Looking for the Light in the Darkness

Life can be an adventure with its many twists and turns. The sense of excitement is magnified when one realizes that the detours are part of a Master Plan that will, in the end, be appreciated. LECHA LECHA

LOOKING FOR THE LIGHT IN THE

DARKNESS

Deficiency of Test

The first test that Abraham was given by G-d was to leave his homeland, his birthplace and his father’s house and travel to an unknown land that G-d would ultimately show him.

No sooner does Abraham arrive in this land — the Land of Cana’an, which ultimately became the Land of Israel — Abraham is compelled to leave it because there was a famine in the land.

There are two views amongst the classical commentators as to whether Abraham’s quick departure from the land due to famine was proper. According to Nachmanides, this was a serious deficiency for Abraham. Abraham, Nachmanides maintains, should have had faith that despite the famine, he would survive.

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According to Rashi, however, the phenomenon of the famine and Abraham’s descent to Egypt was part of a Divine test. Will Abraham lose faith in G-d, upon being told that he was to leave the very land to which he had been commanded to travel?

In Rashi’s approach, Abraham passed the test admirably. Nowhere do we find Abraham questioning G-d about this strange twist of events. Nowhere does Abraham complain to G-d, even as he and Sarah endure the indignities of staying in the morally depraved environment of the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Abraham and his View of Reward

With this premise, we can shed some light on a rather enigmatic aspect of this episode. When Abraham arrives in Egypt he realizes his wife’s beauty and the danger to her wellbeing this might present. “Please say that you are my sister,” Abraham implores of Sarah, “So that they will reward me for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

Now, we can somehow comprehend why Abraham put Sarah in danger. Regardless of what she would say about her relationship LECHA with Abraham, she would have certainly been abducted and given to Pharaoh. In addition, they would most likely have killed Abraham so as to eliminate the threat Abraham might pose in his likely attempt to liberate his wife Sarah.

We can therefore understand why he asked her to say that she was his sister, so as to remove the possibility that he would be murdered in addition to her abduction.

But why did Abraham add that this would provide him with a reward? How could Abraham think of a material reward when his wife’s honor and his life were at stake? Certainly Abraham, the paragon of virtue, the epitome of kindness, compassion and sensitivity to the plight of even total strangers, would not speak callously about the reward he would get at her expense.

Putting it all in Perspective

Upon deeper reflection, there was no callousness in Abraham’s remarks to Sarah; instead Abraham was trying to put the troubling and confusing twist of events into some perspective.

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As was noted, Abraham did not question why G-d had changed his plans and compelled him to precipitously leave the land to which He instructed him to travel and settle. But when Abraham saw how G-d’s plan was beginning to make sense, he acknowledged and utilized that knowledge.

In what way was Abraham and Sarah’s ordeal beginning to making sense?

We can find the answer to this in the opening statement of this week’s Parsha. G-d tells Abraham to uproot himself and travel to the new land. G-d, however, doesn’t just leave it at that. He also tells Abraham that by doing so he will get certain benefits.

I will make you into a great nation, and I shall bless you, and I shall make your name great.

What did G-d mean when He said “I shall bless you?” Weren’t all the other assurances blessings?

Rashi, anticipating this difficulty, interprets this blessing to refer specifically to financial reward. G-d, in effect, was telling Abraham that his traveling to the Land of Israel will yield economic benefits for him. To be sure, LECHA Abraham was not interested in financial windfalls for its own sake; and that was not G-d’s intention. Abraham needed no financial incentives to do G-d’s bidding.

By adding the monetary benefit, G-d perhaps wanted Abraham to realize that he would be provided with the means to spread Monotheism and the paths of justice and righteousness. Or, that others who do value the rewards for doing good will be impressed by Abraham’s acquisition of wealth.

Now that Abraham began to see how G-d’s plan, of him amassing wealth, was coming to fruition. By virtue of this terrible ordeal — the abduction of Sarah — he would be rewarded by the Egyptians, and G- d’s plan would ultimately become a reality. By mentioning the rewards he would receive Abraham was demonstrating to Sarah how G- d’s mysterious behavior was beginning to make some sense.

A lesson for this narrative can be applied to our own lives. While we cannot comprehend the reason for all the suffering that we have endured in recent times — how can anybody possibly fathom G-d’s ways? Nevertheless, we do have a right to identify the good that LECHA emerges from the suffering as it manifests itself.

By looking for the light in the darkness we prepare ourselves for that time in the near future about which we were told that all the suffering will disappear and the light that came out of the darkness of exile will shine brightly — the coming of Moshiach.

LECHA

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Lech Lecha by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.