Avraham —
The Ten Trials and Israel’s DNA
In Pirkei Avot: Avraham our father was tested with ten trials and withstood them all. According to the Rambam they begin with “Lech Lecha” and the last is the Akeda, and both open with the words “Lech Lecha.” The trial is not the promise but that “Avram went as Hashem had spoken to him.” Then the descent to Egypt and “Say you are my sister” raise questions, and the Ramban answers: the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children. Avraham paves the way: Egypt, plagues, leaving with great wealth and going up to the Land. That is why we conclude “Magen Avraham”: he is Israel’s physical, historical and spiritual DNA, and the root of chesed, on which the world is built.
In chapter 5 of Avot, in the Mishnah that follows the ten generations: “Avraham our father was tested with ten trials and withstood them all, to show how great was the love of Avraham our father.” What are the ten trials? There is a dispute among the commentators. Some want to say that the first trials too, such as Avraham being thrown into the fiery furnace, are counted among the ten. But the Rambam holds that the trials begin with what we read in this parasha.
The first trial is “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace and from your father’s house,” and the last trial also opens with the words “Lech Lecha, to the land of Moriah,” for the binding of Yitzchak. The first is to leave his land and reach the land of Canaan; the last is the trial of the Akeda. How old was Avraham when Yitzchak was born? A hundred, and this is hinted in the words “Lech Lecha”: lamed and chaf make fifty, and twice that is a hundred.
There is a question: the Holy One, blessed be He, comes and says to Avraham: “Go forth from your land... and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing... and all the families of the earth shall be blessed through you.” Who would not answer such a call? This is not just a person who promises, it is not an election promise, it is a promise from the Holy One, blessed be He. So what trial is there? The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh touches on this question and says that the precise wording is “Avram went as Hashem had spoken to him”: Avraham goes not because of all the promises, but because Hashem spoke to him. Avraham says to himself, so to speak: “Hashem told me, I get up and go; it does not matter to me what You are going to give me for it.” And that is the trial. Note the word “spoke”: we learned that “saying” is soft language and “speaking” is hard language. At the opening of the parasha it is written “Hashem said to Avram,” soft language, because one is asking a person to leave everything and go to another place. But Avraham did not hear it as something pleasant: he heard a command. “Avram went as Hashem had spoken to him,” not “as He said to him.”
Avraham begins to walk, and arrives in the land, and there is famine in the land. What does Avraham do? He goes down to Egypt. We said this is a trial: there is famine, face it; why go down to Egypt to look for food? Where is your trust in the Holy One, blessed be He? Perhaps pray? Afterwards he reaches the border of Egypt and says to Sarah: “Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and my soul will live on your account.” Avraham fears: if the Egyptians know she is his wife, they will kill him and let her live; so let us do a trick, a white lie, my sister. What kind of conduct is this for a righteous man? Why are you afraid of the Egyptians? Tell the Holy One, blessed be He: I am coming to Egypt, everything is fine; why the manipulations, why these lies? Stand like a man. Even if it is written in the Midrash, there was a trial with the furnace into which they threw him and an angel came down and cooled it. So where did Avraham’s trust go? “And my soul will live on your account,” that is, he does not mind living at the expense of what will happen to Sarah. We must understand what lies behind this conduct.
The Ramban deals with all this conduct and says: do not worry and do not ask questions. By the way, about the Patriarchs one does not ask questions: there is a story in the Zohar in which the students said to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: speak to us a little about Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and he said to them: about the Patriarchs one cannot speak, it is something else. We are speaking now in order to learn, Heaven forbid. The Ramban says: what Avraham our father does is “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children.” Avraham our father is a prophet, and he paves the way for the children who will come after him. That is the idea.
This is the course that happens afterwards. Yitzchak, the “unblemished offering,” when there is famine in the land, stays in the land: “Do not go down to Egypt.” Yaakov, when there is famine in the land, sends his sons to Egypt. Where did he learn this? From Avraham our father. What does Yaakov seek in Egypt? Yaakov our father knew, as Yitzchak knew and Avraham knew, that when Adam sinned the sparks of holiness were scattered in the world, and even more so in Egypt; one must go and extract them from there, one must begin this process. So Yaakov goes down to Egypt like Avraham.
When we reach Egypt, what does Pharaoh say? “Every son that is born you shall throw into the Nile.” And what does Avraham say? “Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and my soul will live on your account”: from the son’s point of view, a manipulation of Pharaoh. What do the midwives do? “For the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; they are vigorous, and give birth before the midwife comes to them”: they tell him a story, and in fact they save the children of Israel. Where did they learn to lie with such craft? From Avraham our father: “Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and my soul will live on your account,” and in the book of Shemot: “and they let the children live.” Exactly language for language.
