Lech Lecha: Man’s Relationship with G-d

We saw last time, by way of introduction to the Covenant made with Avraham, that Avraham was questioning the inheritance of the land, since he had no child. And G-d says to him: go out beyond your limits and look at the stars of the heavens — so shall your offspring be. And then the text tells us: Ve-he’emin ba-Hashem va-yachsheveha lo tzedakah. Avraham believed in G-d — va-yachsheveha lo tzedakah — and he reckoned it as tzedakah, as charity. Who reckoned it as charity? The commentators have puzzled over this phrase, ve-he’emin ba-Hashem: as though he had not had faith in G-d until now! Yet up to this point, the one who discovered G-d was Avraham himself: “Look to Avraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for he was one when I called him.”

Look to Avraham, who is regarded as rosh ha-ma’aminim, the first of the believers. It took two thousand years from the creation of the world before a believer finally arose. And until now, Avraham had devoted himself to proving to all the unbelievers, step by logical step, that this world was created by the will of a Creator, that it answers to a creative will, and that consequently it has a meaning, it has a purpose; it is not the product of chance, it is not the product of nature. So until now, the Avraham we believed we knew was one who spread faith in G-d and founded it on reasoning — on showing the absurdity of the alternative, on logical argument — and who succeeded in convincing his listeners.

It is true that people did not believe him, because they told themselves he would not last: since he has no child, sooner or later he will grow weary. Even if he escaped the fiery furnace, we are not going to fight with him beyond measure; we will simply wait. And now here he is, questioning his future inheritance, and the text needs to say ve-he’emin ba-Hashem — he believed in G-d. Let us now open a parenthesis to see what faith is — ve-he’emin ba-Hashem. To believe in G-d: what does it mean? Is it a conviction drawn from the fact of the world’s creation, something that can be proved, that can be verified?

In our evening prayer we join together emet ve-emunah, truth and faith. One would therefore be more inclined to say that it is through a search for truth that one arrives at faith. But if one arrives at faith through truth, then there is no faith — it is simply logic. And indeed, there are people who reach convictions on the scientific or the philosophical plane and who do not base their belief on the truths they have found: they remain forever animated by doubt. Is faith, then, grace, as some maintain? Or is faith really a phenomenon bound up more with the inner feeling of one’s being — not with one’s consciousness, not with one’s logic, but first of all with a certainty about one’s own life? For if there is one thing I do not doubt, it is that I exist. I exist because I feel things, not so much because I understand them; I exist because there is a whole world surrounding me, because I am hungry, I suffer, I love, and so on. In that case we can say of Avraham: u-matzata et levavo ne’eman lefanecha — “You found his heart faithful before You.”

It is his heart that is faithful — not his logic, not his search for truth. It is the very fact that he finds himself in the midst of a creation, and that this creation is itself the place of revelation. And in the same way, no truth can hold without faith, since faith is the dwelling place of truth. If I have no faith, how will I reach the truth? And even if I were to discover it, I would not practise it insofar as it contradicted my interests, my feelings, my desire. So we have said that Avraham is indeed rosh ha-ma’aminim. He is the man of faith; he is the source of faith.

Now this faith that characterises Avraham is bound up above all with the reality of creation. In what way? Our Sages have told us that G-d placed His trust in His creation. When He created it, He feared that the laws of nature would begin to function in an uncontrolled way, and so He asked Himself whether or not this world should be created. He decided to create it because He trusted His creation. That is to say: faith preceded creation. And when faith preceded creation, what was the charter of creation, what was its blueprint? It was the laws of the Torah. G-d, as it were, followed the laws of the Torah, the data of the Torah, and created the world; and He trusted this world to remain faithful to the architecture of the Torah and not to fall into disorder.

Now, what could throw this world into disorder? Man. For which created being — let us say — obeys all the laws of nature and contains, encloses within himself, all the data of nature? Demut adam, the aspect of man, the likeness of man — that of Ezekiel’s vision; He created him in the image of G-d. If He created him in the image of G-d, then Ezekiel’s vision is confirmed: upon the likeness of the throne, upon the heavenly throne, sat demut ke-mar’eh adam, the likeness of a man. That likeness of a man is the one that embraced the whole phenomenon of creation. And consequently, if man did not recognise himself in his Creator, he would indeed throw creation into disorder. And that is what happened: the first Adam sinned.

