Rabbi Frand on Parshas Lech Lecha
These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: Tape # 346, Trading
Terrorists for Hostages.
Good Shabbos!
Location Is Everything!
Hashem [G-d] told Avram to go to the Land of Canaan. Avram traveled to the
Land of Canaan, and pitched his tent. The Torah narrates: "From there he
relocated to the east of Beth-el and pitched his tent, with Beth-el on the
west and Ai on the east; and he built there an altar to Hashem and invoked
Hashem by Name" [Bereshis 12:8].
Is it not strange that the Torah uses so many words just to tell us where
Avram pitched his tent? We know the general vicinity. Does it really matter
for all eternity if it was west of Beth-el or east of Beth-el? At any rate,
we do not have the exact geometric coordinates of where the tent was
pitched. The Torah is always so 'stingy' in the use of words - why is the
Torah suddenly so verbose?
Anyone who has dealt in real estate knows that the three cardinal principles
of real estate acquisition are: Location, Location, Location. If one is
going to open a new business, he must very carefully research the location
that he is choosing. Is there traffic? Is it open? Is it accessible? Is
there parking? Location is everything.
The Chofetz Chaim explained the verse as follows: Avram was concerned
about this concept. Avram was also going into 'business'. He was in the
business of drawing people close to Hashem ('kiruv'). Therefore, he needed
to be very particular about where he pitched his tent. He could not afford
to just pitch his tent on a side street, where someone would straggle by
once every three days. That would not be good for Avram's business.
Avram carefully chose the main crossroads between the two major cities of
the area - Beth El and Ai, so that everyone traveling anywhere in the area
would pass by his tent. He specifically built his altar in that location.
The question that we must ask ourselves is as follows: how much time and
effort and thought do we invest in planning where to place our business so
that our business will be successful, and how much time and effort and
thought do we invest in placing ourselves in a situation where our
spirituality will be successful? This is the difference between Avram and
us. The location of Avrum's tent was crucial because his spirituality was
his 'business'.
Shlomo [Solomon] wrote in Mishlei "If you will pursue it (fear of Hashem)
like you pursue money, then you will find fear of Hashem." [Mishlei 2:4-5].
We call consultants and we spend sleepless nights and we spend fortunes to
ensure that our businesses are successful. We must apply the same effort to
success in areas of spirituality.
At a Siyum (a festive meal made when one completes learning a portion of
Torah) we say, "We toil and they toil. We toil and receive reward and they
toil and do not receive reward. We run and they run. They run to a pit of
destruction and we run to the life of the World to Come."
I once heard an insight from Rabbi Nachman Kowalsky, of Blessed Memory:
who cares what 'they' do? What difference does it make that they toil or
that they run? Why is that included in the recitation at the Siyum? After
all it is 'our' siyum!
The answer is that if we want to know how to be successful in our learning
endeavors we must look at how 'they' toil in 'their endeavors' and how
'they' run towards their aspirations in life.
It always amazes me that when seats go on sale for a World Series, people
camp out in line for a night or two beforehand to make sure that they can
purchase "good tickets". (For 'Rock Concerts' the advance wait in line can
be 4 or 5 nights!)
Imagine the best Torah teacher in the world -- whoever that might be --
would be coming to town and tickets would go on sale for that lecture. How
many people would camp out a whole night to guarantee that they would
receive good tickets to the shiur [Torah class]?
"If like money you will pursue it..." If one runs after spirituality like
he runs after money or like he runs after sports or after all of life's
trivialities, then he will find fear of Hashem.
This is why the Torah went to such great lengths to describe the process by
which Avraham pitched his tent. Location mattered to him, because location
would determine the success of his spiritual endeavor.
Our Thirst Should Not Be So Easily Quenched
"And there was a famine in the Land and Avram descended to Egypt because the
famine was severe in the Land" [Bereshis 12:10]. Our Sages tell us that
there were ten global famines in the history of mankind. The first was in
the time of Adam. Pirkei D'Rebi Eliezer records a second famine in the days
of Lemech. The famine that occurred in the beginning of Lech Lecha was
already the third famine in the history of the world. The tenth and final
famine will be that described by the Prophets in the days preceding the
coming of the Messiah. "Behold days are coming, Hashem says, and I will send
a famine to the land. But it will not be a famine of bread nor a thirst for
water but for hearing the words of Hashem". [Amos 8:11]
We are probably experiencing this famine in our time. People are thirsty
to hear the word of Hashem.
Pirkei D'Rebi Eliezer notes that this will be the worst of all the
famines. The Ponevicer Rav once asked: why is this considered such a
terrible situation? Why does Pirkei D'Rebi Eliezer consider this to be the
worst of all the ten famines? The Ponevicer Rav answered that when people
are experiencing a famine and they are given a scrap of bread, it becomes
a holiday for them. When people are dying of thirst and they receive a
canteen of water, they become totally satisfied. "Wonderful! This is all
that we need!" That is our problem in the famine of hearing the words of
Hashem. As famished as we are, we are satisfied with too little! We are
satisfied with scraps. We are happy with an occasional shiur here, and an
occasional peek into a sefer [Jewish book] there. We quickly feel as if we
have learned enough, we are no longer thirsty for the word of Hashem!
This is not good enough. As beautiful as things are today -- with Daf Yomi
[a program for studying the entire Talmud, one folio per day] and
Dial-A-Daf [to hear a Rabbi teach the day's folio by phone] and Torah more
accessible than ever before, it appears to us to be so much and so
plentiful, because we are famished. It seems so great as a result of the
famine. But we cannot be satisfied. Torah is too vast and the day is too
long to be satisfied with mere "scraps". We have been starving for so long
that we have forgotten what it is like to be full. Even a little crumb
does the trick. That should not be enough. There should always be room for
more.
We Begin Avraham's Prayer By Calling Hashem 'Master'
Before the Bris bein ha'Besarim [Covenant Between the Pieces], Avram
referred to Hashem by the term spelled out "Alef Daled Nun Yud" (from the
root word "Adon", meaning master). The Talmud [Berachos 7b] states that this
was the first time in the history of the world that any human being referred
to Hashem by the title of 'Master'.
There was a Maggid [itinerant preacher] who wrote a commentary on the
prayer book and brought it to the Vilna Gaon for his approval (haskama).
In his commentary, the author advanced the theory that the reason the
Siddur begins with the prayer Adon Olam (Master of the World...) is
because the morning prayer (Shacharis) was the prayer originated by
Avraham, and the Talmud states that Avraham was the first person to use
the term Adon-ai in referring to Hashem.
The Gaon commented that the whole commentary on the Siddur was worthy of
being published just for the sake of this one insight.
This write-up was adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher
Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Torah Tape series on the weekly Torah portion.
The complete list of halachic topics covered in this series for Parshas Lech Lecha are provided below:
Also Available: Mesorah / Artscroll has published a collection of Rabbi Frand's essays. The book is entitled:
and is available through your local Hebrew book store or from Project Genesis, 1-410-654-1799.
