Parshas Lech Lecha
October 30th-31st, 1998
11 Cheshvan, 5759

We note with great sadness the passing of an outstanding friend, spirit, citizen and Jew: Mr. Ben Portman, may he rest in peace.  Our deepest condolences to the whole Portman mishpachah.

More than once in my life I have been stopped in public by Christians who--of all things--wanted to bless me!  (I think it's happened twice, and both times since I've lived here in the South). 

"Those who bless you are blessed!" they explained with great warmth and excitement...leaving me, each time, both pleased and a bit puzzled, and (naturally, always) a tad apprehensive that this was just the opener for an attempt to save my soul.   Having been approached, one Saturday night, by a pamphlet-toting missionary in the bathroom (!) of our kosher ice cream parlor, Rainbow Row,  I feel justified in a degree of wariness.

In any case, I have to hand it to many Christians: they take their Bible seriously.   (First off, they actually read it...which is a good start.)  The ones who stopped me were quoting, and taking to heart, a possuk in this week's parsha.

Lech Lecha opens with Hashem's call to Avram to leave the familiar surroundings of homeland, birthplace and father's household and journey to an unknown land.  He was 75 years old, and from the Talmud and Midrash we learn that this was not the beginning of Avram's devotion to G-d, but
merely the start of a new and grander phase of his career, the culmination of decades of dedication to pursuing--and then spreading to mankind--the truth of His rule.  Lech Lecha marks the opening of G-d's prophetic revelations to Avram. 

Interestingly, Avram's original conclusion that the world was controlled by One Supreme Being was arrived at through independent intellectual inquiry; lacking any teacher (or rebbie) in his early years, and surrounded by idol - worshippers in the great city of Ur of the Chaldees, Avram examined the processes of nature and traced them back to an original Cause.  (Perhaps we'd dub him the first Jewish physicist, in quest of a Unified Theory!)  As Rambam writes in a famous passage from Mishnah Torah ("Hilchos Yeshodei HaTorah"),

"...his mind was busily working and reflecting until he had attained the way of truth, apprehended the correct line of thought, and knew that there is one G-d, that He guides the celestial sphere and created everything, and that among all that exist, there is no god besides Him.  He realized that men everywhere were in error, and that what had occasioned their error was that they worshiped the stars and the images, so that the truth perished from their minds...Having attained this knowledge, [at the age of 40, according to Rambam, though the Midrash offers alternative opinions of his age as well] he began to refute the inhabitants of Ur of the Chaldees..." (Yesodei HaTorah: 1, 2; translation by Twersky, A Maimonidies Reader).

Hashem's command to Avram to break with his past represents, obviously, a great and grueling test of faith.  At the same time, Hashem promises him many blessings in return, chiefly the privelege of fathering a great nation dedicated to his own ideals; this is why the Torah does not just say, "lech," which would be a simple command of, "go," but adds the word, lechah (for yourself, literally or as Rashi comments: "for your own benefit, for your good.")  Hashem says:

"And I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by [or, through] you."  (12, 2-3) 

Here we have the verse that prompted those people to stop me and bless me: a divine promise that those who "bless" the Jewish people will themselves be blessed.  And vice versa.  Plus a statement that all the families of the earth will bless themselves by the Jewish people--or, alternatively, be blessed through the Jewish people.

Rashi goes with the first of those two readings as the simple and straightforward meaning (p'shat) of the verse: parents of the other nations will bless their children that they
should be like Avram.  The Talmud and Midrash propound the second reading as a deeper-level understanding (d'rash): the world enjoys blessings--physical blessings of rain, health, prosperity and the like--through the Jewish people, i.e., in their merit.  

To some people, this may sound rather strange.  But, as the Midrash also states, it's for the sake of the Torah and the nation that carries it (Israel) that the whole world exists in the first place!  So it makes sense that the blessings the whole world enjoys are bestowed because of the Jewish people.

After stating that rain comes to the world in the merit of the Jewish people, the Midrash Rabbah adds another interesting blessing the Jews provide:

"R. Nehemiah said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham: AND IN THEE SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED. Now if that is meant in respect of wealth, they are surely wealthier than we! But it was meant in respect of counsel: when they get into trouble they ask our advice, and we give it to them.  (Genesis Rabbah: 39, 12; Soncino translation.)"

Through our prophets and the holy spirit that animated our greatest sages, the commentaries on the Midrash explain, we dispensed advice and godly insight to the nations of the world!  The Midrash mentions Yosef, who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams and masterminded the world economy
in the time of the Egyptian famine.  I couldn't help thinking that it's probably not a coincidence that it's a Jew today at the head of the Federal Reserve Board who, perhaps more
than any other single individual (or, at least, so say the radio shows I've listened to) will determine how we deal with the current economic crisis.

We shouldn't feel conceited in the least by this news that we bring blessing to mankind, for the concept of am nivchar, a Chosen People, is not some divine license to look down on the rest of mankind (all of whom were created in the image of G-d); on the contrary, it's awfully sobering: we have the responsibility, on behalf of G-d and the rest of the families of mankind, to carry out the Torah...for the benefit of the whole universe.   As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch decribes the election of Israel:

"G-d's will was to be revealed to this people, and upon its fulfillment was to depend what the other nations would consider its weal or woe. Thus, by its fate and its way of life, this people was meant to provide an object lesson about G-d and about man's task...Recognition of G-d and of man's calling found a refuge in this nation and would be taught to all through its fate and its way of life, which were to serve as a manifest example, a warning, a model, an education." (Nineteen Letters, p. 106; Feldheim.)

And, as our verse says, and my Christian friend believed, the nations of the world stand to gain by paying heed.  The more the nations of the world further the principles of the Torah, Hirsch writes, the more they are blessed:

"...the more they acknowledge you [the Jewish people], the more brachah they will receive.  But G-d asserts that finally all the peoples of the world...will participate in this blessing inasmuch as they will  found their lives on the same foundation on which you are to found yours."   (Commentary on the Torah: I, 228-29)

May we Jewish people take to heart our responsibility to be a blessing to this world...whether or not we're ever stopped on the street by a friendly Christian who wants to be blessed through blessing us.   And may we soon see the day when all mankind, united in His service, can enjoy the
full measure of blessings the Almighty wants to bestow.

GOOD SHABBOS!!!

Insights Into Genesis
Insights Into Exodus

Rabbi Yosef Edelstein is Director of the Savannah Kollel/ Savannah Torah Education Project. Phone: 355-0157;
fax: 354-9923; e-mail address: Yosef18@aol.com

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