Avraham as Leader

Drash on Parashah Vayeira by David Haymer

Until very recently, my wife and I participated with a very diverse Torah study group made of both Jews and non-Jews, but all people interested in reading the Bible. One day I took an informal survey of each person in the group asking: What do you think is the greatest or most important, long-term legacy that Judaism has given to the world? I thought most people would say Monotheism, but I was wrong. I’ll let you think about your own answer for now, and I’ll return to this question later. To begin the discussion of this Parashah, let’s first go back to what we heard last week from Reb Dan Lev about Parashah Lekh Lekha – that basically, we don’t know much about Abram’s first 75 years. A few other things we don’t know: Why was he chosen to the first leader of the Jewish people? Why did we need a leader at all?

To try and find answers to these questions, let’s go back even further to B’reshit, looking at Adam and Eve and their offspring. Their problems as soon as they leave the Garden – we all know the story of Cain and Abel. Later, we have the arrival of the Nephilim and corruption of life all over the planet. These problems are addressed in the flood, destruction and the renewal of life in Parashah Noah. But again, we all know that while Noah was righteous, he was not perfect. In this Parashah we also learn about problems associated with the Tower of Babel, and how this ends up with groups of people making up different countries and more trouble. God thought- maybe I need to wipe everything out again? But whoops! Can’t do that – God previously made a promise to not wipe out the entire world again.

So God realizes that we need a leader to help things along. He chooses Abraham and gives him a covenant to be a leader of a great nation. Now, finally in Parashah Vayeira – God fulfills one part of covenant of making Abraham leader of a great nation by having Sarah give birth to a son despite her (and his) advanced age. But again, there is still corruption – Sodom and Gomorrah – God again wants to go for destruction, but on a limited scale. However, in Vayera (Chapter 18), God questions his own actions. Verse 17-18: Now יהוה had said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of
the earth are to bless themselves by him? Rashi, the great scholar, comments on this: What God was saying: Shall I conceal it from him since he is so beloved by Me to become a mighty nation?

However, this does not really address why Abraham was appropriate as a leader of the Jewish people. So, a different opinion is provided by the Rambam (Maimonides) where he says: No, Rashi’s comments are not enough says Maimonides. The correct interpretation is that G-d, blessed be He, spoke of the honor of Abraham. For I know that he recognizes and is cognizant that I the Eternal loveth righteousness and justice, that is to say, that I do justice only with righteousness, and therefore he will command his children and his household after him to follow in his path. Therefore, it is proper that he enter into the council of G-d.

Imagine that – being asked to become part of the council of God! Also, the very next verse further emphasizes what Maimonides was saying: For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of יהוה by doing what is just and right. This idea is emphasized in our regular liturgy with prayers we say all the time. The bottom line is that I agree with Rambam: His is a better explanation of why Abraham was appropriate to be the leader of the Jewish people. But the next verses, we also see that God and Abraham are just getting to know each other. God allows Abraham to negotiate to try and talk him down to finding just minimal
numbers of righteous people in order to save Sodom and Gomorrah, but they end up being destroyed anyhow. And, we still have other problems – Lot brings more corruption. Obviously, we still need guidance on doing the right thing. Now we come to the Akedah – the binding (and potential sacrifice) of Isaac. Did God ever really intend for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? I don’t think so. Instead, we may conclude that this whole scenario was a set up to designed to convey an important message to Abraham as the leader of the Jewish people, the people that were going to show the world what is just and right in our behavior. What was the message: No more human sacrifice! Period!

Why was this necessary, and how did we (as humans) get to the point where we even thought of doing human sacrifice and needed to be told to end it? If you look at the history of human sacrifice, it was common throughout the ancient world. Different reasons have been proposed by anthropologists as to why this was the case, but there is something of a consensus that ancient people recognized a Deity as a higher power, and they struggled to find a way to please their deities. So, they kept upping ante until they ended up with human sacrifice as a form of worship.

So, the goal of the Akedah story is to get us to transition away from human sacrifice by using animals instead. Under certain circumstances, plants are also acceptable. Furthermore, the goal of the rituals surrounding sacrifice is also to provide guidance to us as to how to live our lives on a day-to-day basis. Finally, to go back to the question I started with (and the answer I was given by the group): What do you think is the greatest or most important, long-term legacy that Judaism has given to the world? It is the whole Torah – the beautiful, detailed guide providing instruction for not only how to worship God, but how to behave and live our lives in a just and righteous manner.