5771 פרשת לך לך

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us of the occurrences surrounding the battle that took place between the 4 kings and the 5 kings where the 4 kings defeated the 5 kings and took Lot, the nephew of Avraham prisoner. The Torah then continues and describes to us how Avraham Avinu with the assistance of Anar, Eshkol and Mamrei went to fight the 4 kings to save Lot.

 When describing the actions of Avraham Avinu when he was going to the battle, the Torah says that Avraham and those that were with him split up and attacked from all sides at night.

 The Siforno explains that the reason the Torah tells us this is that this was the military strategy Avraham Avinu used in the battle. He came at them from all sides so that they would believe that there were more of them than there really were and he attacked at night so they would not be able to realize how few troops he actually had with him.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely, we can ask the following question. The entire battle was so obviously a complete miracle as there was no way a small band of troops of Avraham Avinu could in any way defeat the troops of the most powerful armies in the world. If this is the case, why would the Torah bother to tell us about Avraham Avinu’s battle plans?

 We might be able to answer this question by first trying to explain another Siforno on this Parsha. When Avraham Avinu returned from the battle, God told him not to be afraid. The Siforno explained that God was telling Avraham Avinu not to worry that his merits would be used up due to the miracles that God performed for him but rather he would have even more merits due to the kindness he performed in trying to save Lot.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question. If we look at the miracle that God performed for Avraham Avinu in comparison to the kindness that Avraham had performed for Lot it would seem that the miracle should have logically used up more merits than the kindness he performed for Lot which was itself through the miracle.

 The answer could be that this is what the Torah was telling us about the military tactics of Avraham Avinu. When Avraham Avinu went to save Lot, he was going to do it assuming that he was not worthy for a miracle to occur and therefore prepared to fight using military tactics.

 This is why Avraham Avinu’s kindness was so valuable. He was willing to risk his life to save the life of Lot.

 This doesn’t just apply to someone who risks his life but each action depending on how much a person gives of themselves will be considered a great Mitzvah.

פרשת לך לך 5770

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes to us how God told Avraham Avinu to leave Charan and head to what was to Avraham an unknown destination which turned out to be Eretz Yisroel. The Torah describes to us the things that occurred to Avraham Avinu on his travels in great detail. The Torah then tells us that when Avraham reached Elon Moreh, God appeared to him and told him that he would have a son to whom God would give the land of Eretz Yisroel. After this revelation, the Pasuk tells us that Avraham Avinu built a Mizbayach to God who appeared to him.

 Several commentaries are bothered by why at this exact moment Avraham chose to build a Mizbayach to God. Rashi explains that Avraham built the Mizbayach to thank God for the good news he received that he was going to have a son who would inherit Eretz Yisroel.

 The Ohr Hachayim, on the other hand infers from the fact that the Torah says that Avraham built the Mizbayach to the God that appeared to him that the reason for building the Mizbayach was to express his joy that God appeared to him not due to the wonderful news of his meriting having a son who would inherit Eretz Yisroel.

 The Ohr Hachayim continues and says that this shows us just how much the love of Avraham was for God that the joy of God’s appearance overshadowed the joy one would have in hearing the news that he would have a child after not having one for many years.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely, we can ask the following question. This would logically be compared to a case where a person has two things occurring to him at the same time. One of them is the immanent realization of a lifelong desire that many people already have experienced while the second one is something that is so special that almost no one around at that time ever experienced such a thing. Which would cause him more happiness? Logically, it would be experiencing the thing that no one else has. In this case the same thing should apply. Even though Avraham Avinu desired to have children, the fact that he merited to have God appear to him which is something that almost no one in his generation merited would surely make him happier than the news that he would have a child. If this is the case, and we know the Torah does not have even one extra word, why would the Torah add two extra words to tell us that Avraham Avinu was happier by the revelation of God to him than the news that he would have a son? This would seem to be the logical reaction.

 The answer, it would seem, is that the natural tendency of a person is to find happiness only in things that relate to the material world and not to things that relate to our connection to God. This is why the Torah had to add those two words to tell us how special Avraham Avinu was that he was able to appreciate the true happiness of having a close relationship to God. This is also a lesson to us that we need to try to focus on the joy that comes through learning Torah and Mitzvos which bring us closer to God and to focus less on the “joy” we get from the physical world which does not bring us true happiness. This will truly enable us to grow closer to God and improve our service of God. 