Avraham reaches Egypt, and the Egyptians see the woman, for she is very beautiful, and she is in fact Knesset Yisrael, who is there in Egypt. “And he treated Avram well on her account”... They see it, and this is in fact the symptom of antisemitism from ancient times: when it is said that the Jews are successful, they are the first victim for taking revenge on them. And Pharaoh wants to get rid of Israel, and his decrees begin. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do? Ten plagues. What is written at Avraham in the parasha? “And Hashem struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues on account of Sarai, Avram’s wife”: a hint to the ten plagues that Pharaoh receives. What happens after the plague of the firstborn? They look for Moshe, and Pharaoh calls Avraham and says: “What have you done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?” “And the Egyptians urged Israel,” as if to expel them from Egypt as quickly as possible.
The children of Israel leave Egypt with great wealth, as it is written: “Avram went up from Egypt... and Avram was very rich in livestock, silver and gold.” The deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children: just as Avraham leaves Egypt with great wealth, Israel leaves with great wealth. Where does Israel go out to? To go to Eretz Israel. What do we read in the book of Bamidbar? “These are the journeys of the children of Israel who went out of the land of Egypt.” And note the verse here: “And he went on his journeys,” a hint to Parashat Masei, “from the Negev to Beit El.” What is the final station that Israel reaches in Eretz Israel? Shiloh, the Beit HaMikdash: “as far as Beit El... to the place of the altar which he had made there at first, and Avram called there on the name of Hashem.” We close a circle: the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children, exactly the same course, one to one. And so the whole parasha goes. Also the quarrel between the shepherds of Lot’s livestock and those of Avraham is the internal wars that there are in the Land with the nations. Avraham our father does not do this out of a lack of faith, Heaven forbid, or a lack of trust in Hashem, but he paves the way for Israel, so that it will be easy in their eyes.
There is a question on what is written here: “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and be a blessing.” What does Rashi say? “With you we conclude.” What is that? In the Shemoneh Esreh we say “Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzchak and Elokei Yaakov,” and then “Blessed are You, Hashem, Magen Avraham.” If you mentioned the three Patriarchs, say “Magen Avot”; and if you decided to say “Magen Avraham,” say “Elokei Avraham.” How is it that you open with Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov and conclude with Avraham specifically? “And be a blessing” - with you we conclude. There are many answers on this, but from what we have just learned we understand that Avraham our father is the DNA of the people of Israel. Not only the physical DNA in the plain sense, for from Avraham the people of Israel begins: Avraham begot Yitzchak, and Yitzchak Yaakov, seventy souls, six hundred thousand, and that is the people of Israel. We received the physical DNA from Avraham. But we also received it from a historical point of view: the historical DNA of the people of Israel lies with Avraham our father, as we said just now: the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children. Everything that happened to Avraham happens to the people of Israel; the history of the whole people of Israel, four thousand years, since Avraham was born in the year one thousand nine hundred and forty-eight from the creation of the world, is embodied in all that happened to Avraham our father. And the Ramban deals with this.
And most important: why do we conclude “Magen Avraham”? Because the spiritual DNA of the people of Israel is also with Avraham our father; the divine spark is with Avraham our father. How do we understand this? As we said, the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, placed Adam to work and guard it, and he failed. We said: let us look for something that will repair. Ten generations reached Noach, and Noach failed. Who is now the one who will take the torch and lead the world to repair? Avraham our father. And if our physical and spiritual DNA perhaps begins with Terach? No chance, because if it depended on Terach, he begot a son, Avraham, who had no children: he was barren, and the One who took him out of barrenness is the Holy One, blessed be He. It is like Adam: who is Adam’s mother? The Holy One, blessed be He, created him from dust of the earth, he has no mother, he has no beginning, his beginning is the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. Avraham our father too: his beginning, capable of producing seed and rolling out the people of Israel, is the Holy One, blessed be He. The whole reason the Holy One, blessed be He, creates the world is the attribute of chesed: He wanted to bestow of His kindness on the lower ones, on the lower worlds, as we say “the world is built on chesed.” Avraham our father is sealed with the attribute of chesed, and he is the one who lays the foundation for the building of the world, and he is that spiritual spark that sustains the world. It comes out that when we conclude with “with you,” we cleave to the attribute of chesed that Avraham our father had, by whose power the world is built: by virtue of what he does and what he transmits, and of our fulfilling the chesed that he did, we sustain the world. And all along the way we see that Avraham our father is in the attribute of chesed, and the people of Israel’s signs are bashful, merciful and doers of kindness. That is why we conclude “Magen Avraham”: he is the root of the root, and he is also the root of Yaakov and of Yitzchak; and from this, with Hashem’s help, we can lead the world to its repair.
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