The Weekly Sedra – Lech Lecha

During his monthly visits to the market in Krakow, a wealthy merchant took note of an extremely pious woman.

The woman; a widow, would huddle near her basket of bread reciting Psalms. She would only lift her eyes from her worn prayer book to sell a roll. After each sale, she would immediately return to the frayed pages that were moistened with teardrops, but not before thanking her customers and showering them with blessings.

“This pious woman should not have to struggle to earn a livelihood,” concluded the businessman. “She should be able to pursue her prayers and piety without worry.” He then offered to double her earnings on the condition that she would leave the bread business and spend her time in prayer and the pursuit of spirituality.

With tears of joy, the woman gladly accepted the gracious offer, thanking the good man for his kindness and generosity.

The next month, when the man returned to the market in Krakow, he was surprised to find the woman at her usual place doing her usual thing. “I thought we had a deal,” exclaimed the businessman in dismay.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman with a look of embarrassment on her face. “But after giving the matter some consideration I decided not to accept your offer.” “What do you mean?” cried the man, “a deal is a deal! I demand that you come with me to the Rabbi of Krakow to have this breach of contract resolved.”

And so, before long, the litigants found themselves in the presence of Rabbi Nosson Schapira, arguing their case. After the businessman presented his arguments it was the woman’s turn to speak.

“The reason this generous man offered to support me was to help me grow in spirituality and devotion,” she explained. “But the fact is that from the day I left my bread business I’ve only fallen in my spiritual sensitivity and devotion.” “How so?” questioned the Rabbi. “Let me explain:
It used to be that whenever it would rain, I would think of the farmers who planted the wheat. I would sing praises for the glory of rain, as I felt the personal guidance of our Father in Heaven with each raindrop. When the sun would shine, I found myself thanking the Almighty for permitting the farmers to harvest in good weather. When I ground and sifted the flour, I’d find countless reasons to thank and praise the Lord.

When the bread baked golden brown, I thanked Him once more for the pleasing result and its sweet aroma. And when a customer would come I’d thank Him yet again for sending me a patron.

Now all this is gone! No longer do I spend my day thanking and praising the heavenly Provider for the multitude of ways in which He sustains me – the miraculous way in which He tends to our intricate and dependent universe. I want no part of such a lame and insensate life. This was not what I had originally agreed to.”

The time was one thousand and twenty three years after creation, the place was our world, the setting was one of corruption and chaos. The event? The inauguration of the first Jew – the man who would change the world like no one before.

In its short history, the world had already survived a near death experience. Ten generations earlier – upon discovering the world’s decline into a state of depravity, debauchery and crime – the Creator resolved to wipe the slate clean and start all over. All flesh that walked the earth perished in a forty-day torrential deluge – all, save for Noach and company who G-d determined to be righteous.

Yet Noach failed to bring salvation to his generation – he yielded not a single penitent, nor did he win-over a single individual. According to many of the commentaries, Noach, after the Flood, had himself fallen from grace.

Even more astonishingly, ten generations later society had once again lapsed into a similar state of corruption and deterioration. Noach’s descendents have learned just about nothing from the horrific experience that has nearly destroyed the world. A Tzaddik, Noach certainly was, a leader he was not.

Ten generations after Noach’s, there shined a new luminary with a new and far more effective strategy. After two thousand years of desolation, in which Adam had fallen, Able had been murdered, and society was engulfed in idolatry – after ten dismal generations were washed away and the next ten heading in the same direction – it was time for a different template for human existence. The world was ready for Abraham and his revolutionary approach to life and spirituality.

But how was Abraham different than Noach and those before him?

Our commentaries attribute Noach’s ineffectiveness to the fact that that he was a “Tzaddik in peltz” (a righteous man in furs [Yiddish]). Tzaddik in peltz is a depreciative term for someone who tends to his own spiritual wellbeing while remaining oblivious to the spiritual needs of others. Instead of lighting a fire and warming the entire room, he limits his actions to enwrapping and warming himself.

Throughout the 120 years that it took to build the ark, Noach tried to save his generation by calling on them to repent. But the fact that he did not pray for them indicates that, essentially, it did not matter to him what became of them. Had he truly cared, he would not have sufficed with “doing his best,” but would have implored the Almighty to repeal His decree, much like Abraham and Moses did.

When Abraham learned of G-d’s plan to demolish Sodom and Gomorrah, he protested. He pleaded for Divine clemency. When G-d told Moses that he intended to destroy the sinful Israelites, Moses insisted that if the people were not forgiven he desired no part of G-d’s promise to rebuild the nation through his progeny. Noach, on the other hand, accepted the Divine proposition for him and his family to be rescued, even as the rest of humanity perished.

Our sages tell us that words that come from the heart penetrate the heart and are effective. Noach’s failure to be taken seriously by the people of his generation is proof that his words lacked proper conviction. It’s not that he wished them any harm, heaven forbid, it’s just that he saw his primary obligation to be one of self perfection and his responsibility towards others, especially the wicked, as secondary and in certain ways conflicting.

Abraham realized something those before him did not – something that is entirely counter intuitive. He recognized that one’s contribution to the betterment of society and fellow man – one’s involvement with the coarse and subversive elements – is not just a necessary evil; part of our obligation to G-d, but actually the way to improve ourselves. He understood that preoccupation with the lower facets of creation is just as holy as meditative prayer and the consumption of Divine knowledge.

Abraham, hence, fed the wayfarers and challenged their Paganistic practices with the same enthusiasm as when communicating with G-d.

The patriarchal images are of particular significance. Jewish tradition maintains “The actions of the forefathers are signs for their descendants” (Nachmanides on Genesis 32:4). The forefathers, in this sense, were paragons of man’s unique Divine mission on earth.

Abraham; the architect of the Jewish religion, and for that matter, of all modern religion, pioneered the path of self-growth through world preoccupation – the service of G-d through the perfection of His treasured universe. Abraham’s doctrine, which has sustained and transformed humanity over the past three and a half thousand years, is founded on the principle that life’s obstacles – even those that appear to be evil – are not things to run and hide from, or even to confront grudgingly, as did Noach with regards to the evil of his time – but rather a means to prefect the world and thereby refine and elevate ourselves in the very process.

During a farbrengen someone complained to the presiding Mashpia (spiritual mentor) that upon approaching mid-life, he found that he, as well as some of his friends, were losing their spark. Life seemed to have become routine and listless. “That’s because you are living for yourselves,” said the Mashpia. He then proceeded to relate the following legend:

Two mountain climbers became stranded atop a mountain due to an unexpected blizzard. The weather conditions permitted them to see no more than two feet in front of them.

Despair set in as the sun began to set and the weather rapidly plunged. There was no way they could survive the night in the light garments in which they were clad. It was only a matter of hours before hypothermia would end their lives.

One of them began to pace back and forth as a consequence of a nervous reaction. Next thing he knew he was on the ground as a result of having stumbled on something covered in the snow. As he took a closer look he became horror-struck. Yes! it was actually a person covered in snow. A check of the man’s pulse revealed that the he was still alive.

Needless to say they both instinctively set out to unbury the dying man. Using their bare hands, it took them all night to break through the snow and ice. Before they knew it, a bright warm sun, rising in the east, was warming their chilled weary bones. All three have survived.

“When one is preoccupied in saving the life of another,” concluded the Mashpia, “life never becomes dull and listless.”

The story of Abraham and his progeny is defined in the words “Lech Lecha,” the opening words of our Parsha: Move on and help transform the world and you will invigorate and enrich your life in the process!