 5769 פרשת לך לך 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the promises that God made to Avraham relating to his future descendents and their inheritance of the land of Israel. When promising Avraham that he will have children, the Torah says:

 God took him outside and said look at the heavens and count the stars if you are able to count them.

 Many of the commentaries ask, why does the Torah mention that God told Avraham to “go outside” to count the stars, the Torah could just say “count the stars”?

 There are several answers given to this question. One of the answers brought down by the Midrash as quoted by Rashi:

 God said to Avram go out from your astrology. You saw in the stars that you are not going to be having any children. Granted that Avram and Sarai will not have children but I will change your names to Avraham and Sarah and you will then both have children.

 If we look at this Midrash a little closer, we can ask the following question. When God told Avraham to go out of his astrology he was responding to his question that he does not have any children to leave all the wealth and blessings that God gave to him. What it seems from here is that Avraham had looked at the stars and concluded that there was nothing God could do to change his fate and allow him to have children since he saw in the stars that it was already decreed that he should be childless.

 Who are we talking about? This is Avraham Avinu who through his own perceptions of the world came to the realization that there is a God who runs nature and nature is subservient to God and has no power in and of itself. This is the same Avraham Avinu who defied Nimrod and refused to worship idols thus getting thrown into a fiery furnace where he experienced God’s great miracle where He changed the nature of fire making it cold rather than hot. How could Avraham Avinu who had experienced the Hand of God in such a profound way believe in any way that God could not instantly change even what seemed to be decreed in the stars?

 The answer can be that it is a natural tendency for a person to only see what is in front of his eyes. It is sometimes very difficult for a person, even a person as great as Avraham Avinu who experienced the fact that God can change nature and in fact realized that himself at a young age, nevertheless even he on some small level felt that his fate was sealed.

 Bnei Yisroel at these times is going through very difficult situations. Whether it is the Tzaros that are occurring in Eretz Yisroel to the financial suffering many people are suffering these days which in the ways of nature would seem to be out of our control, we must always remember that God is with us constantly and nature does not control us rather through prayer and faith in God we will be able to overcome any Tzaros. 

 5768 פרשת לך לך

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us one of the 10 tests of Avraham Avinu which the Pasuk describes to us the following:

Go out from your land and your birth place and your father’s house.

 Many of the commentaries ask the following question: If God told Avraham Avinu to leave his land, why would God have to tell him to leave his father’s house since if a person leaves his land where his father lived than he is inherently leaving his father’s house.

 The Ohr Hachayim gives the following answer:

 What God meant was that he should leave his land not like he left Ohr Kasdim where he went with his whole family but rather he should leave his land and also separate himself from his birth place and his father’s house (his acquaintances and family).

 However, we know that Avraham Avinu did not fully comply with this commandment. We know this from the fact that Lot went with him. The Ohr Hachayim explains why Avraham Avinu did not completely follow the command of God the following way:

 That Lot clung to Avraham Avinu like it says in the Pasuk that Lot went with him.

 From this it seems that Avraham Avinu wanted to go alone and Lot decided to attach himself to Avraham Avinu. However, the Ohr Hachayim continues that from the next Pasuk that says  that Avraham took Lot which implies that he made a conscience decision to take Lot apparently contrary to the will of God. The Ohr Hachayim explains this as follows:

He explains that Avraham Avinu did not push Lot away until he could find a way to do it without embarrassing him. However, as soon as he found even the small reason of the fact that the shepherds were arguing he immediately told Lot that they should separate. We know that this was the reason that Avraham sent Lot away was only due to the command of God is that it would not be logical that Avraham would send Lot so far away just because the shepherds were arguing.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely we can learn a very interesting lesson.

Let us try to understand the actions of Avraham relating to Lot. At first, seemingly against the will of God, he took Lot along with him so as not to embarrass him, but then he sent him away with what the Ohr Hachayim would consider to be a far fetched reason to separate from Lot. If Avraham specifically did not push Lot away earlier so as not to embarrass him, why would he use a flimsy excuse that has the potential to embarrass him?

