the typological use of the number ten, in general, the context of the Mishnah in Avot (it enumerates several things which occurred in tens) supports its typological usage here.

2. Note, in particular, the grammatical imperative "veheyei berakhah" as opposed to the indicative form "tiheyeh."

3. (quotation)

4. (quotation)

5. (quotation)

6. Bereishit Rabbah 44:5

7. See our appendix, here.

8. See Pinchas Becker: "Whose Tzedakah?" in Kol Torah (T.A.B.C.) 3/2 (1993), who attempts to resolve this disagreement.

9. Kuzari 4:27.

10. Iyyunim beSefer Bereishit (Jerusalem, 1983), 99.

11. (quotation)

12. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: "Catharsis," Tradition 17/2 (1978), 43-44.

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