This week's Torah portion begins with G-d personally appearing to Abraham, continues with his unsuccessful pleas to save Sodom and Amora (a.k.a. Gemorra) and ends with G-d telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
At first glance this makes no sense. Exactly what type of religious hero was Abraham if G-d first didn't listen to his prayers regarding Sodom and then ordered him to kill his own son?
What is the Torah trying to tell us here? Abraham was the founder of Judaism... the first of all religions. Why didn't G-d listen to his prayers and save Sodom? And why would G-d tell him to offer up his own son? What type of religion is this?
To understand this here is a story I saw on a video from Rabbi Manis Friedman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7j3T1R-B6g) some 15 years ago.
He relates that one day (perhaps before he was married) he happened to be wandering around in the halls of the huge Chabad Headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, when he heard a group of his friends re-arranging cabinets and sweeping the floor in an apparently unused room.
He asked what they were doing and if he could help. The answer was that they decided to arrange the room into an office and would welcome his assistance.
As they were pushing one of the larger cabinets, a portfolio fell out of a drawer, hit the ground and opened, revealing only one document. It was a letter that someone had written to the Rebbe a few years earlier and the Rebbe's handwritten answer filled the margins.
The Rebbe received massive amounts of mail daily, some say more than any man in the world and he would usually write his replies on the margins of the letter. Then one of his secretaries would type it out and sent it to the proper address.
Perhaps they should have just returned the letter to the portfolio, but its first few lines caught their attention. The letter was a question to the Rebbe written by a doctor concerning a truly strange event.
This doctor had a friend who decided to have a Torah Scroll written in the honor of some departed family member. When this friend heard that it was customary to make a festive meal before putting the Scroll into a Synagogue for the first time, he asked the doctor, because his home was larger, if he could make the meal in his house.
The Doctor agreed, invitations were sent and tens of Jews, most of them totally not religious, arrived to celebrate the event. But in the middle of the festivities tragedy struck: one of the participants, a young woman, suddenly clutched at her chest, fell to the ground and all efforts to revive her were in vain. Before their eyes she had died of a heart attack. Needless to say, the entire event was instantly transformed into a catastrophe.
The Doctor said that because he had seen death before he didn't have any doubts in faith, but his friend who ordered the Torah was really shaken up, and asked him questions that he couldn't answer. First, how could it be that a young woman who was in the middle of doing a good deed, met with such a tragedy and second, why did it happen in his house.
The Rebbe's answer was:
It is impossible to fully understand G-d or the ways of G-d but G-d does want us to understand Him as much as possible and do our best to explain what we can. Therefore:
First. Keep in mind that everyone has a set number of days to their life including an exact date that their life will end.
Second; rarely is someone so bad that they die before this date or so good that they prolong this date.
Third, therefore, because this woman was destined to die on this date the best place she could do it was in a friendly atmosphere, in the middle of festivities involved in a commandment.
Even more, in her last moments when she was unable to say the traditional " Shema Yisrael" prayer at the time of death, it must have been a great comfort to her to know that on the front door of the house she was in was affixed a Mezuza in which is written " Shema Yisrael " declaring the kingship and unity of G-d.
Finally, regarding the question why it happened in your house, the answer is simple. Because you are a doctor everyone is assured that everything possible was done for her to save her life.
They were amazed by the clear and positive words of the Rebbe; every word rang with obvious truth. The Rebbe's reply literally was "An eye-opener" especially seeing that it 'accidentally' fell right into their hands.
Now comes the best part.
Suddenly a phone in the room rang. They weren’t even aware there was a phone but when it kept ringing one of the young men located it and answered.
On the other end was one of the emissaries (Shluchim) of the Rebbe from one of the cities in the USA in distress.
"Hello! I have to talk to the Rebbe quick! I don't know what to do! I called all the other numbers; this is the only one that answered. Are you in 770? Get me the Rebbe! I need advice!"
The young man asked for details and the caller gave his name and continued: "Listen! It's awful! One of my congregants is making a Bar Mitzva here and suddenly his father dropped dead from a heart attack in the middle of the party. Everyone here is going crazy and asking me to explain. What should I tell them!?"
The young man looked at the others, told them what the call was all about and then dictated to the caller the letter they had just 'received' to tell his congregants!
They hung up the phone and were speechless; they had just been part of a miracle! If they hadn't decided to clean that room, and if they hadn't moved that cabinet, and if the portfolio and the letter hadn't fallen out, and if they hadn't read it, and if the phone hadn't rung at that moment none of this would have occurred.
Then one of them asked, "Hey, why did we decide to make this room into an office in the first place? That’s not our job!" They all looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, realized their idea was foolish and left the room.
This answers our questions about Abraham.
The message of Abraham was to reveal the holiness (i.e. goodness) hidden in every detail of this low mundane world. As we saw in our story: that even in such 'unholy' events as death, there is a positive, G-dly, message.
That is why Abraham tried to save the doomed sinners of Sodom; to reveal some redeeming good in them.
And he agreed to sacrifice Yitzchak, and potentially lose everything he had worked for, because this goal can be achieved only by self-sacrifice; to make this world a good place AT ALL COSTS
This perfect world that Abraham began will be completed by Moshiach.
As we say thrice daily in the ' Alenu' prayer; “Even evil people will turn to G-d (Yifnu ailechaw kol rishai aretz).
Then all Jews and then all mankind will feel how much the Almighty Creator loves them and all will live according to His directions; the Torah.
And as the Rebbe said repeatedly; this should happen at any moment.
We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish service, hopes, prayers and suffering. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought if done with JOY can bring .....
Moshiach NOW!!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel
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