Netvort 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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