Divrei Vayeira
Eternity
After we finish Birchos HaShachar, the Siddur turns to Parshas HaAkeidah. While according to halacha, we do not have to recite it, it is commendable to do so. The Otzar HaTefillos siddur declares that "the Zohar, the Tikkunim, the Arizal and all the sefarim are filled with the great spiritual heights which come from saying it." For example, the Zohar declares: "There is nothing like the Akeidas Yitzchok. . . . It is meritorious to mention it every day while we are in exile, for it guards us from all kinds of evil forces."
In Nefesh Shimshon (pp. 126-132) HaRav Shimshon Dovid Pincus zt"l asks, "What precisely is the benefit of saying the same Parshas Akeidah every day? He illustrates his question with a mashal: One day, a parent needed to take a can off a shelf. A son volunteered, did the chesed, and was rewarded with a candy and a "Such a tzaddik’l I have!" The next morning, he asked, "May I have candy?" "Why?" "Yesterday, I took down the can!" That afternoon, "More candy! – Remember that can?" Finally, his parent said, "Enough! Do something else to get a candy!" Likewise, day after day, and year after year, we say the Akeidah and hope for reward. Unlike that parent, Hashem patiently listens and delivers. How does this work? What’s more, why did Hashem command Avraham to sacrifice his son, and not himself? Wouldn’t that have been a greater act of sacrifice?
The Akeidah was the tenth and final test of Avraham. Hashem, Who knows all, knew the driving force in His beloved servant. Avraham had dedicated his entire being to spreading the knowledge of Hashem in the world. Time after time, he "called out in the name of Hashem," inspiring thousands, perhaps millions, to abandon their idols and pledge loyalty to the A-mighty. (In his youth, Avraham had witnessed the folly of the Tower of Bavel, when mankind had joined together to rebel against Hashem, Perhaps he had dreamed of a tikkun, a uniting of humanity under the banner of Hashem,) The miraculous victory over the four kings had greatly accelerated Avraham’s plans to create an empire of truth. We can hardly imagine the many mosdos that he founded, the huge crowds surging forward to hear his words, the kings and emperors pledging their fealty.
Avraham knew, however, that he would not be able to finish the task himself. Even if he succeeded in bringing the world under the hegemony of Hashem, who would keep it from falling apart after his death? Yitzchok’s birth gave Avraham the foothold onto eternity which he craved. "Avraham made a great feast on the day Yitzchok was weaned." (21:8) Tosafos (Shabbos 130a) explain that this event was actually Yitzchok’s bris milah. Avraham was declaring to the world that he now had a true spiritual heir. In this sense, Yitzchok was even more important to Avraham than he was to himself, for Yitzchok represented the future.
Now, suddenly, Hashem was ordering Avraham to demolish his own skyscraper, to make it fall like the Tower of Bavel. Avraham knew full well the consequences of offering Yitzchok as a sacrifice. As soon as he would descend from the mountain, alone, Ishmael and Eliezer, shocked by his hypocrisy ("You taught us the greatness of humanity, and you did this to your own son?!?"), would revert to their native ways, Word would soon spread, and all of Avraham’s vast batei midrashim would rapidly empty. Those kings who been drawn to him, would quickly dissociate from him. Sarah would die from hearing the news (she actually did pass away from learning that Yitzchok had nearly been sacrificed), Keturah-Hagar would have avoided him, and Avraham would end his life alone, a shunned charlatan. Who would believe him,that the very Hashem Who wished for humanity to serve Him for eternity, would spurn the human race! The world, now on the pinnacle of a new enlightenment, would soon sink into a greater darkness than ever before.
Avraham knew all this, and he had three days of travel to Har HaMoriah to ponder it. We cannot imagine such a test, much less even dream of passing it. Hashem knew just what motivated Avraham, and He forced him to push against his very own essence. For those three days, every strand of DNA in Avraham’s body was tightly wrapped around him, pulling him back, yet he strode on, to do the will of his Creator.
