The Era of Avraham Avinu

After ten generations had passed [since the mabul] during which not a single person wanted to live a spiritual life, and the generations were covered by a deep darkness, a darkness of emptiness, like blind people who never saw the light [and didn’t know it existed]. From this, one man appeared who was distant from them as is one extremity from the other. At the age of three, Avraham recognized his Creator. His forefathers and all the misled members of his generation were unable to curtail the power of his seeking. The power inside Avraham to seek the truth was so strong that it washed away all old habits and cleansed him of previous assumptions and destructive ideas that he saw and heard from everyone in his generation. He sought and he found, he examined and he reached Hashem and His Torah. As Chazal said, “Avraham fulfilled the Torah before it was given” (Yoma 28).

Not only did he come to keep all the mitzvos, he was also able to reach and grab that thing which is hidden from all humans, “an accounting of exactly what his maasim were.” As Chazal said, “There are seven things that humans never see.” [They never see the day of their death, and various other things.] One of the seven is the depths of the judgment (Pesachim 54) [how deep the Divine judgment goes when examining our actions, our thoughts, and our selves]. Rashi explains that the depths of future judgment to take place means “the accounting for the clarity of his actions.”

The Akeidah shows these two great achievements, that Avraham Avinu defeated the Satan in all the ways it sought to make him stumble and to interfere in all parts of the mitzvah. The Satan tried to trap him to make him lose these two parts of the mitzvah. First, he tried to stop him from doing the active mitzvah. If he could not stop him from doing the mitzvah itself, he looked for ruses to thwart him and to harm the lishmah of the mitzvah. The first and the second types of interference are different from each other. When the Satan wants to stop a person from doing the maaseh itself, he tries to make it harder for him with interferences. As Shlomo HaMelech says: “The lazy person says there is a lion lurking outside” (Mishlei 26:13). [For example, the Satan puts it into a person’s head to think, “I’m afraid to go out to daven, because there’s a lion outside.”] When the Satan comes to destroy the lishmah of a mitzvah, he makes the test lighter, using many different seductions, such as, “[You might as well do this mitzvah because] it will bring you honor, money, and similar benefits...” This is similar to the other seductions mentioned in Chovos HaLevavos, Shaar Yichud HaMaaseh.

In these two ways, the Satan tried to catch Avraham in his net. According to the Midrash (Tanchuma, Vayeira, 29), he put a river in Avraham’s way to try to prevent him from reaching Har HaMoriah. Avraham Avinu was not impressed by the river, and said, “I am going on my simple way. [The Ribbono shel Olam wants me to go; I am going! I will not let this river stop me.” He continued onwards, going deeper and deeper] until he prayed, “Save me, Hashem! The water has risen so high that it is drowning me!”

After the Satan saw that he could not stop him from doing the action itself [by putting a physical block in his way], he tried to take away the lishmah aspect, to steal the whole nisayon itself by removing the lishmah from the mitzvah. The Satan said to Avraham, “I heard from behind the Upper Wall in Heaven that a ram will be sacrificed, not Yitzchak. There will be no test at all. What you are doing are external actions alone. You will not be battling to overcome your nature because Hashem will prevent you from slaughtering [your son].” Avraham answered, “The punishment of a liar is that even when he tells the truth, no one believes him. What you just said is a lie, and you never heard it in Heaven.”

That is why Avraham gave two different answers. When he came to the river, he could not say to the Satan, “You are telling me a lie,” because he saw the river in front of him. He had to simply continue onward. “I have a mission to do; there is no other way to get there. This is what Hashem commanded me, and nothing will stop me.” [This is similar to Kriyas Yam Suf, when the Yidden were told, “Forward march into the water.”]

And about the Satan’s “I heard in Heaven that it’s not going to take place,” there Avraham could not reply, “I am going to continue walking straight. I accept to go on with simplicity.” For where would he be going? The Satan already told him the secret—that it was merely a test and Avraham would not slaughter his son—so how could he continue onwards? Towards what? In order to continue on his mission of fulfilling the command of the Ribbono shel Olam, Avraham had to believe that what the Satan said was falsehood and lies. Therefore, he retorted to the Satan, “That is the punishment of liars: they are not believed the second time, either.”

Just as it was then, so it is in our times, too, that the Satan will make an effort to disturb a person on his way [either by scaring him into thinking that he cannot do the maaseh mitzvah physically, or by taking away his lishmah]. There is one difference between Avraham Avinu’s nisyonos and our own. When the Satan wanted to disturb Avraham Avinu from doing the right thing, he had to put a river in his way. We, however, do not need such major interference to our mitzvah observance; for us, even the smallest thing is considered a nisayon. Since these are really small things [compared to Avraham Avinu’s river], we should be able to say, “We are going to do it the right way.” The nisyonos we have are as thin as a hair compared to Avraham’s river.

