Divrei Lech Licha
Exile
The Torah devotes considerable discussion to the bris bein habesarim between Hashem and Avraham Avinu. Chazal tell us that great portents for the future are contained in the cryptic words. For example, at one point, "A dread! Great darkness fell upon him (15:12). The Midrash Rabbah (44:17) says, ‘"A dread’ – this is the exile of Bavel; ‘darkness’ – this is the galus of Persia; ‘great’ -- this is the exile of Greece; ‘fell upon him’ -- this is the exile of Rome, a wicked nation.’"
HaRav Shalom Noah Berezovsky, the Slonimer Rav, zt"l, asks: If galus is a punishment, how could the Torah discuss the various galuyos – especially those beyond the exile of Egypt -- as foregone conclusions? Our ancestors had not been born, much less sinned! In fact, the seventy people who descended to Mitzrayim were all tzaddkim!
Rather, he says, we need to change our attitude towards galus and stop thinking of it as simply a punishment, and look upon it in a different light.
The purpose of this world is to accomplish a great certain great things which we mere humans cannot understand. Even though it may seem haphazard to we who live in it, every event is bringing the world closer to a great shleimus. Klal Yisroel has been chosen to be the vehicle of this great purpose, and galus is a primary catalyst for us to accomplish that role, for it purifies us and so enables us to bring the world to its ultimate purpose. Chazal tell us that the Shechinah accompanies us in our wanderings, in order to help us succeed.
The Torah allows us to see this process in microcosm, through the first galus, Mitzrayim. True, Yaakov and his family were great tzaddikim, but they were not ready to become the Am Ha’nivchar that could accept the Torah. Their suffering in Mitzrayim enabled that metamorphosis to become reality. Mitzrayim was an iron furnace that, while excruciatingly painful, brought out the best in us. Every galus since that time also has its own purpose.
In fact, this process has its own precedent at the beginning of history. Says the Slonimer, the very second posuk of the Torah also contains remazim, hints, to the future exiles of the Jewish people. (See Breishis Rabbah 2:4.) HaRav Avigdor Miller zt"l said that HaShem actually planned that Adam and Chava should leave Gan Eden at some time, for the Divine plan had decreed it. Otherwise, why would He have created a world outside Gan Eden, before He created people? Hashem did not decree that they should sin, but their leaving Gan Eden was part of His Master Plan.
This view of galus as a meaningful positive step also operates on an individual level. We can often see in our own lives how a temporary yeridah turned into a permanent aliyah, how a pain, a loss, a disappointment, actually enriched us. For example, a student’ suffers such setbacks in one yeshiva that he changes to a different makom. There, he makes such a kesher with the rosh yeshiva that he grows far more than if he had seen hatzlocha in his first place.
HaRav Miller, zt"l often related the all-too-real story of a hotshot executive whose demanding wholesale business was literally killing him. He was so tied up with money matters that he had no time to learn, doven in a minyan, nor even take care of his health. One day, he sold goods to a Mafia-controlled grocery store, thus encroaching upon their territory. The mob retaliated by burning down his business. He was forced to take a 9-to-5 job with the city. Suddenly, he found himself with time to sit in shul and yeshiva. Every day, he dovened and learned. Eventually, he became a talmid chacham and a maggid shiur. He later admitted that his "disaster" at work actually had saved him from an early grave as a stressed-out am-ha’aretz.
When we realize that every setback that we experience not only betters us, but also brings the world closer to its final happiness, to the time when "our mouths will be filled with laughter" (Tehillim 126:2), then we can understand, and conquer, the temporary pain which we must endure.
This concept is one the central facets of emunah. When a Jew lives with this comforting truth: that all that he and Klal Yisroel live, and sometimes suffer, is for a great purpose, and that indeed, "every place that Yisroel was exiled, the Shechinah went with them," that Hashem is truly with us, then he can never let hopeless thoughts get the best of him. He can truly fulfill the verse in Habbakuk (2:4), "v’tzaddik b’emunaso yechiyeh -- and the righteous person will live by his faith," which Chazal (Makkos 24a) tell us is the foundation of being a Jew.
Tools
In this week’s parsha, we meet Avraham and Sarah, whom Hashem chose out of all the people in the world to found His chosen nation. What make them special? After all, the first Rashi in Parshas Noach states that their generation was filled with great people – enthusiastic doers and deep thinkers.
One answer might be found in an incident that HaRav Elazar Menachem Mann Shach zt"l remembered about HaRav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky zt"l, who served as rav of Vilna before the war.
As part of his responsibilities as rav, Reb Chaim Ozer managed all the hundreds of gemach’s in the city, keeping track of every interest-free loan, every wedding gown lent to a needy kallah, and thousands of other chasadim that the people of Vilna did for each other. He wrote every transaction down in a huge ledger book – the act of chessed, who did it, who received it, the date the item or money was borrowed, and the date it was due to be returned.
One day, Reb Chaim Ozer moved to a new apartment. During the move, the book was lost. Now no lender could prove that he had lent. The city could fall into turmoil. Reb Chaim Ozer, however, was not bothered at all. He just sat down and rewrote the entire book – tens of thousands of words – all from memory. What’s more, shortly afterwards, someone found the original book and compared it to the replacement that Reb Chaim had written. The two were exactly alike!
With such a memory, certainly Reb Chaim Ozer knew Bircas HaMazon by heart. Still, remembered Rav Shach, every time that Reb Chaim Ozer would eat bread, he would bentsch from a siddur. Why? Looking at the words would help him to concentrate better and so get closer to Hashem.
In the third volume of Michtav M’Eliyahu, Rav Dessler zt"l discusses kelim, "tools," which Hashem bestows upon every human being. Everyone is given a panoply of kelim – a body, a mind, talents, property, etc. Part of Avraham and Sarah’s greatness (and that of their descendants such as Reb Chaim Ozer) lay in their ability to both choose and use their myriad kelim only in order to develop their relationship to Hashem.