Bringing People to God, and to Prayer
by R. Gidon Rothstein
Parshat Lech Lecha, “Top Five”: Bringing People to God, and to Prayer
I started this year thinking I would find the five best comments I had shared in our time studying parsha together. Not going to happen—as I look back, way more than five bear revisiting. I’ll pick five that appeal to me in this moment, for whatever reason. This week, it’s because they focused on related issues.
Religion as a Relationship with God
When Avram and Sarai leave Charan for they know not where, 12;5, they take the souls asher asu, that they made, in Charan. Rashi offers two ideas, first, it means the people they had “brought under the wings of the Divine Presence,” similar to what Onkelos has [I’m cheating, not counting this as citing Onkelos, because I’m only doing five], although Onkelos phrased it that they brought them to subservience to Torah.
The imagery of Hashem with spread wings reminds us proper faith helps us shelter from the storms of life. We can get caught up in religion as a system, practices, or culture, for good reasons and bad. Avram and Sarai focused on the fundamental goal of religious activity—taking ourselves back to the protective Presence of our waiting Creator, the only true source of safety, and of guidance as to how to live our best lives.
Separating Men and Women
It’s a rich Rashi; the second idea in this first reading says Avram would convert the men, Sarai the women. He doesn’t feel the need to explain why they taught by gender, but it seems to me to be because of the complications of cross-gender mentoring. Especially in something as sensitive as remaking a worldview, letting other factors, like gender relations, into the picture would be a problem.
Best to take sexuality out of the equation.
Many take this as code for keeping women inferior, but Rashi doesn’t say Avram converted the important people and Sarai the women. If the Queen of England wanted to convert, Rashi thinks Sarai would have guided it. On the other hand, Avram handled any man’s conversion, even the most socially insignificant one.
Avram and Sarai’s model reminds us how easily sexuality can intrude (as does their encounter with the Egyptians in this parsha), and the necessity of doing that which we can to avoid or minimize it. In some situations, that means separating by gender.
Building a World
Although Onkelos gave the reading of bringing them to Torah, Rashi insists the simple meaning is the servants they had acquired. In a slave society, people acquire people, the more literal reading of the verse, they took with them all the slaves they had purchased.
Even here, though Rashi does not say it, it certainly seems like Avram brought Eliezer closer to God, for example. Acquiring souls, Avram and Sarai built relationships of mutual trust, surrounded themselves with people rather than objects, fostered human connection rather than material pleasure.
Calling Out in Gd’s Name
About a chapter later, 13;4, Avram returns to Beit El from Egypt, to the altar he had built, va-yikra sham be-shem Hashem, called out there in the Name of Gd. Rambam, Hilkhot Avodah Zarah 1;3, says he called out to other people in the Name of God, continued his “kiruv” efforts, his search to bring people to recognize Hashem.
Onkelos instead translates va-yikra as ve-tzalei, he prayed. In his view, Avraham makes it back from Egypt, returns to where he had been, to the altar he had built, and prays to Gd. We’ll see more prayer, so it was an Onkelos worth noting.
Hagar Prayed to God, Not Named Him
After a pregnant Hagar flees the treatment of Sarah, chapter sixteen, an angel tells her to go back, bear her sufferings, and she will have a son. When the encounter ends, verse thirteen, we are told Hagar called the Name of the God Who had spoken to her E-l Roi [AlHaTorah.org has Ibn Ezra’s translation, “the God of Seeing”].
Sforno rereads the verse almost completely. He thinks “calling the Name of God” always means prayer, which starts with praise, followed by requests, an order taught in Berachot 32a. It helps the supplicant focus attention, Sforno says, after which s/he will be ready to lodge his/her hopes.
Here, Hagar speaks of E-l Ro’I for exactly that kind of praise, You are the God Who sees all, not just in Avraham’s household. Her awareness of God’s attention to her, as it were, reminds Sforno of Bava Metzi’a 59a, all gates are shut other than for those who cry out because of mistreatment.
For Sforno, I think, the angel’s promise did not assuage her fears, it stimulated her to prayer [a weakness of his reading is that the verse does not tell us anything she requested. I suggest Sforno thought it was clear she asked for good health for the baby, or something along those lines.]
Stick with Problems or Let Them Go
In 13:14, the Torah times Hashem’s speaking with Avram to after Lot separated. Meshech Hochmah notes two views in Bereshit Rabbah 41;8. The first, R. Nehemiah, says what Rashi did, Avram’s association with the wicked Lot hindered Gd’s willingness to speak to him. Gd disliked (was angry about) Avram’s association with Lot, returned to speaking with him after Lot left.
