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Parshas Lech Lecha 5771: Let Me Count the Ways
By Rabbi Joshua (categorically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
In this week's haftarah reading the prophet Yeshaya tells us that God referred
to Avraham as one who loved Him: " But you, Yisroel, my servant Yaakov,
seed of Avraham, who loved Me" (Yeshaya, 41:8). However, we do not see
spelled out in the Torah that Avraham loved God. Rather, in parshas Vayeira,
after the incident of the akeidah, we are told that Avraham feared God. Some
commentators say that the fear of God referred to in that verse is not fear of
punishment for sin, which is a primary level of fear of God and on a lower
level than love of God, but awe and reverence of God, which is an outgrowth of
love of God and on a higher level than fear of punishment. Where, however, do
we find in the Torah examples of Avraham's love for God? I believe that we can
find such examples in the very beginning of our parsha.
Parshas Lech Lecha begins with God's command to Avraham to leave his home and
go to the land that He will show him. God says to Avraham: "Go from your
land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I
will show you" (Bereishis, 12:1). The Ramban explains that the three
places that Avraham was commanded to leave are listed in reverse order because
while it is hard to leave one's land, it is harder to leave one's birthplace,
and harder still to leave the house of one's father. God was telling Avraham
to leave all three out of love for Him. By following God's command, then,
Avraham demonstrated that his love for God exceeded his love for his land, his
birthplace and his father's house. In a following verse, we see a further
indication of this love of God, and, perhaps, an indication of why God tested
Avraham's love by issuing His command.
The Torah tells us that when Avraham left on his journey, he took others along
with him: "Avram took his wife Sarah and Lot... and all their possessions
that they had amassed, and all the souls that they made in Charan..." (Bereishis,
12:5). Who were these souls? Rashi says that the plain meaning (peshat) is
that they were the slaves and slave women that Avraham and Sarah had acquired.
However, the rabbis say that these souls were the souls of the people who
Avraham and Sarah had influenced and brought under the wings of the shechinah,
the divine presence. The Rambam, in his Book of Commandments (Sefer HaMitzvos),
positive mitzvah no. 3, writes that part of the mitzvah to love God is to
influence others to serve God and believe in Him. He explains that if someone
truly loves another, he will praise him and strive to move others to love him,
as well. Thus, when someone loves God, he will certainly speak of Him to
nonbelievers and try to influence them to recognize the truth. The Rambam then
cites the Sifre, which says that the mitzvah of loving God includes bringing
others to love Him, similar to what Avraham did, as we find in the verse, "and
the souls he acquired in Charan." The Rambam explains that just as
Avraham, who loved God as the prophet Yeshaya testifies, brought others to
believe in Him, out of his great love, so, too, should we act in a similar way
out of our love for God.
Perhaps we may add to the Rambam's explanation of the Sifre that Avraham loved
whom he loves. This form of love for God is implicit in the verse in parshas
Kedoshim which enjoins us to love our friend as ourselves. That verse ends with
the words, "I am God," which can be explained as implying that our
love for our fellow man should come from a realization that we are all children
of God. Actually, there is a difficulty raised by some Talmudic commentators
in regard to Avraham's remark to Sarah, as they were going down to Egypt to
escape the famine in Eretz Yisroel that he now knows that she is a beautiful
woman (Bereishis, 12:11). The difficulty here is that according to the rabbis,
Avraham observed all of the laws of the Torah, including rabbinic laws, and the
Talmud (Kiddushin, 41 a) tells us that a person should not marry a
woman before he sees her, because he may later see something repulsive in her
and transgress the command to love one's friend as oneself. Many answers are
given to this question, but Rabbi Yaakov Reisher, in his commentary to the Eyn
Yaakov, entitled Iyun Yaakov, explains that there was no need for Avraham to
look closely at Sarah before their marriage, because Avraham's love for his
fellow human being was so great that there was no possibility that he would
come to transgress the mitzvah of loving one's fellow. This love, as we
explained, was an outgrowth and expression of his love for God.
The midrash (Bereishis Rabbah, 39:1) tells us that God Told Avraham that He
would make him into a new being in the land that he would go to. Rabbi Yaakov
Koppel Reinetz, in his work Hon Yakar, explains that God's command to
Avraham to leave his land and go the land He would show him came as a
result of Avraham's efforts to move others to believe in God. God said,
according to the midrash, as explained by Rabbi Reinetz, that since he
made new people out of the souls he converted, He would make Avraham into a new
person, as well, by having him begin a new life in Eretz Yisroel. We may add
that this midrash reflects an idea later developed by Rav Yehudah HaLevi in his
the opinion of the Kuzari, that the Jewish people constitute a fifth category
of beings in the world, coming after the inanimate, the vegetative, the living,
and the speaking. The category of 'the speaking' refers to human beings, who
are characterized by their ability to speak. Avraham, by moving people to
believe in God, was bringing out their inner nature, as distinct from animals,
who merely exist as living beings, but do not strive for higher meaning in
life, as represented by the proper use of speech. Since God said that He would
reward Avraham by making him into a new category of being, which of necessity
means a higher category than which he was previously (for more on this concept,
see Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook's sicha to parshas Lech Lecha, as transcribed in
Peamim). In any case, according to this midrash, God's command to leave his
land,, out of love for Him, came as a result of the love for God that he
displayed by turning nonbelievers in God into believers in Him, thus
aiding them in fulfilling man's charge to be, in the words of Onkeles in Parshas
Bereishis (2:7), in translating the words ‘‘(and man was) a living soul, 'a
ruach memala. My teacher Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt'l, explained
that this means 'a speaking soul.' The love for God that
Avraham displayed, then, generated a further opportunity to express
that love, in the sense of the reward for a mitzvah being the opportunity of
doing a future mitzvah. In this way, we can understand why God, as noted by
Yeshaya, referred to Avraham as one who loved Him.
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