A Heartbreaking Episode
One of the most heartbreaking episodes in Torah history is told to us in this week’s sedrah. And to a very big extent, we don’t even notice it—we don’t pay any attention. And that is when Avraham Avinu, right before he was going to leave this world, banished six of his children from his home; ם≈ח¿ּלַׁ ̆ƒּיַו – He sent them..., ם∆„∆ ̃ ı∆ר∆‡ ל∆‡ הָמ¿„≈ ̃ – eastward to the land of the East (Bereishis 25:6).
Now, you have to understand that these were fine boys. After all they were the children of Avraham. ַחּוׁ ̆ ̇∆‡¿ו ָּ̃ב¿ׁ ̆ƒי ̇∆‡¿ו ןָי¿„ƒמ ̇∆‡¿ו ןָ„¿מ ̇∆‡¿ו ןָׁ ̆¿ ָ̃י ̇∆‡¿ו ןָר¿מƒז ̇∆‡ ֹלו „∆ל≈ּ ַ̇ו – And it was born to him Zimran and Yakshan and Midan and Midyan and Yishbak and Shuach (ibid. 2). Children of Avraham Avinu! And so when we say these names we have to say them with yiras hakavod: Zimran ben Avraham. Yakshan ben Avraham. Midan ben Avraham. Midyan ben Avraham. Yishbak ben Avraham. Shuach ben Avraham.
Names of Greatness
And because Avraham expected everything from them, he gave them names of greatness. Zimran means ‘he’ll sing praises to Hashem’; like רו¿ּמַז ֹלו ירוƒׁ ֹ̆לו. Yakshan means, ‘he should grow old—from the Aramaic, kosh—in the ways of Hashem.’ Or ‘the one who searches out for his own character blemishes’, from the Hebrew וׁ ̆¿ׁ ֹ̆ו ̃¿ ̇ƒה (Tzefanya 2:1).
And Midan? ‘He should be a fighter for Hashem, a defender of the din of Hashem.’ And Midyan has a similar meaning: ‘He’ll judge according to the ways of Hashem.’ Yishbak means ‘he’ll forsake all the wicked ways of the world, all the evil influences’; he’ll go only in the way that his father taught him. And Shuach means he bends over before Hashem. 'הַלּווֲחַּ ̇¿ׁ ̆ƒה ׁ ̆∆„ ̃ ַ̇ר¿„ַה¿ּב – He’ll bow down to Hashem always.
Such beautiful names! And I'm sure that to a very great extent they lived up to their names because they were influenced by Avraham’s ways. You think Avraham wouldn’t be mechanech his sons? He wouldn’t train them with the most beautiful middos tovos?! And so they saw their father’s ways and respected him; Avraham trained them to go out in the world and be like him.
The Banished Sons
And now, a tragedy. Avraham sent them all away. Yes, he gave them matanos; he made them wealthy. Avraham had plenty of money, and he sent them away with everything they needed. But still, to send them away? And he sent them not just out of the house; they were sent הָמ¿„≈ ̃ ı∆ר∆‡ ל∆‡ – far away to the east, so they shouldn’t be nearby. I don’t know if he ever saw them again. Such a thing is unheard of! To send away six sons! Our heart still aches when we read that—for each one of them our heart aches. Zimran! Ay yay yay! Yakshan! Ay yay yay! Midyan! Midan! Yishbak! Shuach! Gone; broken off from the holy family.
Now, we’re not talking here about sending away a boy who is spoiled. Sometimes it happens, chalilah, in a home, there’s an older child who is transgressing and you can't keep him in the house. A young child, you can still train him, but an older child, if you have some more children at home, sometimes you cannot tolerate an older child that is disobedient to the Torah. A rotten apple will spoil the entire barrel and so you’ll have to send him away. But these weren’t that—they were good boys! Only they weren’t good enough.
You know how much it hurt Avraham? Suppose today you had to send away, chalilah, a good boy from your house. You’d be ois mentch! You’d faint! You’d run around crying like a madman, “My son! My son! Where’s my son?”