The other view, R. Yuda, said the opposite, Gd was angry Avram let Lot leave. He built relationships with a panoply of people, brought them closer to Gd, yet could not with his own cousin/nephew?!
Meshech Chochmah linked these views and the next Midrash, where two other amoraim tussle over the meaning of acharei, after. One held it meant right after, matching the earlier idea that Gd disapproved of the relationship, appeared as soon as that barrier was cleared away.
The other said acharei meant long after (muflag, distant), possibly because Gd thought Avram failed to keep Lot close, and therefore refrained from speaking with him for some time, a sort of rebuke.
It draws our attention to a lasting disagreement in Jewish thought about how to handle people who have chosen bad paths, especially relatives. In his reading, one view thinks Avram should have kept Lot close even after he insisted on grazing his flocks where they did not belong, should have worked the same magic with Lot he did with pagans.
The other side seems to think Avram was correct to cut his losses, and Gd was waiting for him to realize it.
Likely, the answer lies in each case, making the Midrash a dispute about the course of action more correct for Avram and Lot. For the rest of us, it might be both: sometimes we are to keep wrongdoers close, in the hopes to help them grow to be better, other times we have to separate.
Not an easy calculation or choice, and according to some of these rabbis, a place where Avram himself might have mis-stepped.
Rewarding Good Thoughts
Hashem phrases the promise of protection to Avraham, early in our parsha, “va-avarecha mevarechecha, u-mekallelcha a’or. I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you, I will curse.” Kli Yakar points out the switch of order, Hashem promises to bless those who bless Avram, putting God’s act first, second in the cursing.
His first, longer, explanation, assumes meverachecha means those who think to bless you, where mekallelcha are those who already cursed. An example of the principle that God rewards thoughts of good as if already performed, punishes only wrongs committed.
He then seemingly digresses to a discussion of prayer, except it shows a fuller meaning of his comment. He starts with why God requires us to verbalize prayers, if God knows our thoughts.
Turning to Prayer
For an answer, he points to Yevamot 64a, God made the Matriarchs infertile out of “desire” for the prayers of the righteous. Kli Yakar sees a parental element, a father enjoys hearing from his child, wants the child to ask for what the father would give anyway, to extend the conversation, Hashem “wants” to hear from us.
In contrast to powerful people he knows, who interrupt petitioners as soon as they understand the request. God gives us as much time as we want, prefers longer prayers, because they require advance thought, and Hashem promises to reward the thought, too.
[He seems to be talking to his time rather than the verse. Grant his first claim, Hashem was telling Avram those who think to bless him would be blessed, its relevance to prayer is tenuous at best. It seems to me he wanted to encourage his listener/readers to pray better and longer, and saw a way to connect it.]
That’s five. See you next week.
The other comments we saw over the years:
R. David Zvi Hoffmann, Bereshit, Introduction to Lech Lecha
Ramban, Bereshit 12;1
Meshech Hochmah, Bereshit 12;4, Va-yelech ito Lot,
Onkelos, Bershit 12;5
Ramban, Bereshit, 12;6
Vilna Ga’on, Bereshit 12;8
Rashi, Bereshit 12;10, Ra’av ba-aretz
Ramban, Bereshit, 12;11
Onkelos, Bereshit 13;9, Im ha-semol
Rashi, Bereshit 13;10, whole verse
Rashi, Bereshit 13;13, whole verse
Chatam Sofer, Bereshit 13;17, Kum hithalech
Ha’amek Davar, Bereshit 14;7-13
Rashi, Bereshit 14;13, Va-Yavo ha-palit
Malbim, Bereshit 14;14, Va-Yishma Avram
Meshech Chochmah, Bereshit 15;1, Al tira
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch,Bereshit15;2, Hashem Elokim
Onkelos, Bereshit 15;4, Asher yetzei
Onkelos, Bereshit 15;13-4, Va-avadum
Or HaChayim, Bereshit 15;14, Ve-gam et ha-goy
Rashi, Bereshit 15;15, whole verse
Meshech Hochmah, Bereshit 15;16, Ve-dor revi’i
Rashi, Bereshit 16;3, Miketze ser shanim
Onkelos, Bereshit 16;5, Be-cheikecha
Onkelos, Bereshit 16;12, Yado ba-kol
HaKetav Ve-Ha-Kabbalah, Bereshit 16;14, Be-er Lachai Ro’i
Ibn Ezra, Bereshit, 17; 14, Ve-arel zachar