This week’s parsha contains the story with Eliezer, the servant of Avraham. The Torah spends a tremendous number of pasukim on the mission of Eliezer and how he faithfully carried out his master’s instructions. Chazal are inspired to say “the conversation of the servants of the patriarchs is even preferable to the Torah discussions of their descendants” [Bereishis Rabbah 60].
Our Sages say that Eliezer wanted his daughter to be engaged to Yitzchak. However, Avraham rebuffed this suggestion, telling Eliezer that he was a slave, descended from Canaan, who was cursed. Therefore, “the one who is cursed cannot cling to the one who is blessed.”
However, the Medrash at the end of the parsha says that since Eliezer faithfully carried out his mission, he left the category of “cursed” and entered the category of “blessed.” Eliezer “shteiged” – he grew.
These last two parshios — Vayera and Chayei Sarah — can be a contrasting study of two people: A study of a person named Lot and a study of a person named Eliezer. They led very similar lives. They both had a close relationship with the patriarch Avraham and were members of his household. They both spent time with and learned from Avraham Avinu. And yet Lot decided to leave Avraham and make his fortune in Sodom. We know what happened to Lot. He ended his life engaging in incestuous relationships with his own daughters. On the other hand, Eliezer starts out as a cursed slave and yet ends up emerging from the category of cursedness and entering into the category of blessedness.
This is a lesson in the ability to seize opportunities. Chazal say that Eliezer recognized that he was cursed with the curse of Canaan and was therefore destined to be a slave. But even given that fate, man still has some control over his destiny. One can be a slave to a wicked person, to a barbarian, to a terrible person, or one can be a slave to the greatest personality of the generation — Avraham Avinu. Eliezer’s attitude was, “I might as well try to make the best of a bad situation. If I need to be a slave, I might as well become a slave — and a faithful slave — to an Avraham Avinu.”
He became the servant of Avraham and used that opportunity to learn and to grow. The man turned his life around. He went from being an ‘Arur’ to being a ‘Baruch.’ Lot had the same opportunity. The curse of Canaan did not hang over his head. Nevertheless, because he went to try to make a fortune in Sodom, he lost everything and had no ‘nachas’, so to speak, from his children and his grandchildren.
Life presents us with opportunities. It is our choice whether to use these opportunities to grow and to bring ourselves into the realm of those who are blessed, or sadly, to go in the other direction and wind up like Lot.