Learning from History
Now, Avraham was entirely justified in what he did. When the Torah tells this story that he sent them far away, the Torah is praising him. The possuk is telling us that at the end of his life, he looked around at his family and saw that he still had work to do. He had to separate the good from the best. He had to do it because he wasn’t looking to build just a holy family—he wanted the holiest, the best. That’s what it means to be the Am Hashem. And because these boys—as good as they may have been—didn’t match up to Yitzchok, they weren’t allowed to remain. It was heartbreaking for Avraham but he had no choice—he saw from the history of the world, from how Hashem had guided history, that this is what had to be done.
What did Avraham see? In the Mishnah in Avos (5:2) it says that ַחֹנ „ַﬠ םָ„ָ‡≈מ ֹ̇רוֹוּ„ הָרָׂ ֲ̆ﬠ – there were ten generations from Adam until Noach, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu was dissatisfied with them. יןƒ‡ָבּו יןƒיסƒע¿כַמּיוָה לּובַּמַה י≈מ ̇∆‡ ם∆יה≈לֲﬠ ‡יƒב≈ה∆ׁ ̆ „ַﬠ – He saw that they weren’t living up to His expectations and so He brought the Mabul to wipe out mankind; only Noach's family remained.
Then, םָהָר¿בַ‡ „ַﬠ ַחֹּנƒמ ֹ̇רוֹוּ„ הָרָׂ ֲ̆ﬠ – ten more generations elapsed, יםƒ‡ָבּו יםƒיסƒע¿כַמ ֹ̇רוֹוּ„ַה לָּכּיוָה – and they also caused displeasure to Hashem, םָהָר¿בַ‡ ‡ָּב∆ׁ ̆ „ַﬠּינוƒבָ‡ – until Avraham came upon the scene, רַכ¿ׂ ̆ לַטָנ¿ו םָּלּוכ – and he took the reward that was due to all.
Sifting for a Diamond
And our Chachomim give a comparison to a man who was walking on the seashore and he dropped a diamond into the sand by accident and now he was trying to retrieve the diamond. So he brought a sieve and began sifting and sifting and sifting and sifting. Maybe this one? No. Maybe here? No. Until finally he found his diamond.
It means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a process of sifting mankind until he finds the right people. He sifts and rejects, He sifts and rejects, until finally He discovers that diamond that He wanted all along. Of course, by Hashem, there are no accidents; it was intended that way.
Now, Avraham studied that. Not like we read the Mishnah and we go on; not like I’m saying it superficially—Avraham studied the details of the world’s history, and he understood from that the ways of Hashem.
In the Beginning...
Avraham saw that at the beginning Adam and Chava had two sons, Kayin and Hevel. And he knew that they had a high degree of excellence. Kayin and Hevel were perfect creatures; beautiful young men, intelligent and handsome. And they believed very much in Hashem. They were very good!
And yet, despite their apparent excellence, they were not good enough for Hashem. And so Kayin slew Hevel and then Kayin was rejected and the race of Kayin disappeared eventually in the Mabul. Who remained? Only Sheis. A third son. And from Sheis came forth all of mankind that we have today.
And so from the beginning there was a sifting out. Kayin and Hevel were tried and found wanting—they weren't good enough. Hashem wanted something better, and He allowed them to go out of existence; nothing remained of them. And now it was from Sheis that Hashem would find that diamond, the nation that He wanted.
And so finally, at the time of the Mabul, mankind was everywhere. They had multiplied and spread all over the world because people lived nine hundred years, and they were able to have very many children in that length of time. And so the world was full of people everywhere. Finally! After all the sifting!
The Family of Noach
But it’s not so. The Borei Yisborach, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, was looking for what He desired, and He couldn't find it. And so ַחֹנ¿ךַ‡ ר∆‡ָּׁ ̆ƒיַו – Only one family was deemed worthy to survive, and the rest were all destroyed in a great Flood. One family sifted out.
