Who was Avraham Avinu, what did he stand for and what should we learn from him? We are first introduced to him in last week’s Parsha later in his life, when God first speaks to him and tells him to move to the place that he will give to him and his family, and he will be blessed and made into a great nation. But who was he before this?
Many of us are familiar with the story of Avraham destroying the idols in his father’s shop, and mocking the pagan worships of idols when they wouldn’t believe that the idols had destroyed themselves. There is another Midrash which highlights Avraham’s courage to mock the beliefs of those around him and his ineptitude at being a salesman. One day an elderly man came into the idol shop to buy an idol. Avraham asked the man how old he was, when the man told him that he was 70 years old, Avraham asked him why he worships something younger than him. Avraham said, “You were born 70 years ago and yet you worship something that was made just yesterday.” The Midrash continues to describe similar interactions that he had with customers. How did the society handle Avraham’s attitude about their religions and Gods? Another Midrash describes the interaction between Avraham and the King of Babylon, Nimrod, after Nimrod became aware of Avraham’s blasphemy.
Nimrod who believed himself to be a God says to Avraham, “Don’t you know that I am God and ruler of the world, why have you destroyed my images?” Avraham said to him, “if you are God why don’t you cause the sun to rise and set, or if you are God, tell me what I will do in the future?” Avraham continues," you are a man, the son of a man, your father could not escape death and neither will you at the appropriate time.” Nimrod challenged Avraham, “then worship the fire which brings about death,” and Avraham responded, “why not the water which quenches the fire. Or the clouds which swallows water. Or the wind which blows the clouds. And then avraham pointed out that man can stand up against the wind. At this point Nimrod lost his patience and commanded that Avraham be cast into a furnace. But Avraham was miraculously saved.
One more story about Avraham and Nimrod. Avraham was famous for his חסד, his charity and generosity. As we see in the beginning of this week’s Parsha, Avraham was incredibly generous with his hospitality. People traveling from all over the world would spend time in Avraham’s tent, resting from their travels and feasting like kings. When it came time for travelers to leave they would ask Avraham how much they owe him for his expenses. Avraham would say that they don’t have to pay him because God will pay. One day, word of Avraham’s generosity made it to King Nimrod. King Nimrod took 5000 soldiers with him to the tent of Avraham in order to test Avraham’s generosity. Avraham provided the entire entourage with a feast fit for a king. At the end of the meal, Avraham brought the bill for this meal and for all of his previous expenses to King Nimrod. King Nimrod looked at the bill, and looked at Avraham and said, “What is this? I thought you don’t charge your guests because you believe to be repaid for your hospitality by God?” Abraham responded to Nimrod, “I thought you believed that you were God.”
These stories highlight two well known characteristics of Avraham; his hospitality and his confidence in his belief in the one true God which led him to mock pagan beliefs. Avraham was an iconoclast, he was on a mission to inform the world that the Gods they believed in were, false, and that there is only one unifying power in control of the world. And the way to serve this One God was by doing acts of loving kindness towards your fellow human being. This is the behavior that is famously modeled by Avraham at the beginning of this week’s Parsha, and pointed out to us by God before God informs Avraham about the impending destruction of Sodom. God says in chapter 18, verse 19, “For I know him, because he commands his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the lord, doing charity and justice…” לעשות צדקה ומשפט!
This was who Avraham was, God chose Avraham because this was his personality. The Parsha gives us models of the concepts of צדקה ומשפט, charity and justice, connected with this description of Avraham. First we see the attitude and degree to which Avraham prioritized the value of hospitality to guests. In the first verse of the Parsha the torah tells us that God appeared to Avraham, this is immediately followed by the next verse telling us that, Avraham saw three travelers and he ran to great them and invite them to rest and eat. The rabbis picked up on the immediate transition of God appearing to Avraham followed by his running to great guests and commented (שבת קכז.), “hosting guests is greater than receiving the divine presence,” Because Avraham left God’s presence to greet his potential guests.
Also, after God tells Avraham that he will destroy Sodom, Avraham models the behavior which makes him so great. He challenges God in the strongest of terms. Verse 23 says, Avraham approached God - ויגש אברהם, and Rashi points out that the word here for approach is always used in an aggressive way as one approaches an adversary to do war. Avraham is going to battle with God for what he believes is right, and he argues with God using unbelievably harsh language. He says in verse 25, “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from you! Shall not the Judge of the earth deal justly?” But at the end of this incident Avraham realized that he was wrong and God was right, and accepted the judgment of God.
