A.
With our parasha, the focus of the Torah narrows further: Having begun with creation of the universe, the first parasha narrowed to focus on the Earth and its affairs; last week’s parasha dealt with the first two millennia of human development. Now, with our parasha, it narrows to the family of the patriarch Avraham, from whom the ethnic basis of the holy, Torah-nation would spring.
It is 2023 since the completion of the Creation, and Avram, not yet known as Avraham, has arrived in the Holy Land with his family and followers from Haran in the midst of a war of conquest, as Rashi reminds us: "והכנעני אז בארץ". הי' הולך וכובש את ארץ ישראל מזרעו של שם שבחלקו של שם נפלה כשחחלק נח את הארץ לבניו וגו' (“...‘And the Këna‘ani was then in the land’ [XII, 7], carrying out the conquest of Eretz Yisra’él from the descendants of Shem, for it fell to the portion of Shem when Noah divided the Earth amongst his sons....”).
As a direct result of the Canaanite conquest, famine grips the land (ibid., 10), and Avram seeks refuge in Egypt. On Avram’s return to the Holy Land from his Egyptian sojourn, we read: וילך למסעיו מנגב ועד בית א-ל עד המקום אשר הי' שם אהלו בתחלה בין בית א-ל ובין העי (“And he went on his journeys [lë-massa‘av] from the Negev to Béyth É-l, to the place where his tent had been at first, between Béyth É-l and ha-‘Ai”; XIII, 3). Rashi here follows the midrash בראשית רבה פמ"א סי' ג', ועיי' מתנות כהונה שם): כשחזר ממצרים לארץ כנען הי' הולך ולן באכסניות שלן בהם בהליכתו למצרים כו' בחזרתו פרע הקפותיו (“When he returned from Egypt to Eretz Këna‘an and went and stayed in the places where he had stayed on his way to Egypt... On his return, he repaid his debts....”).
More surprising than Hazal’s mention of the seemingly mundane fact that Avram repaid his debts, is that Rashi felt it necessary to mention it. Of course Avram paid his debts; had he not done so, he would have been guilty of theft, and would have been not a tzaddiq, but rather a rasha‘. Why, then, did Rashi feel it necessary to cite this particular, apparently self-evident midrash?
B.
The Maskil lë-David seems to have been bothered by this as well. He asks why our verse reads that Avram went lë-massa‘av; if the apparent, simple meaning is to translate it as I have above, “on his journeys”, one would rather expect to read bë-massa‘av. Hence, reasons the Maskil lë-David, the purpose of the return trip, revisiting all the places where he had rested previously, was lë-massa‘av, “for” his journeys, i.e. in order to take care of something which was related to the first trip; אם כן העקר חסר (“if so, the main point is lacking [from the verse]”). In short, the Maskil lë-David seems to say, the larger hiddush is not that he repaid his debts; it is that he had debts to repay.
Consider for a moment: Avram arrives in the Holy Land to find it desolate, laid waste by warfare, starving; having just undertaken the long, arduous journey from Haran, he needed to replenish provisions, and can hardly have had much; yet, he somehow managed to persuade perfect strangers, and not only strangers, but the famously tight-fisted Këna‘anim, o make him loans as he made his way to Egypt. What assurance did they have that he would repay his bills? What collateral could he possibly have left with them, that they should trust him? How did they know that he would, in fact, return the way he had come?
C.
A possible answer to this question suggests itself in the comparison of two other midrashim.
The first midrash reads: "לא תענה" קיים אברהם שהעיד לכל באי עולם שאתה רבון כל המעשים. אף הוא קיים "לא תחמוד", "מחוט ועד שרוך נעל" (“Avraham observed ‘you will not bear false witness” [lo’ tha‘ane], for he proclaimed to all mortals that You are Master of all the actions [Ribbon kol ha-ma‘asim]. He also observed ‘you will not covet’ [lo’ thahmod] [when he said], ‘neither a string nor a shoelace’ [Genesis XIV, 23]”; ילקוט שמעוני, פרשת יתרו רמז רע"ו).
Since Hazal tell us that Avraham observed the entire Torah voluntarily before it was commanded to his descendants (יומא כ"ח:, ויקרא רבה פ"ב סי' ט'), it is unsurprising that he kept these two specific commandments. What is odd is that these two are singled out here, as though they are linked in some way.