But the first Adam, our Sages say, had a stature reaching from one end of the world to the other — mi-sof ha-olam ve-ad sofo. That is, he had so universal a dimension that this man was truly the divine project of creation. But this divine project of creation — what is it for? Our Sages teach us: “Everything that G-d created, He created only for His own glory” — for His own honour — and we say as much in our prayers […]. The good that He created is kavod, glory, for Him. Glory! Would one create a world for that? Would one, in the end, invest oneself in raising a family and children for one’s own personal glory? The nachash, the serpent — which is, in sum, the ferment of desire — overcame the woman’s resistance. Why the woman’s resistance? Because it is she who embodies fidelity, faith. The Zohar puts it this way: ihu emet ve-ihi emunah — “he is truth and she is faith.” When it raises the question — let us say, “What is truth?” — it frames it in the masculine: ihu emet; and likewise, “What is justice?” But ihi emunah is feminine. Why? Because it is she who agrees to receive the masculine seed, to make it fruitful, to give it life, with a certain trust in the future, a certain faith in the future. If, for example, she harboured fears about the child’s future, physically and morally, why would she run that risk? And so we understand why the serpent attacks the woman first, and it is she who will persuade her husband. And after the sin, that man who reached from one end of the universe to the other — who embraced the entire universe and contained it within himself, a single man — was reduced, reduced from the stature he had to a hundred cubits, and he could no longer find his bearings.

He no longer had that power of perception; his world shrank, he was limited. And so faith was damaged. It will be rediscovered through Avraham, rosh ha-ma’aminim, who will pass it on to his descendants; and so, by this path, the language — the dialogue between G-d and man, between the Creator and the created — becomes possible, and when the dialogue is restored, growth becomes possible. We said earlier that faith is the dwelling place of truth, the place of truth; and the world, too, is the place where man flourishes. Without the world, no flourishing is possible. That is why, at the beginning, there is no reference to the Torah; there is simply offspring and land — descendants, sowing — but not sowing in mid-air: sowing in the earth. That is, a land is absolutely necessary in order to develop Avraham’s identity. For Avraham bears the title ha-adam ha-gadol ba-anakim, “the greatest man among the giants.” Why? Because he recovered man after two thousand years. He restored the image of man, which means — as I have explained — that when one cites Avraham, when one refers to Avraham, one no longer needs to declare that G-d is King of the world: kingship passes through the kingship of man.

Man, in the language he has newly forged with his Creator, has become G-d’s spokesman, and G-d too has found a refuge on earth. And when He builds and imparts His word, He reveals Himself to man, and all goes well — except when, once again, the people sins: this people that heard the word of G-d at Sinai, which was the ketubah, the marriage contract of the covenant between G-d and the people of Israel. When they sinned — following the call that went out — they declared: eleh elohecha Yisrael, “these are your gods, O Israel.” That is avodah zarah. What is avodah zarah? What is idolatry?

Idolatry is the fragmentation of all the elements created by G-d — when one does not manage to connect all of them, to unite all these elements into a single force and, in a way, to reproduce them in our being, in our own life. For today we think one way, tomorrow another. And that is entirely normal: a child that has just been born has not yet experienced life; he has not studied, he has not been forged by life’s trials. Now this exile of man is not negative; this exile of man is constructive. In the history of the Jewish people, we began with an exile, because we were forbidden to withdraw into ourselves and to remain a people confined within its borders, with no dialogue with the outside world, with no possibility of engaging the outside world, of spreading its identity and disseminating its knowledge to the world beyond. And so we began with exile; we were born in exile. Our starting point is no longer the Garden of Eden; Eden becomes the destination. We yearn for the Land of Israel, we yearn for Yerushalayim, we yearn for the building of the Sanctuary — and in this way, even if we did not succeed in bringing our project to fulfilment, we remain animated by faith.

