Thinking Torah
By Rav Alex Israel – aletal@netvision.net.il
5767

Parashat Lech Lecha
The Faith of Avraham

Our Parsha opens with a colossal vacuum, a bewildering omission. God speaks to the elderly Avraham (he is 75 years old) commanding him to follow him to a new undesignated land in order to found a new nation. But we know nothing of his personal past. We all want to know: Why Abraham? What make Abraham "The One?" How did he gain this unique position in History? What act made him worthy, what 

The world of Midrash has elicited a series of responses to this question. Many of us are familiar with the story of Avraham finding God via his own intelligence, or smashing his father's idols, Avraham and the fiery furnace. There is virtually no Jewish schoolchild who has not heard these stories. (After all, granting legitimacy to child rebellion against parents has to be a wonderfully attractive theme to children!)

ABRAHAM'S MIDRASHIC PERSONALITY

Here are a few tastes of the Midrashic views about Avraham:

"After Abraham was weaned, while still an infant, his mind began to reflect. By day and by night he was thinking and wondering: "How is it possible that this [celestial] sphere should continuously be guiding the world and have no one to guide it and cause it to turn round; for it cannot be that it turns round of itself." He had no teacher, no one to instruct him in aught. He was submerged in Ur of the Chaldees, among silly idolaters. His father and mother and the entire population worshiped idols, and he worshiped with them. But 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 God, 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. Abraham was forty years old when he recognized his Creator. Having attained this knowledge, he began to refute the inhabitants of Ur of the Chaldees, arguing with them and saying to them, "The course you are following is not the way of truth." He broke the images and commenced to instruct the people that it was not right to serve any one but the God of the universe" (Rambam Laws of Idolatry ch.1)

Our second Midrashic approach is from Midrash Rabba:
"Rabbi Hiya bar Beriya said in the name of Rav Ada of Yaffo: Terach was an idolater [idol merchant]. Once he went off to a certain place, and he left Avraham as shopkeeper in his stead. A person came who wished to buy [an idol]. [Avraham] said to him: 'How old are you?' The man replied, 'Fifty,' or 'sixty.' Avraham said: 'Woe to this man, who is sixty years old, and he must serve an idol created just yesterday!' [The man] was ashamed, and went away. Another time a woman came, bringing a bowl of meal. She said to him, 'Take this; offer it to the idols.' [Avraham] got up, took a hammer, smashed all the idols and placed the hammer in the hand of the biggest of them. When his father returned, he asked: 'Who did this to them?' [Avraham] answered, 'A woman came and brought them a bowl of meal; she told me to offer it before them. I offered it before them, and one said: 'I shall eat first,' then another said, 'I shall eat first.' The biggest among them got up, took a hammer, and smashed them.' [His father] said, 'What nonsense are you telling me – do they then have any understanding?' [Avraham] answered, 'Do your ears not hear what your mouth is saying?!'" Bereishit Rabba (38:13)
According to the Midrash, Avraham's views are self-developed, a product of a thought process that began as a young boy and came to fruition at age forty! He looks at nature, at the world and seeks to find a system a unified cause, and he emerges with the belief in God. 

Now if we look to the personality of Avraham in each of these texts, we can discern certain key characteristics. Avraham is a steadfast believer in God and rejects idolatry. He uses pure logic, rational thought. He is not satisfied with keeping his views to himself, but engages all around him in debate attempting to prove to them that idolatry is absurd and only monotheism is logical. And we reach the point at  which Avraham is, a rebel, an insurgent against commonly held views. He uses the power of the rational – precisely the method with which he "found" God – in order to convince all those around him.

The big question at the start of Lech Lecha is; Why did God choose Avraham? These Midrashim express the answer. God didn't find Avraham; Avraham found God! And more than that. God's command that Avraham leave his "land, birthplace and father's home" was a mere formality. For in the Midrashic mindset, Avraham had left his parental home, his society and his country long before. He confronted his parents by smashing the idols, his fellow townsfolk by debating with them and even the king, the figurehead of his Land.

And so, the Midrash aims to answer the question. Avraham found God. God's calling Avraham was a mere formality.

RESTATING THE PROBLEM.