 The answer could be that the nature of people is that we naturally feel hurt when we feel that someone is putting a distance between us and them. However, on the other hand, people also have a natural tendency to believe that people do not want to hurt them. If we can attribute a person’s action against us as based on some external reason, we will naturally assume that to be the case. For this reason, Avraham felt that he could use the excuse of the arguments of the shepherds as a reason to separate from Lot without embarrassing him.

 We see from this Chazal how easy it can be to not hurt someone’s feelings. Even though in life, there are things we must do that can impact other people for the bad, we must take the time to consider how to do it in a way that will hurt them the least emotionally. Whether it is to rebuke a student or to fire a worker or one of the other interactions we have on a daily basis, we can do it properly and reap the tremendous merit for not hurting someone’s feelings.

פרשת לךלך 5767  

 In this week’s Parsha there is a very interesting explanation given by the Rav Mibartenura on the Pasuk that describes the first test of Avraham Avinu.

The Pasuk says as follows:

Go out from your land, your birthplace and from your father’s house.

The Rav Mabartenura asks why did God tell Avraham Avinu to leave his home in three descriptions: 1) His land 2) his birth place 3) his father’s house?

 He  answers that the reason the Torah describes the three levels of the home of Avraham Avinu is to tell us the reason why Avraham Avinu had to leave. The reason was as follows,  a person learns how to act is from their surroundings which include their land, their birthplace (city) and of course their father’s house. Since all of these three places in the life of Avraham Avinu were totally involved in idol worship wanted Avraham Avinu to leave so he would not be influenced by the atmosphere of idolatry.

Let us examine this explanation a little more closely. Just before God commanded Avraham Avinu to leave his home, we see in the Midrash the following famous story:

Terach, who was the father of Avraham Avinu was an idol manufacturer. One time Terach went away and left Avraham Avinu to sell the idols. As we know Avraham Avinu did everything he could to convince purchasers not to by idols by showing them the worthlessness of the idols (see the Midrash for the entire story.) When Terach came back he took Avraham Avinu to Nimrod where Avraham Avinu argued with Nimrod and tried to impress upon him how illogical idol worship is. In the end, Nimrod threw Avraham Avinu into a fiery furnace for his non belief in idol worship. As we all know God saved Avraham Avinu.

 The question now is why would Avraham Avinu who already proved that he can stand up to the idol worship and evil have to leave his home to prevent himself from being influenced? He already proved that he won’t be influenced by his surroundings.

 I believe the answer is that a person has the ability to inspire themselves for periods of time to stand up to their bad surroundings, but as time progresses and they remain in the same bad surroundings their ability to stand up and not be influenced by their surroundings diminishes. This can be for one of 2 possible reasons: 1) that after a person sees a wrong action many times he will become desensitized to the evil action 2) the peer pressure of having everyone else do an action will force the person to also do the same evil action.  This is why it was so important even for someone as great and morally strong as Avraham Avinu to leave the evil surroundings where he lived.

 This is something that can have a major impact in our lives. Many times we find ourselves in surroundings that are not necessarily Torah surroundings. This can be at work or college or many other situations we find ourselves in. We might feel that I won’t be influenced by these people, I am a Torah Jew and these people are not or I am Makpid not to do a certain sin that others are not. However, we see from here that this idea is not true. Over time even the strongest people can be influenced by their surroundings.

With this idea, we can also explain a very interesting sentence in Shemoneh Esrei. In the end of the Beracha of ”Al Hatzadikim” we say the following:

 God should give good reward to those who trust in him and put our portion with them (those who trust in God) and we won’t be embarrassed because we trust in you.

 What is the connection between having trust in God and not being embarrassed?

 The answer is that most people are embarrassed to serve God properly. If a person tries to be careful not to speak Lashon Hara they could be looked down at. If a person wants to daven a longerShemoneh Esrei or won’t talk during davening they can be looked down upon. If everyone else does the wrong thing it is sometimes hard for us to stand up and do the right thing. This is what we ask God in ShemonehEsrei to give us the faith that we need to stand up to do the right thing and we shouldn’t be embarrassed to do the proper thing.

 However, this works the other way to. If there is a group doing the right thing they can have a tremendous impact on other individuals for the good.

 We should, to the best of our abilities try to work and study in surroundings more conducive to living the life of a Torah Jew and to try to set up our own groups to try and impact the people around us.  If we do this, God should merit us with the ability to stand up and conquer all our tests and to merit the redemption in our days.