This week’s parsha is a very, very important parsha. A massive, packed Torah portion. Avraham Avinu is being thrown curveballs by God right and left, being tested with some of the worst kinds of tests imaginable.
We know that God tells him to sacrifice his own child, which is really something unfathomable. You can’t even imagine what that’s like. Even in Israel, when unfortunately, God forbid, soldiers are killed and parents have to face that kind of test, it’s a horrific thing. But to be told to do it, I can’t even imagine going through that test of having to sacrifice your own child.
And of course, Avraham does not hesitate even the slightest bit, which we have to ask a serious question about. But I want to start off somewhere else, because there’s a lot going on in this week’s parsha.
Avraham, Sarah, and Avimelech
Avraham’s relationship with his family is a little bit strange.
When he goes to Egypt, and when he goes to Avimelech, Melech Plishtim, the king of the Philistines, he has Sarah with him. He says to Sarah, “Tell them that you’re my sister, so that my life will be spared.”
And I always ask the question: What? Tell the king that Sarah is his sister so he’ll be spared? What about his wife? Doesn’t she matter? She’s going to get raped, and the thing Avraham is worried about is his own life? It seems a little bit strange.
Furthermore, in last week’s parsha, he says, “Tell them you’re my sister so I get good stuff. I get a lot of animals.” What? You get paid for it, and therefore you’re okay with your wife being, God forbid, raped by another king?
So there’s one question.
As the parsha goes on, Avimelech finds out that Sarah is not Avraham’s sister, but actually his wife. And then he says something really interesting. He says to Avraham, “Why’d you do this to me?” As if to say, “Oh my God, I would have never taken her if I knew she was your wife.”
And Avraham says something really, really strange here:
כִּי אָמַרְתִּי רַק אֵין יִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה
“Because I said, surely there is no fear of God in this place.”
Really strange answer. I mean, he could have said, “This place is cruel and it’s evil, and they show no respect to people,” but that’s not what he said.
And the truth of the matter is, if we see Avimelech’s reaction, he gives Avraham tzon u’vakar, livestock. He gives Sarah money as an apology for taking her. He didn’t do it on purpose. So apparently Avimelech does have manners. There is some kind of moral code in the country that Avimelech is running.
But Avraham says the problem is that moral code is not built on anything. He says, “There’s no fear of God in this place.”
In other words, he’s saying to Avimelech, “With all due respect to your morality, if you think you have morality, it’s not based on anything. You don’t know where it comes from.”
So you can basically switch what you want at any time in history. You can say, “Well, this was immoral two days ago, and today we’re deciding it is moral.”
Avraham says to Avimelech, “The reason that I was scared about my wife was because there’s no fear of God in this place.”
And again, Avimelech was not an immoral person. It seems that he was a very nice person, because at the end he gives Avraham presents and rewards. He says, “My country’s in front of you.” And he pays Sarah as an apology.
So there were manners and morality there, but they weren’t based on God. And Avraham says, “Because I see no fear of God in this place, your morality is not based on anything, and eventually it’s going to fall. Ultimately, they will kill me because of my wife.”
Now, what’s interesting is that with Mitzrayim, he said something else. He said, “They’ll kill me and take my wife.” And here it says, al devar, concerning the matter of my wife.
So it seems that it’s not an immediate thing. He’s saying that your morality here—you guys do have some morality—but it’s not a long-term thing, simply because there’s no fear of God in this place, and that morality is a slippery slope.
What Does a Real Peace Treaty Look Like?
Imagine a king getting such rebuke from some guy who doesn’t even live there! And what was Avimelech’s reaction? He wants to make a peace treaty with Avraham Avinu.
This should be studied as an example of what a peace treaty should actually look like.
What’s interesting is that Avimelech says to Avraham, “You know, I don’t want land. I don’t want anything. I just want peace. I want your children not to kill my children, and my children not to kill your children, and there are no conditions.”
That is what a peace deal sounds like. Just let’s stop killing. That’s it. No more killing.
And what’s interesting is that this seems like a peace deal that cannot be refused, right? It’s the perfect peace deal. There are no conditions, no demands from Avimelech about Avraham. Nothing.
