Friday, October 11, 2013

Parshas Lech Lecha - Mind Your Surroundings

Parshas Lech Lecha



Mind Your Surroundings
By: Daniel Listhaus

וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל אַבְרָם לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶלהָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ: וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵה בְּרָכָה

Hashem said to Avram, 'Go for yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.'”
-Lech Lecha 12:1-2

The mishna1 mentions that there were ten tests that Avraham avinu was given and he passed all of them, demonstrating the incredible amount of love Avraham must have had for Hashem. One of these ten tests is the opening passuk (verse) of this week's parsha.2 Hashem commanded Avraham to leave his birthplace and his father's house and to keep traveling until Hashem would tell him that he had reached his destination. Imagine getting into your car and start traveling to an unknown place with no idea where you were going, and no clue how long it would take to get there. Certainly only someone with absolute trust and love would be willing to blindly follow such instructions.

The passuk3 tells us that upon commanding Avraham to leave his house, Hashem promised that He would bless Avraham and make him into a great nation. Rashi4 writes that this is what Hashem was hinting to in the words “lech lecha” - literally “go for yourself”. Hashem conditioned Avraham's having children and ultimately becoming a great nation as well as becoming famous in the world on his listening to the tzivui (direct commandment) to leave his land and be prepared to journey to the mysterious land which Hashem promised to later show him. It was therefore for Avraham's benefit and pleasure that he leave his land in order to merit these blessings.

Although this Rashi seems pretty simple on the surface, it becomes problematic when one reads the next Rashi. The next Rashi5 comments that the reason that Hashem needed to promise these three things specifically was because of the following. When one travels, there are three things which consequentially diminish. When one is on the road there is less opportunity for reproduction, money gets spent faster, and it is almost impossible to maintain a good name because one is never settled in a single place long enough. Therefore, Hashem promised Avraham that if he obeys the commandment to leave, Hashem will guarantee that he will still merit children and become a father of a nation, become extremely wealthy, and maintain his good name.

These Rashi's seem to contradict each other. The first Rashi explains that the berachos were conditioned on Avraham's leaving, yet the second Rashi implies that these berachos were only necessary to persuade Avraham that despite the fact he was traveling he would receive these things. However, we all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So why not the following simple solution: Let Avraham stay home and not diminish his possibility of having children, his money, and his name, and there would be no reason to have to promise the things that he would be missing by traveling away from home?

Perhaps we could suggest the following. Certainly, Avraham avinu could have not traveled and still have been able to have children, and granted he could have become wealthy and achieved a great name. However, the quality of these things would have a ceiling based on the affect of staying in his father's house. In commanding Avraham to leave his birthplace and home, Hashem was telling him that he must go for himself, for his own benefit and pleasure in order to be able to achieve the superior quality of these things. Somehow staying in the house of Terach or even in the vicinity of his birthplace would have a limiting affect on Avraham's potential.

The problem with this answer, though, is that Avraham already proved to the world that the fact that he grew up in the house of avodah zarrah was something he had an immunity to. The medrash6 describes that Terach used to run an idol shop. One day, Terach had to leave town and Avraham took over running the business for the day. While on the job, a man entered the shop to purchase an idol. Avraham asked him, “How old are you?” The man replied, “Sixty years old”. Avraham then said to him, “You mean to tell me that you are sixty and yet you wish to purchase an idol to worship that was made a day ago?” The man, embarrassed, left the store without buying anything. Later that day a woman came with flour and wanted to buy an avodah zarrah to feed and worship. Avraham took a stick and started smashing all the idols in the store. Then, he placed the stick next to the largest idol. When his father came home he asked Avraham what in the world had happened. Avraham told him that the idols had started fighting with each other and finally the biggest idol came and smashed all the other ones. This event ultimately led to him brought before Nimrod and being thrown into the furnace in front of the entire community in order to demonstrate what happens to someone who does not believe in the avodah zarrah, however as we know, Avraham came out alive and a tremendous kiddush Hashem was made.

Clearly Avraham avinu was someone who was not affected by those around him. He made his own decisions, came to his own realizations, and was not willing to believe in things which made no sense to him, even if those alternatives would have allowed him to live a care-free life with no restrictions. He did not care what his family thought of him, he did not care what his community thought of him, and he did not care about what Nimrod thought of him. If so, why was it necessary for him to move out of his birthplace? Everything he was to gain he could have just not lost by staying put and additionally, he seemed to be immune to his environment so what was there to lose by staying?

Later in the parsha, during the Bris Bein Ha'besarim between Avraham and Hashem, Hashem promised Avraham that he will give Eretz Yisroel to his children. When describing the boundaries of Eretz Yisroel, Hashem says, “To your descendents I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River....”7 Rashi8 writes that despite the fact that when the Torah mentions the four rivers which came out of Gan Eden, the Euphrates was mentioned last,9 still the Torah refers to it here as the “great river” simply because it was close to Eretz Yisroel. Rashi continues to say that the slave of a king is a king and one who stays close to a ruler will be bowed down to. In other words, the types of things we associate ourselves with and the types of people we are close with not only has a profound affect on the way we are perceived by others, but even has an affect on how we begin to feel about ourselves. The river mentioned last of the ones going out of Gan Eden, becomes a “great river” merely by being adjacent to Eretz Yisroel.

Similarly, Rashi tells us that one of the Pharaoh’s had seen all the miracles that Hashem had done for Sarah and the house of Avraham. He therefore declared, “Better my daughter be a slave in Sarah's house than a main wife in another household”, and he gave his daughter, Haggar as a maidservant for Sarah. Even Pharaoh realized that people are affected by who they spend their time with. There is no comparison between a maidservant in the house of Avraham and being a main wife in a different house. Avraham's household was one of pure royalty, worshiping only Hashem and meriting miracles, and those who were around him benefited greatly.

Perhaps with this we could better understand the reason why Avraham had to leave his father's house. When it came to telling Avraham to leave his land, granted he could have had the berachos to some degree by staying where he was, but indeed it would have been of lesser quality. Even Avraham, who was a master of fighting avodah zarrah and seemed to be immune to the people around him, would have still been lacking because of who he would be hanging around with. In order to achieve the highest quality of the berachos he had to separate himself and leave the bad environment behind him. Certainly this was a difficult task for Avraham to be willing to leave his land where he had done so much and proven to be immune to the ideologies of those around him, yet he was still willing to pick up and move in order to reach higher and achieve the berachos with a superior quality that could only be achieved by completely disassociating himself with those around him.

If this is true of Avraham, it is surely true of us as well. May Hashem help us choose the paths we take carefully so that we do not find ourselves associating with those who will lessen the quality of who we are able to be.
1Avos 5:4
2There is a machlokes (dispute) how to count the ten test. Some Rishonim learn that Avraham being thrown into the fire, though not explicitly in the Torah, was the first test. Others learn that this nisayon (test) of “lech lecha” to move away from his family was the first test.
3Beraishis 12:2
4Rashi Beraishis 12:1
5Rashi Beraishis 12:2
6Beraishis Rabbah 38:13
7Beraishis 15:18
8Ibid.

9See Beraishis 2:14

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