When the Satan came to misdirect Avraham Avinu in lishmah [to do the maaseh, but not have any lishmah in it], he could only ruin the lishmah by telling the truth, as we have seen him telling Avraham, “I heard from behind the pargod [a curtain or a mechitzah] that an animal will be sacrificed instead.” The way to misdirect Avraham Avinu’s lishmah was to tell him the truth. When it comes to us, we don’t need to hear the truth. The Satan can mislead us with a lie, by promising honor, riches, or something else as a result of doing this maaseh mitzvah.

And the way Chazal teach us: on the contrary, the promise itself is the reason you lose out. Why? As they say: A person who seeks to be an important person, importance runs away from him (Eiruvin 13) [and he spends his life trying to catch it.] As the Gra writes (Even Sheleimah 2,6), “So it is with all middos.” When it comes to this, we don’t have to answer like Avraham Avinu said to the Satan, “Thus is a liar punished: even when he tells the truth, he is not believed.” We know the promises the yetzer hara makes are falsehood and emptiness.

Despite Avraham Avinu’s victory over the Satan in everything, nevertheless, he was still missing clarification of the act itself. After all he had gone through, he was still not convinced he was ready to serve the Ribbono shel Olam without other cheshbonos, no matter how small. When he took the first action towards sacrificing his son, as the Ribbono shel Olam commanded him to do, who knows whether it was even lishmah? After all, what else could he have done? If the Ribbono shel Olam wanted Yitzchak to die, even if Avraham Avinu did not shecht him, he was nevertheless a dead man. So why should Avraham not shecht him? It could be that he did not want to be the cause of his son’s death, but it was going to happen anyway. Avraham felt his own nature, to a small degree, as the Midrash says (Bereishis Rabbah 56,8): “His eyes poured tears.” Therefore, he did not have absolute clarity that he was going directly to the Ribbono shel Olam with lishmah, until an angel told him: “Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, do not do the slightest thing to him” (Bereishis 22:12). Chazal explained this to mean that Avraham wanted to at least cut a little and take a drop of blood; that is why the angel added, “Do not do the slightest thing to him.”

Avraham Avinu had two commands. A few days earlier, the Ribbono shel Olam commanded him to shecht Yitzchak, but now He told him not to do so. With two contradictory commands before him—to shecht and not to shecht—Avraham Avinu chose to follow the first command, to shecht him. By choosing to shecht him after he was told not to, it would be clear that he was doing it purely to fulfill the ratzon of the Ribbono shel Olam with the first tzivuy. It was very clear that there was nothing holding him back now; he had no negiah holding him back; he had overcome that and was ready to slaughter his son. Until then, perhaps, he was willing to follow the first command out of yiush [because Yitzchak was a dead man, anyway]. But when the Ribbono shel Olam rescinded the first tzivuy and Avraham was told “Don’t shecht” he realized that he was actually completely ready to shecht. Nothing was forcing him to do what he didn’t want to do, and his nature was not standing in his way preventing him. He was ready to shecht even though he was told not to.

Then the Ribbono shel Olam told him, “Now I know that you fear G-d” (Bereishis 22:12). From this act [of wanting to slaughter Yitzchak even when I said don’t shecht], you have become a yerei Elokim. Until now, your fear of Hashem existed as potential, but you lacked the action of being a yerei Hashem. This is like a small child who has the potential to grow up, but has not yet grown up; thus, at this time, he is still a child. At this point you [Avraham] have clarified in deed that you fear Hashem.

From this, his madreigah became clear; Avraham did not need the Ribbono shel Olam’s help [he was able to go forward on his own. As we discussed, Noach needed the Ribbono shel Olam’s help. Noach did as much as he could, but without the Ribbono shel Olam’s help it was not sufficient to move him forward yet.] The Torah testifies about him (Bereishis 48:15): “As my forefathers Avraham and Yitzchak walked before the Ribbono shel Olam’s Presence.” Avraham Avinu did not need any help to support him. If the power of evil had some small effect on him, the Ribbono shel Olam would have needed to help him. If so, there could be no greater help from the Ribbono shel Olam than commanding Avraham not to shecht. Nevertheless, Avraham did not choose the second command [to take Yitzchak down, until he was forced to take him down]; rather, he chose the first command [he wanted to shecht anyway]. That is why the angel said, “You did not hold back.” [You did not hold yourself back, as you chose the command to shecht. From your side, you did not hold back the child; it is only from Me, that I am holding you back. You were ready to go ahead.]