“And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.” (Gen. 12:5) Rashi explains the clause “and the souls that they had made (asu) as meaning the people “they had brought under the wings of the Shekhina. Abraham converted the men and Sarah converted the women.”
The answer to a question posed on this midrashic commentary is extremely important to the religious Jew who is vitally concerned and genuinely interested in the future of our people and our way of life.
What happened to the souls, the proselytes, whom Abraham and Sarah persuaded to join them? We find no trace of them or their descendants in the generation of Isaac. Obviously, they dropped out. Why?
The solution suggests that those strangers were more impressed and attracted by Abraham and his platform of new ideas than that required of them later. Abraham’s method of persuasion and his emphasis to the candidates for conversion were aimed primarily upon the acceptance of one invisible, indivisible God of justice, righteousness, and mercy. He urged and taught “zedakah umishpat” (Gen. 18:19), the equality of man before the bar of justice, even divine judgment (Gen. 18:25). “Hashofait kol haaretz lo yaase mishpat” was a declaration of the inalienable rights of even the community of the wicked. Abraham represented and taught personal involvement in the battle to aid the underdog. He rejects offers of deserved rewards for saving the lives and property of the oppressed (Gen. 14). We learn from the father of our faith that “g’dolah hakhnasat orchim yoter mekabalat p’nai haShekhinah, hospitality to the stranger takes precedence over personal communion with God” (Shabbat 127a).
The ethical and moral concepts engendered in the above drew the “nefesh”- the souls who joined Abraham, because this platform brings benefits to all and they shared as a result.
The answer to a question posed on this midrashic commentary is extremely important to the religious Jew who is vitally concerned and genuinely interested in the future of our people and our way of life.
What happened to the souls, the proselytes, whom Abraham and Sarah persuaded to join them? We find no trace of them or their descendants in the generation of Isaac. Obviously, they dropped out. Why?
The solution suggests that those strangers were more impressed and attracted by Abraham and his platform of new ideas than that required of them later. Abraham’s method of persuasion and his emphasis to the candidates for conversion were aimed primarily upon the acceptance of one invisible, indivisible God of justice, righteousness, and mercy. He urged and taught “zedakah umishpat” (Gen. 18:19), the equality of man before the bar of justice, even divine judgment (Gen. 18:25). “Hashofait kol haaretz lo yaase mishpat” was a declaration of the inalienable rights of even the community of the wicked. Abraham represented and taught personal involvement in the battle to aid the underdog. He rejects offers of deserved rewards for saving the lives and property of the oppressed (Gen. 14). We learn from the father of our faith that “g’dolah hakhnasat orchim yoter mekabalat p’nai haShekhinah, hospitality to the stranger takes precedence over personal communion with God” (Shabbat 127a).
The ethical and moral concepts engendered in the above drew the “nefesh”- the souls who joined Abraham, because this platform brings benefits to all and they shared as a result.
However, Isaac symbolized a new step in the worship of the God of Abraham. It is important to keep the wells dug by Abraham open, but religion calls for “mesirat nefesh” -- sacrifice, deprivation, acquiescence in the face of the illogical, acceptance of the incomprehensible, a surrender to authority and law. Isaac is bound to the law of God by a religious experience which taught him that life of sacrifice is preferable to momentary death - although one must be ready even to make the supreme sacrifice if called upon to do so. Herein lies the platform of Isaac the son of Abraham.
Abraham himself was certainly willing to sacrifice, although he did not urge others to do so. When told to circumsize himself, he asks God whether this will not frighten away possible converts (Ber. Rabbah 47,9). The nefesh made by Abraham did not, or perhaps could not, accept the step advocated by Isaac. They dropped out and lost their chance to become part of an eternal people. The Children of Isaac live on; the nefesh have disappeared.
Some of our people today wish only to enjoy the benefits of the ethics of our religion -- honesty, decency, kindness, charity, mutual regard for man, a belief in God, and social justice among all people They are all for the approach of Abraham. But they balk and completely reject the disciplines, the sacrifice of Isaac. A religion without sacrifice is no religion at all, it is a comfortable man made convenient mode of living which unfortunately leads away from eternity and towards eventual frustration even of the noble ideals. In speaking of Reform Judaism, Solomon B. Freehof, in a lecture delivered April 6, 1967, said, “The lack of the sense of the law in our Reform movement gives us a feeling of frustration.”
Some of our people today wish only to enjoy the benefits of the ethics of our religion -- honesty, decency, kindness, charity, mutual regard for man, a belief in God, and social justice among all people They are all for the approach of Abraham. But they balk and completely reject the disciplines, the sacrifice of Isaac. A religion without sacrifice is no religion at all, it is a comfortable man made convenient mode of living which unfortunately leads away from eternity and towards eventual frustration even of the noble ideals. In speaking of Reform Judaism, Solomon B. Freehof, in a lecture delivered April 6, 1967, said, “The lack of the sense of the law in our Reform movement gives us a feeling of frustration.”
The strength of our religious way of life is the legal system which deals with crimes, witnesses, trials, judges, business contracts, labor law and land reform, and which trains us in controls and disciplines in every area of human experience -- the food we eat, the mate we marry, the sex life we lead, the places we go and even the sights we should see. Since God is eternal, the legal system revealed by God at Mount Sinai remains eternal. The hymn “Yigdal” declares definitely God is unchanging so His law is likewise immutable.
Judaism teaches us that the road to eternity demands sacrifice. Airy religious sentiment cannot replace obedience to the laws of the Torah. Personal holiness and self-discipline are products and essential requisites of a life of scrupulous observances of the mitzvot which often entails the suppression of sensuality and selfishness, and calls for the consecration of life, and of one’s entire presumptuousness of the Reformers who have deleted the passages in our Siddur which refer to sacrifices. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik in his Torah shier in memory of his revered father and mother delivered on Shevat 3, 5729 in Yeshiva University, declared that the Akeda (the binding and near sacrifice of Isaac) taught us that human physical sacrifice is an abomination to the Lord. Yet, God demands the spiritual sacrifice of oneself (Ramban, beginning of Vayikra).
Religious Jewry today must rekindle in the hearts of our young intellectuals that the willingness to sacrifice is indespensible to the achievement of the eternity as a Jew.
Rabbi Herbert Bomzer is rabbi of the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn.
Religious Jewry today must rekindle in the hearts of our young intellectuals that the willingness to sacrifice is indespensible to the achievement of the eternity as a Jew.
Rabbi Herbert Bomzer is rabbi of the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn.
YAVNEH STUDIES IN PARASHAT HASHAVUA, edited by Joel B. Wolowelsky, was a 1969-72 project of YAVNEH: THE RELIGIOUS JEWISH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION. The bios here are as they were at the time of the original publication. For a history of YAVNEH, see Benny Kraut, The Greening of American Orthodox Judaism: Yavneh in the 1960s (Cincinnti: Hebrew Union College Press, 2011).