The Bë’ér Moshe offers in explanation: זוהי גדלותו של אברהם שהורה לדורות כו' שהרי כל קניניו של האדם אינם שלו כלל ועיקר אלא כולם שייכים אליו ית' בהיותו רבון כל המעשים ולפיכך "לא תענה" ו"לא תחמוד" קשורים זה בזה ויסוד קיונם בעולם הי' אברהם אבינו ראש המאמינים (“This is the greatness of Avraham, who instructed the generations... that all of a man’s possession are fundamentally not his at all; rather they belong to Him, in that He is Master of all the actions [Ribbon kol ha-ma‘asim], and therefore lo’ tha‘ane and lo’ thahmod are connected one to the other, and the foundation of their observance in the world is out father Avraham, the chief of the believers”; פרשתנו, מאמר שביעי).
This sublime principle was also proclaimed by King David: לד' הארץ ומלאה תבל ויושבי בה (“The Earth and its fullness is Ha-Shem’s, the globe and its inhabitants”; Psalms XXIV, 2). But the implications of this concept are liable to misinterpretation. It does not mean, for instance, that there is no such thing as private property, because “everything belongs to G-d”; rather, it means that the distribution of the world’s wealth amongst its inhabitants is at G-d’s discretion; as we so recently proclaimed on Rosh ha-Shana and reiterated on Yom Kippur, amongst the things subject to annual decision and adjustment are מי ייעני ומי ייעשיר, “who will be impoverished and who will be enriched.” It is given us to have some influence on our own situations, through prayer and merit, but the final decision is G-d’s, and it is for us to respect it.
Which brings us to our second midrash, cited by Rashi in his comment on Genesis XXIV, 10, that Avraham’s livestock was readily recognisable שהיו יוצאין זמומים מפני הגזל שלא ירעו בשדות אחרים (“for they would go out muzzled against robbery, that they not graze in the fields of others”; בראשית רבה פנ"ט סי' "ד, מתנות כהונה שם). From this we learn two things: First, that the “robbery” against which the animals were muzzled consisted of their seeking forage on other people’s property; second, that such a precaution was rare, sufficiently so to render Avraham’s animals instantly recognizable.
The practice was all the more remarkable because, Hazal tell us, he had nothing at all to fear, since בהמתן של צדיקים אין הקב"ה מביא תקלה על ידן (“The Holy One, Blessed is He, does not bring about a calamity through the livestock of tzaddiqim”; חולין ז.); hence, the precaution was unnecessary in the case of Avraham’s animals, if not anyone else’s. So why did he take it?
It seems to me that his purpose was dictated by his well-known proclamation that ultimately everything belongs to G-d. Having done his best to convince people that this was so, he now felt the need to demonstrate its correct interpretation, that legitimately acquired private property must be respected, that its misappropriation is a violation of the Divine Will, in that He had decided to bestow His property on whomever held the field in question. Such testimony through demonstrated example was surely primâ facie evidence of Avraham’s yashruth, his honesty and straightforwardness, for which he gained world-wide renown and respect; as Hazal tell us: שלשה כתרים הן כתר תורה וכתר כהונה וכתר מלכות וכתר שם טוב עולה על גביהן (“There are three crowns: The crown of Torah, the crown of këhunna, and the crown of kingship; and the crown of a good name rises above them”; אבות פ"ד מי"ז).
That is why perfect strangers trusted him, and were willing to lend him money.
D.
Avraham’s sterling example tells us precisely how it is that a holy nation is to conduct its business affairs, and it is an example which has stood by sincerely religious people down through the millennia and centuries, sometimes with amazing and unexpected additional ramifications.
I remember a truly remarkable story I was once told by Rabbi Yisra’él ‘Azri’él Feldman ז"ל. Rabbi Feldman was a native of a small town in Poland, in the vicinity of Warsaw. When he was a boy, in the 1920’s, the saintly Hafétz Hayyim came through his town, and Rabbi Feldman’s father, one of the prominent citizens of the community, pushed his forward to meet the tzaddiq. On being asked if he was learning gëmara, the youngster recited a piece of Bava Qama to the tzaddiq’s obvious delight, and received a bëracha: That he would live to have children, and would never have to touch a gun.
The rather unusual wording of the blessing caused considerable surprise amongst the men who heard it at the time. Its true meaning only became clear after the German invasion of Poland, in 1939, when the young Rabbi Feldman, late secretary of one of the rabbinical courts in Warsaw, managed to escape the Warsaw ghetto and, after several hair-raising incidents, managed to join a band of Communist partisans.
The atheistic Communists of course held religion and religious people in contempt, but this particular band had a problem: None of them trusted any of the others with their slender, and strictly rationed food supply, a source of constant suspicion and discord. But whatever else they thought of rabbis and religion, they knew beyond a doubt that they were honest; therefore, they placed the young rabbi in charge of the rations, and he survived the war as the commissary for a band of Communist.
Survived to marry and have children, without having had to touch a gun, thanks to Avraham’s example.
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