But even from this one family, from Shem, Cham and Yefes, the process began again. Now these three families never became extinct. The family of Yefes spread over the earth. All the nations of Europe are descended from Yefes. Persia also. From Cham all the Hamitic nations were descended. Not only the Blacks; also all the Canaanim and the Plishtim. Many other nations belong to the Cham part of mankind. They didn't die out until this day. But they were rejected.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu rejected Cham and He rejected Yefes. Yes, it’s true that ̇∆פ∆י¿ל יםƒהֹל¡‡ּ¿ ̇¿פַי, that Yefes will have broad dominion over the world, but they would be just background scenery to the real story. Cham not so much, but they also survived. And still these two families survived only as background.
It was only the third family that was chosen. ןֹּכ¿ׁ ̆ƒי¿ו ם≈ׁ ̆ י≈ל√הָ‡¿ּב – The Shechinah won’t dwell anywhere except in the tents of Shem. Shem was the one who was chosen. And why was he chosen? Because of his excellence.
The Chosen One
And yet the procedure of sifting still continued. Because Shem had many children, many descendants, and of all the descendants of Shem, only one found favor in the eyes of Hashem: םָר¿בַ‡¿ּב ָּ ̇¿רַחָּב ר∆ׁ ֲ̆‡ – You chose Avraham (Nechemiah 9:7). Now they all could have been chosen had they made the necessary effort; but they failed. And therefore Avraham stepped to the forefront of history and it's Avraham now who will be the father of the chosen people.
From all the descendants of Shem יםƒיסƒע¿כַמּיוָה יםƒ‡ָבּו – they displeased Hashem, םָהָר¿בַ‡ ‡ָּב∆ׁ ̆ „ַﬠ – Avraham was the sole instance of a member of that family who was satisfactory, םָּלּוכ רַכ¿ׂ ̆ לַטָנ¿ו – and he took the reward for all of them.
It means that whatever the world deserves, now rests on Avraham. He is the reason for the world being created. Retroactively, we see that he is the one for whom Hashem was waiting when He made the world.
Only The Best
Now this does not mean that those who fell by the wayside and were rejected were all very wicked; by no means. There were many good people among the nations who were not chosen because they weren't good enough. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not satisfied with people who are fair, who are mediocre or even partly good. He is looking for the very best.
And therefore when Avraham came, He said, “That's the one! All the rest, I discard. All the nations now are nothing. They're only scenery for Avraham Avinu to act out his part in history. That's just a backdrop for the main characters in the history of the world, Avraham and his descendants.”
Sifting For Perfection
And so we can understand a little bit of Avraham’s thinking when he sent away his beautiful sons. Of course, we can’t fathom such a great mind, but we understand that Avraham was following a policy that He saw in history, that Hashem chooses the best.
That’s why when Sarah decided to send away Yishmael, Hashem told him הָלֹו ̃¿ּב עַמ¿ׁ ̆ – listen to your wife, and Yishmael was sent away. Don’t think Yishmael was bad; by our standards he was very good, but policy is policy.
That’s also why Avraham decided that it's time for him and Lot to separate. Lot was a good man, a talmid of Avraham. And he had a good family too. Lot’s wife didn’t wear short sleeves. His daughters didn’t go with their knees uncovered. Lot made a good bracha on everything. He was good material, Lot. But when Avraham saw that Lot was not conforming to Avraham’s very lofty principles—not to let your sheep graze on other people’s fields even if you have teirutzim—so he said, “I can’t have him together with me.” And he sent him away.
And that’s why at the end of his life, he sent away six of his sons. Because he saw that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's procedure is to sift out mankind. He's looking for the diamond among the sands. That's why He rejected all the other nations until He came to Avraham. He was the one diamond that remained after sifting out all the rest. But even after Avraham himself was chosen there was still sifting to be done. And therefore before he died, he sent away Zimran and Yakshan and Midan and Midyan and Yishbak and Shuach. That was Avraham Avinu’s final act of greatness, of perfecting what would be the future Am Hashem.