That is what is called emunah shelemah — ani ma’amin be-emunah shelemah, “I believe with complete faith” — when, in sum, everything outside cries out that there is a great question mark, yet we pay no heed to all this questioning and continue to tell ourselves that, since the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, He will not destroy His world, He will not destroy His work; and just as He will not destroy His work, He will not destroy man, in whom He has placed all His trust for the success of this universe. We said it earlier: kevodo male olam, “His glory fills the world.” So where is that place? Where is the place in which we can truly pay Him homage, admire Him? It lies in man’s capacity to spread goodness through his own person.

And here we reach an important point, which establishes the relationship between hesed — between kindness — and faith. U-matzata et levavo ne’eman lefanecha ve-charot imo ha-brit — “You found his heart faithful before You, and You made the covenant with him.” The Holy One, blessed be He, made a covenant with Avraham because Avraham shared his faith with Him. Faith in what? Faith in hesed. We have said a word about this hesed, this kindness. And we said that very often this hesed, if badly practised, arouses envy, contempt, sometimes even hatred and jealousy. People do not want charity, do not want kindness, do not want to be beholden to anyone. So is this hesed truly so commendable that, when a blessing must be sealed, out of all the patriarchs we take Avraham alone?

Baruch atah Hashem, magen Avraham — “Blessed are You, Hashem, Shield of Avraham” — because Avraham is the bearer of hesed. You know very well that G-d says: lefi ma’asai ani nikra, “I am called according to My deeds.” I am what I am; you cannot know Me. There is no point in philosophising about My existence, whether I exist or do not exist. Reflect on My attributes. I have many attributes, and each time I reveal Myself through an attribute — but every attribute through which I reveal Myself always has kindness as its source. Hashem, Hashem, E-l rachum ve-chanun: when we invoke Him, we invoke His kindness, His mercy. And you know, our Sages teach that more than the rich man does for the poor man, the poor man does far more for the rich man, because he recognises him.

For without the poor taking from him, merely holding on to his wealth, he would not recognise himself. Yet there is here a giver and a receiver, and so there is always this risk — the risk of jealousy, the risk of contempt, the shame of having to depend on another person. Now, another definition of hesed is given. What is hesed? What is kindness? […] I am in the process of developing myself; I pay attention only to my own person, and each day I seek to reach a higher dimension, a higher level — so that when I grow, when I develop, I no longer serve only my own person. There are many people who benefit from what I become. And in sum, what have I done?

I have taken others into my own person. I become the unique model of an entire community which, for its part, is nourished indirectly by what I am. There is not me and the other — no: there is the other who finds himself in me, who recognises himself in me. And that is the principle of unity. The principle of unity is when the one who receives is, indirectly, the one who gives. For he gives himself to me, but indirectly he is nourished by me. That is what happens with G-d. He created His world, yet He is One. There is not the world and Him; the world is found wholly in Him. The fragmentation of the world, the fragmentation of the forces of nature, would become — or rather would serve — many idols. It is said that Avraham had four hundred chapters on idols, on idolatrous practices. He fought them. You can draw the connection between these four hundred chapters of idols and the four hundred years required of the Jewish people in Egypt in order to reach the revelation of the One G-d.

The point is not to scatter oneself, and not to declare ani ve-afsi od — “I am, and there is none besides me” — that I exist and the other exists only in relation to me. No, one must… Bishvili nivra ha-olam, “for my sake the world was created,” means that the whole universe is found within me. And in this way I can indeed steer it in the direction of idolatry, or in the direction of recognition — of faith, of flourishing — like a child who grows and, day by day, asserts himself and blossoms. That, then, is the relationship between faith and will. Faith is seeing that this world lies entirely within man, who is the fruit of creation, the prototype of the entire universe; and this prototype of the entire universe is in the image of G-d, sharing with the world all of His attributes — attributes that man has indeed acquired in a constant dialogue with the Creator, with creation.