Avraham was a model of charity and justice. His approach to taking care of others was influenced by his view of justice in the world, everyone deserves to eat, and it is the duty of humankind to provide for each other. And his approach to justice in the world was influenced by his attitude of charity. Avraham believed that it was just to not punish the wicked if it meant that innocents would be harmed as a result. It seems like God picked Avraham because of his value for human life, truth, and his strength of character, Avraham would go to war for what he believed was right no matter who or what he was up against. When it came to justice and charity, protecting and caring for human life, Avraham would mock the entire surrounding Babylonian culture and king, Avraham would go to war, so to speak, with God. Avraham was not a meek person who would follow any and all commandments blindly. So how are we to understand that when Avraham was commanded to kill his son Yitzchak, we don’t hear even a tiny bit of protest? Avraham fights injustice, how much more injustice can there be than the killing of his innocent child?
This incident is considered to be the biggest and final test of Avraham by God. Rabbenu Nissim, one of the most famous Gaonic commentaries on the Talmud who lived in the 11th century comments, “the nature of this trial calls for explanation, since there is no doubt that the Almighty does not try a person in order to prove to himself whether he is capable of withstanding the trial since God is all-knowing and is in no doubt about anything.” God doesn’t need to know if Avraham will pass his test or not. So who is the test for? Maimonides tells us in his Moreh Nevuchim, the sole object of the trials mentioned in the Torah is to teach human beings what they ought to do.
What are we to learn from this story? How is Avraham’s behavior a model of how a Jew should act?
Before I answer these questions, I want to point out something about this incident in the text. We call this story עקידת יצחק, the binding of Isaac, and not the sacrifice of Isaac. Perhaps that is because we know the end of the story; we know that he was not sacrificed only tied up as a sacrifice. But maybe there’s more to it. The text says in chapter 22 verse 2, “take your son, you’re only son, the son you love, Isaac; and go to the land of Moriah and raise him up there as a sacrifice there on one of the mountains.” What’s missing from this verse? An actual command to kill him. Some commentators point out that God never told Avraham to actually kill Isaac, only to prepare him as a sacrifice.
Avraham didn’t know what God was going to command him? He never said to actually kill his son. But you might argue, what is he supposed to think? Of course Avraham was assuming that the purpose of offering his son up as a sacrifice is to actually do the act. Maybe, but Avraham didn’t know. He couldn’t argue with God about the injustice of the act of killing his son because he didn’t know what he was expected to do. Where we all see the horror and injustice at the idea of even binding his son an altar like one would do to a sacrifice, Avraham did not see that. Avraham only argues with God about what God was going to do. But when Avraham was commanded by God to do something himself, he observes without ever doubting the righteousness and justice of the act. In reality, God never commanded Avraham to kill his son, and Avraham had faith that God had a good reason for his command, even if he did not understand it himself.
This is one of the most important lessons that Avraham has to offer us. In today’s Jewish world, being hospitable, charitable and adopting social justice causes is very obviously part of our birthright as children of Avraham. We follow in Avraham’s footsteps and serve God in these ways that are obvious to us to be good and holy things. And these are both universal lessons of Avraham for the entire world. But Avraham’s faith goes beyond these obvious manifestations; Avraham’s faith was a faith in the goodness of the entire system of belief in God even even when it is not obvious. In this situation, when confronted with something that seemed wrong to us, it may have never dawned on Avraham that God would actually want him to kill his son. Avraham’s faith in the way of the lord, to do charity and justice and his humility in knowing that he can’t see things the way that God does, may have kept him from ever jumping to the conclusions that we all jump to.
Judaism is a legal system, it’s not simply about Jewish values or ethical living; it is also about obedience. If we only submitted to the authority of the laws that make sense to us than who is the real authority in that system, God or us? We can’t know the reason for everything. When we are confronted by something that seems unreasonable in our religious system, it is human nature to be uncomfortable, but we can’t jump to conclusions. We need to have faith that there is a good answer, and delay our desire to pass judgment on it immediately. We need to learn faith and humility like Avraham, to accept the fact that there is nothing in the system that will contradict the Jewish values of charity and justice, even when we don’t see it that way. Because, in the words of the Parsha, charity and justice are the way of the Lord.
And so, that is the lesson which the test of Avraham should teach us. We are to do righteousness and Justice, and to have faith that all of what God commands is consistent with those themes, even when we can’t understand it.
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