But if we have attempted to answer the problem, I believe that we have merely intensified the mystery. For if these stories represent Avraham's history, his path to faith; his passionate and determined search for God, his persistence and dedication in his resolute stand against his environment, his steadfast belief in truth, his fearlessness in the face of outside threats and internal loneliness, then we simply compound the problem. Of course the Torah should have told us this story! Why does the Torah deny us this information? Of all the personalities in the Torah, we generally receive some background to their persona. With Avraham we have a total blackout. If his history is so important, so exciting and rich, then why are we denied this history?

I shall offer two possible answers.

1. THE INDIVIDUAL PATH OF FAITH

If the Midrashic account is correct, and that Avraham speculated and searched, contemplated and thought, and eventually carved his own rout to the discovery of God, the Master of the Universe, if that is a living example for us all, then what is the danger of the Torah writing such a thing.

I can well imagine that had the Torah recorded such a story, we would end up with a section of Shulkhan Arukh that would read something like:

a. At age three on must look at the sun and say "Is this the power that controls the world."

b. The selfsame evening, one must then behold the moon and recite: "Far from it, the moon has superceded the sun, and hence the moon is more powerful."

Etc. etc.

If we know Avraham's route to faith, if the Torah had recorded his theological journey for posterity, then we might find ourselves bound to follow his path – but precisely, exactly! Step by step; stage by stage!

And this danger is greater than the absence of Abraham's History, for "as their faces differ; so no two people have the same ideas." And hence each and every individual must carve out their own personal route to God. If Avraham teaches us something, It is his steadfast faith in God, such that he can follow God even when the present reality seems to be absurd, illogical. Avraham follows God under the promise of his becoming a great nation, even though his aging wife has no children. Avraham walks to Canaan despite the fact that he does not yet know where he is headed. In order to generate that degree of faith, of relationship with the Almighty, each and every individual must forge their own personal unique dialogue with God. And for that, Avraham's Way is useless. I must find my own path, my unique avenue, my personal mode of communication and belief, of interaction and relationship. Avraham's lesson is to find God – your way!

2. PERCEPTION AND EXPERIENCE

"Abraham, the great knight of faith, according to tradition searched and discovered God in the star-lit heavens of Mesopotamia. Yet, he felt an intense loneliness and could not find solace in the silent companionship of God whose image was reflected in the boundless stretches of the cosmos. Only when he met God on earth as Father, Brother and Friend – not only on the uncharted astral routes – did he feel redeemed. Our sages said that before Abraham appeared majestas dei was reflected only by the distant heavens and it was a mute nature which "spoke" of the glory of God. It was Abraham who 
"crowned" Him as the God of the earth i.e. the God of men." (Lonely Man of Faith –Tradition edition pg.32)

In this wonderful piece by Rav Soloveitchik, we read of two dimensions of the God-man experience. One can perceive of God in intellectual terms. That gives you a certain perception of God, but it is distant and impersonal. Rav Soloveitchik talks of the "Covenantal man of faith" as "craving for a personal and intimate relation with God."
There is a dimension of the man-God interaction that rests in the realm of experience, not cognition, of two-way relationship, rather than independent contemplation and thought.

This is a theme brought in the Kuzari where he rejects a type of faith based in philosophical contemplation and proof. He labels this type of belief as the "God of Aristotle." For the Kuzari, the only true type of faith relationship is when one experiences God, when God involves Himself in our lives. This he titles the "God of Abraham." Abraham who shares an intimate relationship with God, as in our parsha where we see God's care and worry for Avraham as he listens to Avraham's worries and concerns and reassures him with a gentle: "Do not fear Avram, I will protect you." Where in our parsha Avraham is told, "Walk before me in perfection and I will make a covenant between Myself and you." Avraham and God from the first moment of "Lech Lecha" walk together! It is a living breathing interactive relationship with God.

When does God emerge from the shadows in order to build this mode of relationship with Avraham? I would think that it is the moment that God actually addresses Avraham, when Avraham begins to act together with God, responding to His call, interacting with Him. In this perspective then, Lech Lecha is THE watershed moment in which God transformed from being distant to close, from anonymity to familiarity. It is the critical beginning of the relationship. That moment of Lech Lecha is the start of the living experience of God.

For Rav Soloveitchik we are uninterested in the story prior to the great moment of God's revelation to Avraham. Why transcribe the perception of the anonymous remote distant God? We begin Abraham's history at the moment that he experiences the true God relationship; the intimacy of God. That is the beginning of the story.

Shabbat Shalom!