Now we can return to our text: ve-he’emin ba-Hashem. Avraham manifested his faith in G-d. And what does Rashi say? Li-zechut — to his merit. Which merit? The merit of having acquired another level of existence. For, as we said earlier, our belonging to this world is borne out first of all by the fact that there is a world around me: I feel it, I live it; I do not always think it. I do not say “I think, therefore I am” — that is not it. When I suffer, I do not think; no. This world is a reality: I adhere to it or I do not, I accept it as it is or I refuse it — and if I refuse it, I harm my own life, I no longer exist. That is the teaching Avraham came to bring. And ve-he’emin ba-Hashem … li-zechut: do not read li-zechut, “to his merit,” but le-zakkot, “to bring merit” — to benefit other people. But in order to benefit other people, one must first think of developing one’s own attributes, of coming oneself to bear this demut, this likeness to the attributes of G-d, since the Holy One, blessed be He, manifests Himself only through His attributes. Then one can benefit the other. Very well — and He reckoned it as charity. You know, there is a passage in Proverbs: malveh Hashem chonen dal, “whoever is gracious to the poor lends to G-d.” How does one lend to G-d? Chonen dal — by an act of grace towards the poor. Then G-d undertakes to repay you, to return to you even a hundredfold what you gave. But on the other hand, it is said […] — when someone lends us money, we are bound to him: we have pledged all our goods to him, mortgaged our whole life, in order to repay him what he gave us.

Would it then be the same for G-d with regard to man? The verse in Proverbs says malveh Hashem, whoever lends to G-d, chonen dal: he goes and performs an act of grace towards the poor one, the one reduced to the state of a poor man. The one reduced to the state of a poor man is the Creator of the world, whom we have shut up in one place, in a temple — whereas He is Bore Olam, the Creator of the whole universe. How, in the end, could He be confined to a few corners of this world? But it turns out — and our Sages affirm it as well — that when the Temple was destroyed, paseku anshei amanah, “the men of faith ceased” — paseku anshei amanah; and David said: ki fassu emunim mi-bnei adam, “for the faithful have vanished from among men.”

Hoshi’ah Hashem ki gamar chasid: “Save, Hashem, for the pious man is no more” — for the pious man no longer exists. Ki fassu emunim mi-bnei adam: the men of trust are no longer to be found. Why? Quite simply because faith had been struck in that constant dialogue between man and G-d. An idolatrous notion has taken shape which regards humanity as a multitude of individuals, separated from one another, disunited, who simply complete one another through what each contributes to the other. But that is not how the world should be seen. One must see that each person — and this particularly for the Jewish people. Why do I say for the Jewish people? Because Avraham himself reached this level when he asked, “How shall I have proof that my offspring will inherit this land?” The natural framework in which you live is an idolatrous framework, a framework in which all the laws of nature, all the forces of nature, contend with one another, do they not, in order to maintain some kind of cohesion — but you: va-yotze oto ha-chutzah, He brought him outside and said to him: lift your eyes to the heavens. You are not the plaything of nature, you are not the product of nature; it is you who command nature. And if it is you who command nature, then you have a special status: that of being a unity which integrates within itself all the forces of nature, all the attributes of the Divine. And since there are different attributes of the Divine, there are those who will assert themselves, let us say, through a sense of justice, others through a sense of mercy, others through a sense of truth, and so on.

The different attributes are distributed among human beings, but each person, through his attribute, represents the whole of creation — the prototype, the image of Adam ha-Rishon, the first man. And that is why our Sages say that kol echad, each and every one, must say bishvili nivra ha-olam: “for my sake the world was created; I am its embryo.” And so, when I am the embryo of the world, we shall see what the Covenant will now be: exile. Exile is there to teach us to combat this phenomenon of separation, of the dispersal of the different currents, the different cultures, the different forces, and to make them converge on a single point: that of man — the one who stretches mi-sof ha-olam ve-ad sofo, from one end of the world to the other — who sees himself as able truly to change the order of the world, its orientation, to give it greater resonance, greater value. And the four that we shall see — the four forces or, let us say, the four kingdoms that will expose the Jewish people to this exile, with Mitzrayim, Egypt, as the matrix of all the exiles — are a way of contributing to the formation of this people, which must teach the entire universe the principle of unity: the unity of G-d, the unity of the universe, the unity of the nations. There we are — if you have any questions, please ask.