A thought on Parshas Lech Lecha
"...v'nivrechu b'cha kol mishpachos ha'adama..."
"...and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you..." (12:3)
How are the peoples of this wide world blessed through the Jewish nation? Rabbenu Bachya writes that this means more than the obvious, that at times in our history we have shared our knowledge and our ways with the other nations. No, he says, this blessing given to our forefather Avraham means more: there are also times when the world, or its leaders, or the masses, are in distress. At those times, too, we find instances where "they" have turned to us for insight, for wisdom, for guidance...
Some of us can think of tense moments when, like Yona aboard the boat in the storm, the "other's" reflex is to beg that the Jew pray for everyone's safety. There are times when a religious Jew's presence will bring calm, or comfort or even just decorum to a frenzied setting. This week, a former graduate student from whom I had had no contact for a decade since sitting on her dissertation committee, called me out of the blue. She has been disabled for the last five years, out of work, and living with her elderly mother and they were given a notice that they were being evicted. She called and asked me to pray for her in that they needed to come up with $1200 immediately and had no resources. I was sad to learn of her plight, given that she was an accomplished and promising professional, actually older than me, and now she had nothing, literally. I gave her words of encouragement and she called the next day stating that two checks had arrived in the mail unexpectedly from two different people owing them money from years before. One was for $1000 and the second for $200. A few days later she called and left word that her disability claim had suddenly been resolved after years of waiting and she would be getting monthly checks.
While the news was certainly awe-inspiring to me (and to her and her mother), the greater awe was that she had even thought of calling me. She said that she knew that I was a devout Jew and that Jewish prayers must mean something above. She seemed to believe that. (I recalled that her dissertation orals were completed at a local Catholic college and I had asked her if she thought she might turn to the Church or those nuns for assistance, something she said that she had not even thought of trying)(she later called and said she tried but they had no resources to offer her.)
As Rabbeinu Bachya says, the blessing to Avraham Avinu that "the families of the earth will be blessed through you" is not "just" a metaphysical reality but it is a reality which the nations grasp and are aware of when they need to. They expect us to be a spiritual people. They expect us to be Chosen, at least when they need us to be that way. He adds that this is one way of understanding the familiar verse in Psalms 117:1-2) "shab'chuhu kol ha'umim; ki gvar aleinu Chasdo" - "the nations end up praising HaShem for they recognized that He is good to us." At times they will turn to the Jew in the hope and expectation that our blessing will spill over to them and that they too will be blessed. The late Rav Zalman Ury zt'l told me that in Radin, the local non-Jews would "steal" the Chofetz Chaim's cow, brining it into their fields. They firmly believed that when he walked on their ground in fetching his "stray" cow that some of his "blessing" would flow onto their property...
Our challenge, though, is in determining how we are seen and how we wish to be seen by others. It is fine if people know that they can turn to us, say, for honest accounting, or quality health care, or ethical business practices. That is surely a kiddush HaShem and helps elevate our name among the nations who need us. It is something else, though, if the nations, our neighbors and associates and people in the market and on the streets and sidewalks look at us and see us as holding the blessings of the patriarchs in our demeanor and composure. We are meant to carry those blessings with us at all times. HaShem asks this of us. The nations expect this of us too.
Is this how they see us? Is this how we wish to be seen? Is this who and how we are? Ask yourselves this Shabbos: am I a living example of the blessings given to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov? It is not about blessings of material wealth but of priceless eternal wealth and richness of character and precious spirit.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
"...and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you..." (12:3)
How are the peoples of this wide world blessed through the Jewish nation? Rabbenu Bachya writes that this means more than the obvious, that at times in our history we have shared our knowledge and our ways with the other nations. No, he says, this blessing given to our forefather Avraham means more: there are also times when the world, or its leaders, or the masses, are in distress. At those times, too, we find instances where "they" have turned to us for insight, for wisdom, for guidance...
Some of us can think of tense moments when, like Yona aboard the boat in the storm, the "other's" reflex is to beg that the Jew pray for everyone's safety. There are times when a religious Jew's presence will bring calm, or comfort or even just decorum to a frenzied setting. This week, a former graduate student from whom I had had no contact for a decade since sitting on her dissertation committee, called me out of the blue. She has been disabled for the last five years, out of work, and living with her elderly mother and they were given a notice that they were being evicted. She called and asked me to pray for her in that they needed to come up with $1200 immediately and had no resources. I was sad to learn of her plight, given that she was an accomplished and promising professional, actually older than me, and now she had nothing, literally. I gave her words of encouragement and she called the next day stating that two checks had arrived in the mail unexpectedly from two different people owing them money from years before. One was for $1000 and the second for $200. A few days later she called and left word that her disability claim had suddenly been resolved after years of waiting and she would be getting monthly checks.
While the news was certainly awe-inspiring to me (and to her and her mother), the greater awe was that she had even thought of calling me. She said that she knew that I was a devout Jew and that Jewish prayers must mean something above. She seemed to believe that. (I recalled that her dissertation orals were completed at a local Catholic college and I had asked her if she thought she might turn to the Church or those nuns for assistance, something she said that she had not even thought of trying)(she later called and said she tried but they had no resources to offer her.)
As Rabbeinu Bachya says, the blessing to Avraham Avinu that "the families of the earth will be blessed through you" is not "just" a metaphysical reality but it is a reality which the nations grasp and are aware of when they need to. They expect us to be a spiritual people. They expect us to be Chosen, at least when they need us to be that way. He adds that this is one way of understanding the familiar verse in Psalms 117:1-2) "shab'chuhu kol ha'umim; ki gvar aleinu Chasdo" - "the nations end up praising HaShem for they recognized that He is good to us." At times they will turn to the Jew in the hope and expectation that our blessing will spill over to them and that they too will be blessed. The late Rav Zalman Ury zt'l told me that in Radin, the local non-Jews would "steal" the Chofetz Chaim's cow, brining it into their fields. They firmly believed that when he walked on their ground in fetching his "stray" cow that some of his "blessing" would flow onto their property...
Our challenge, though, is in determining how we are seen and how we wish to be seen by others. It is fine if people know that they can turn to us, say, for honest accounting, or quality health care, or ethical business practices. That is surely a kiddush HaShem and helps elevate our name among the nations who need us. It is something else, though, if the nations, our neighbors and associates and people in the market and on the streets and sidewalks look at us and see us as holding the blessings of the patriarchs in our demeanor and composure. We are meant to carry those blessings with us at all times. HaShem asks this of us. The nations expect this of us too.
Is this how they see us? Is this how we wish to be seen? Is this who and how we are? Ask yourselves this Shabbos: am I a living example of the blessings given to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov? It is not about blessings of material wealth but of priceless eternal wealth and richness of character and precious spirit.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 1:04 PM
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