In fact, Avimelech gives Avraham his land. He says, “Go walk through my land. What is here is yours.” It would seem that anybody would jump on such a peace deal.
In other words, imagine Hamas or the PA, both terrorist organizations, saying to Israel, “You know, we’ll give you everything. Just please, let’s stop killing each other.”
Well, we would jump on that in a second.
Avraham does not jump on that. It’s really, really strange. What is he doing in this week’s parsha?
He says to Avimelech, “Listen, buddy. There are wells that your servants stole.”
And Avimelech says, “Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
What is Avimelech scared about? What is he so scared about? It’s really strange. Avraham says to Avimelech, “Listen, your servants stole wells,” and Avimelech literally jumps back. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t me. You just told me about it.”
Apparently, Avimelech is worried about the moral level in his country. His reaction seems to indicate that he’s telling Avraham, “I didn’t know, and I do want to fix the situation.”
And that’s what peace really looks like.
What’s interesting is that the peace deal between Avraham and Avimelech is quite real. In fact, Avimelech, at the end of the pasuk, says the following. He says, “In the name of your God.”
The God that Avraham said Avimelech’s country doesn’t have fear of! So Avimelech now asks Avraham to make an oath in the name of that God, the God that Avraham said Avimelech doesn’t have fear of.
Apparently, Avimelech is getting the message that peace has nothing to do with demands or whatever it is. It’s a moral standard.
Peace is a moral thing, and you can’t have peace with immoral people.
Avraham’s Chesed and the Test of the Akeidah
So that was his wife. That was one thing. Then what happens? Sarah gets pregnant, and they have Yitzchak.
And what does Avraham do?
Sarah wants to kick out Yishmael. She says, “This nation, Yishmael, cannot live with my son Yitzchak. Yitzchak is going to be the offspring which will receive all the blessings. This nation that’s coming out of Yishmael cannot live with my son.”
And it says that the thing seems very, very evil in the eyes of Avraham.
Which makes sense. Avraham’s a nice guy. His trait is chesed. Avraham feels bad about this. He thinks it’s evil, which is in line with his trait of chesed. He’s kind.
And then Hashem comes to Avraham and says, “Listen to your wife Sarah.”
So what does Avraham do? He takes some water and throws Hagar and Yishmael out of the house.
That’s really strange for Avraham, because when God said He was going to destroy Sodom, Avraham argued. “What if there are some righteous people there? What if…?”
This is his son, Yishmael. And here he doesn’t argue. He just kicks him out of the house. Which is really strange.
Then what’s the next thing that happens?
We have the test, probably the worst test, I would say, the sacrifice of Yitzchak.
God says to Avraham, “Take your only son, the one that you love, the one that you and Sarah were waiting for for so many years, and sacrifice him.”
And there again, Avraham does not hesitate even in the slightest bit. He takes his donkey and Yitzchak, and they go up to a mountain, and he’s about to sacrifice his son. And an angel comes down and says, “Nope, stop. Stop. We didn’t really mean it.”
Well, not that He didn’t really mean it. He says, “We were testing you.”
And the question here is, what was the test? What kind of test is that?
People say, “What kind of God is it to test someone by telling him to kill his own son?”
So the test is the following, exactly what Avraham said to Avimelech.
He said, “Yeah, you might have morality. You might be a nice guy. But it’s not coming from God. And if it’s not coming from God, it’s a slippery slope.”
Avraham’s natural trait was kindness, was chesed, as we say in Hebrew. How do you translate chesed? It’s kindness. That’s his natural trait, his chesed.
But if it’s not coming from God, your kindness might be put in the wrong place. You might be kind when you’re supposed to actually be forceful.
In other words, if you’re making peace with evil people, immoral people, that’s not kindness.
So what does God say to Avraham?
“עַתָּה יָדַעְתִּי כִּי יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים אַתָּה”
“Atah yadati,” now I know, “ki yerei Elokim atah,” that you fear God.
The same language that Avraham said Avimelech was missing.
God says to Avraham, “Now I know that you fear God.”
Now He knows? But the whole time when Avraham was accepting everything God was saying, He didn’t know?
I mean, Avraham had a circumcision. That would pretty much prove loyalty to God, right?