Now the ecstatic declaration by the malach of Hashem after the Akeidah becomes clear. Explains Rav Pincus: "The message of these posukim (22:16-17) is that the Akeidas Yitzchok built a vessel that could hold the entire world and every Divine emanation of chesed, from that time until today!" In other words, just as when a barrel of water is far more useful to a thirsty man when he possesses a cup, so also, all other zchusim that we enjoy today are all based upon the Akeidah, for it "holds" them for our use.
As we say every Rosh HaShanah, "May You consider the Akeidas Yitzchok, today, with mercy."
Lot’s Daughters
In his youth, HaRav Moshe Feinstein.served as rav in the town of Luban. Igros Moshe (Volume 8, in the biography, p. 15) relates a maaseh from that time.
Early in the winter of the year 5682, he was summoned to the house of a certain Jew, a ba’al habas, who had suddenly been struck down by an illness affecting his mouth. When Rav Feinstein arrived, the man’s tongue had grossly swollen, and he was in his last agonies. The man waved everyone else out of the room and painfully told Rav Feinstein the cause of his suffering.
"Last week was Parshas Vayera," he began, "and while reviewing the parsha, I thought of a kashya, a difficulty, and I had no answer. I understood why Lot’s daughters had begotten children from their own father – they had thought that all other humanity had been wiped out, and there were no other men left in the world. Still, why did they have to give their sons such unpleasant names: Moav, "From father," and Ben-Ami, "Son of my nation"? Why humiliate themselves and their sons by saddling them with constant reminders of their unsavory paternity? Further, why did they merit to have Moshiach come from them? (From Moav came Rus, the great-grandmother of Dovid; and from Ammon came Naamah, the wife of Shlomo and mother of Rechavam) When I discussed these questions with others, however, I spoke about Lot’s daughters in a disrespectful manner.
"That night, I had a dream. Two ancient women, with their heads and faces covered, appeared to me. ‘We are Lot’s daughters,’ they explained, ‘and we have come from the World of Truth to answer you. After we came out of the cave, pregnant, people wanted to know the paternity of our children. Since we were great-nieces of Avraham, and we had been miraculously saved from Sodom, we could easily have claimed (and been believed) that a divine being had made us pregnant. We could even have founded a new religion, with our children as objects of worship. We therefore chose names for our sons that would make clear that every child has a flesh-and blood father. On the merit of telling the world the truth, we merited to become ancestresses of the true Moshiach,
"‘Because you sinned with your tongue, when you spoke of us in such a lowly way; midah-k’neged-midah, you will be punished through your tongue. Just as the ten spies who slandered the land of Israel died from their tongues (Rashi to Bamidbar 14:37), so will you.’"
Suddenly, the man turned to the wall of his house, and died!
History has proven Lot’s daughters right.
Welcoming Guests
The Ramban has a famous rule: "ma’seh avos siman l’banim, the acts of the forefathers are a sign for the childen." We can learn the essences of our spiritual personalities from seeing the deeds of our ancestors. This week’s parsha brings the well-known act of hachnoses orchim that Avraham performed for three guests. One of Rav Shalom Meir Wallach’s ma’asim sheds additional light upon our love for this mitzvoh, which is a common denominator among Jews.
What is the proper way to look at one’s home? Rav Shach, zt"l brings the midrash (B.R. 68:4) about the Roman matron who asked Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta, "What has Hashem been doing since He created the world?" "Making shidduchim," he replied. "I can do that, too!" she exclaimed. She immediately lined up a thousand male slaves opposite a thousand female slaves and married them off. The next day, they came back to her -- beaten, bruised, and bandaged. "What happened?" she asked in surprise. "I don’t want her, I don’t want him" was the chorus she received. She sent for Rabbi Yosi and admitted, "No one is like your Hashem, and your Torah is true."
Rav Shach explained that that lady was prepared to accept that Hashem created the universe and that He manages it according to His will. However, she thought that Hashem’s dominion ended, and hers started, at her own house; at home, she was the balabusta. Her mistaken experiment proved to her that Hashem is the master of her home as well – and without Hashem, a home cannot accomplish anything. Therefore, just as Hashem warmly invited Adam into Gan Eden (see Rashi on Breishis 2:15), so we must also invite guests into our homes. Our care for those who have no homes is a pure expression of walking in Hashem’s ways.