Avraham’s Exalted Service of G-d
Avraham Avinu was seventy-five years old when the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself to him and commanded him: Leave everything behind and ascend to the Land of Israel.
Twenty-four eventful years passed over him. Then, when he was ninety-nine years old, the Holy One, blessed be He, appeared to him and commanded him regarding circumcision. As the verse says: “Avram was ninety-nine years old, and the L-rd appeared to Avram and said to him: I am E-l Shaddai; walk before Me and be perfect” (Bereishit 17:1).
On the thirteenth of Nissan, in the year 2047 from Creation,6 the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself to Avraham and commanded him regarding circumcision, and on that very day Avraham Avinu circumcised himself.7
The following day, on the fourteenth of Nissan, Avraham Avinu offered the Korban Pesach for the first time. Until then, he had been unable to offer it, for he was uncircumcised, and regarding the Korban Pesach the Torah says, “No uncircumcised man may eat of it” (Shemot 12:48).
The next day, on the fifteenth of Nissan, the third day after Avraham’s circumcision, the pain of the circumcision intensified greatly, and Avraham decided that the time had come to bring the redemption.
Our Sages teach (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 29):
“I passed over you and saw you wallowing in your blood, and I said to you: Through your blood, live! And I said to you: Through your blood, live!” (Yechezkel 16:6). Rabbi Eliezer said: Why does the verse say twice, “Through your blood, live”? The Holy One, blessed be He, said: In the merit of the blood of the covenant of circumcision and in the merit of the blood of the Korban Pesach, they were redeemed from Egypt; and in the merit of the blood of the covenant of circumcision and in the merit of the blood of the Korban Pesach, you are destined to be redeemed at the end of the fourth kingdom. Therefore it says twice, “Through your blood, live.”
“If so,” Avraham thought, “now that I have both the blood of the Korban Pesach and the blood of circumcision, and in addition, today is the fifteenth of Nissan, a day uniquely suited for redemption, I will attempt to act and sweeten all four exiles that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed me at the Covenant Between the Parts, and thereby bring the complete redemption.”
The holy kabbalist Rabbi Natan Nata Shapira of Kraków explained that Avraham began his Divine service with this intention in mind:8
“The L-rd appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day” (Bereishit 18:1).
“The L-rd appeared”—the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Avraham.
“To him, in the plains of Mamre”—the initial letters spell איבמ, alluding to the four exiles: Edom, Yavan, Bavel, and Madai. When these initials are read in reverse order, they spell מביא, “brings,” alluding to the blessing: “And He brings a redeemer to their children’s children, for the sake of His Name, with love.”
When Avraham contemplated and saw the intensity of the final exile, the exile of Edom, his heart stirred within him with compassion, and he began to act in order to bring about the complete redemption.
The verse continues and says, “And he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day” (Bereishit 18:1). “The heat of the day” refers to the intensity of judgment that is revealed during the time of exile.
Through the intensity of his Divine service, Avraham succeeded in drawing to himself three redeemers: Serayah,9 Eliyahu, and Nechemyah, who is also known as Moshiach ben Yosef.
This is alluded to in the words, “three men were standing” (ibid., v. 2), whose initial letters allude to Serayah, Eliyahu, and Nechemyah.
Those redeemers turned to Avraham and said to him: Avraham, may you indeed succeed. “You shall do, as you have spoken” (ibid., v. 5). The initial letters of the words “ta’aseh ka’asher dibarta,” “you shall do as you have spoken,” spell כדת, whose numerical value is 424, the same as Moshiach ben David.
Avraham then turned to them and asked: If you agree to my desire to bring Moshiach, come and join me in my Divine service toward this end.10
After the three redeemers agreed to join him, Avraham began the avodah: “Avraham ran to the cattle, and he took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the lad, and he hurried to prepare it” (Bereishit 18:7). Rashi explains that Avraham took three bulls in order to serve three tongues with mustard.
Megaleh Amukot explains that “Avraham ran” alludes to the redeemer hinted to in Daniel’s prophecy of “one thousand two hundred and ninety days” (Daniel 12:11), for 290 is the numerical value of רץ, “ran.”
The “calf, tender and good” alludes to Moshiach,11 who is “sharp and soft”—sharp toward the nations and soft toward the Jewish people. “And he gave it to the lad” refers to Moshiach ben Yosef, who will come with the three redeemers and lead the final struggle, as Megaleh Amukot explains at length.
However, since Avraham attained a revelation from the Name E-l Shaddai, and not from the higher Divine Name Havayah, he did not succeed in bringing about the redemption.
This is what the Holy One, blessed be He, later told Moshe Rabbeinu: “I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov as E-l Shaddai, but My Name Havayah I did not make known to them” (Shemot 6:3). The Yalkut explains:12 “But My Name Havayah I did not make known to them”—I did not explain it to them. But to you I have revealed it, so that you will succeed in redeeming the Jewish people.
Wellsprings of Wisdom
6. See Seder HaDorot, year 2047 for the details of how this calculation is reached.
7. Rashi (Bereishit 17:24) writes that when Avraham Avinu took a sharp knife to circumcise himself, he was afraid. The Holy One, blessed be He, therefore extended His hand, as it were, and assisted him. This is alluded to in the verse, “You are the L-rd G-d, Who chose Avram… and You made a covenant with him” (Nechemyah 9:7–8), implying that the Holy One, blessed be He, joined Avraham in making the covenant.
8. Megaleh Amukot (Parashat Vayeira).
9. On his final day, Yaakov Avinu blessed each of his sons, the holy tribes, with exalted blessings. Beyond the blessing and abundance that he drew down for them, each blessing also contained deep allusions to what would occur to that tribe throughout the generations, until the coming of the righteous redeemer. When Yaakov blessed Dan, he said, “Dan shall be a serpent upon the road, a viper upon the path, biting the horse’s heels, so that its rider falls backward” (Bereishit 49:17). The holy Zohar (Balak 194b) explains that these words allude to several great figures who would descend from Dan: “a serpent upon the road” refers to Shimshon; “a viper upon the path” refers to Tzeliyah; “biting the horse’s heels” refers to Ira, the companion of David HaMelech; and “so that its rider falls backward” refers to Serayah, who is destined to come with Moshiach ben Yosef.
10. The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh writes (Bereishit 49:9) that throughout all generations, we are engaged in refining the sparks of holiness that fell into the kelipot. At the end of days, once most of those sparks have been refined and only the lowest level, the “heel,” remains, the period known as ikveta deMeshicha, “the footsteps of Moshiach,” begins. When even this final level is refined, the redemption will come. This is also the meaning of the words of the holy Zohar (Pekudei 258a), “until the feet touch the feet.” Accordingly, this is what Avraham Avinu was asking of the three redeemers when he said, “Wash your feet”: Help me refine the final sparks that have fallen into the kelipah.
11. Shir HaShirim Rabbah 7:10.
12. Yalkut Shimoni (Parashat Va'eira, remez 176).