So He says, “No, that’s not it. That’s on yourself. It’s very easy to do that to yourself. But if I test your trait, your natural trait of kindness, to take your most loved relative and sacrifice him, that’s a test on your traits.”
Now we’re going to see if your traits are based on God or if they’re based on your own happy-go-lucky feelings.
And Avraham passes the test.
What Does the Akeidah Have to Do With Victory Over Our Enemies?
What’s really interesting here is the end result of the test. What does God give Avraham as a reward?
It’s really, really unbelievable. Listen up.
We are in Bereishit, Perek Kaf-Bet, Pasuk Yud-Zayin, Genesis 22:17.
“כִּי בָרֵךְ אֲבָרֶכְךָ וְהַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲךָ כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם וְכַחוֹל אֲשֶׁר עַל שְׂפַת הַיָּם וְיִרַשׁ זַרְעֲךָ אֵת שַׁעַר אֹיְבָיו”
“Ki varech avarechecha,” Hashem will bless you, “veharbeh et zaracha kechochevei hashamayim,” make your offspring plentiful like the stars in the sky, “vechachol asher al sefat hayam,” and the sand on the shores, “veyirash zaracha et shaar oyvav,” and your offspring will overtake your enemies.
“וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי”
“Vehitbarchu vezaracha kol goyei haaretz,” and through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, “eikev asher shamata bekoli,” because you listened to My voice.
Now, the question is, what does the fact that Avraham was willing to go sacrifice his son have to do with us being victorious in Israel? What does it have to do?
And again, Judaism does not believe in human sacrifice. This is the biggest proof that Judaism does not believe at all in human sacrifice. At the end of the day, Avraham took a seh, a sheep, I think it was, and that was the sacrifice instead of Yitzchak.
We do not believe in human sacrifice.
But what’s the point here?
He’s saying, “Only when you fight, only when you know that your base is from God, only when you know that, will you be victorious over your enemies.”
And we see that with Avimelech, right?
Avraham had chutzpah, as we call it. He had the audacity to talk to Avimelech. He says, “I’m not making a peace deal with you. You have no God. You have no fear of God in your life.”
And what does Avimelech do?
He says, “Okay, you’re right. You’re right. Let me deal with this.”
Peace Is About Morality, Not Land
And unfortunately, right now, we’re not there yet. We’re working on it. It’s getting much better, by the way, but we’re working on it.
But until today, we are very nervous, as Israel and the Jewish nation, to stand up and say that. To stand up and say, “Look, peace is not about land. It’s not about letting terrorists go. It’s not about guns. It’s about morality.”
And this is the big, big, really big point.
When our enemies let go of a culture that is cruel, let go of a culture that is immoral, then we can make peace. It has absolutely nothing to do with land or anything else.
That is the secret: morality.
But we really have to check ourselves right now first.
Are we upholding the Land of Israel because of God, or are we doing it just because we’re here and it’s some kind of national blah?
If it’s just a national blah, if it’s just national, then we have no right, we have no strength, we have no reason. We have nothing over our enemies who are lying and saying it’s based on some kind of fanatic religion.
Again, not all Muslims, but fanatic Islam.
So if they’re claiming Islam and we’re claiming blah, that’s not going to work.
If we claim, and we know, that the Land of Israel—right now, in this week’s parsha, we talk about God giving the land to Avraham and to his son Yitzchak and to his son Yaakov, et cetera, et cetera—then they’ve got nothing to stand up to.
And if we demand morality from ourselves, and then from our enemies, then we can have real peace.
Until then, unfortunately, and I say that unfortunately, peace is not going to happen.
And these processes that people call the peace process are fake. They’re just false. It’s not real. It’s simply not peace.
We see that since Oslo, the Oslo Accords, what they call the peace process, the Oslo Peace Deal, more people have been killed as a result of Oslo than 30 years of what they call occupation before Oslo.
We saw that Oslo did not bring anything but death.
So we’ve got to stop making that mistake.
Peace has nothing to do with giving land or making deals with terrorists. Peace has to do with demanding morality.
Shabbat shalom, everyone. Signing off here from Gush Etzion. Have a wonderful week.