This is a small excerpt from the
essay on Parshat Lech Lecha, entitled Our Forefathers' Attributes by Rabbi
Eliyahu Dessler in the book Strive for Truth volume 5.
Our Rabbis say in the Midrash: “The Avot were themselves the Divine
Chariot.” Maharal explains: “[The
Forefathers are called the Divine Chariot]
because through them the Shechina rests on the earth. God’s presence is upon them, and therefore
they are a throne and a chariot for the Shechina.”
This saying certainly possesses
depths into which we cannot delve, but the little which we can understand may
go something like this: The holy Avot
merited to attach their whole mind, heart, and being to the Creator. They gave over their whole existence to
Hashem, leaving nothing for themselves.
All their thoughts and all their deeds, even in matters which seemed to
be related to the affairs of everyday life, attested to the holiness of Hashem
and the presence of the Shechina. By
observing them, one could see what God wanted from human beings. They revealed the Divine will, and that is
why God is called “the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzhak, and the God of
Ya’akov.”
It is from this viewpoint that we
must examine all that the Torah tells us about the Avot. Every single incident of their lives which
the Torah relates to us comes to teach us the highest levels of avodat Hashem.
Maharal adds that by being three in
number, the Avot represented the Divine Chariot in all its fullness. Ramban remarks on the same midrash that this
refers to the fact that Ya’akov represents the height of truth and Avraham that of hessed, while Yitzhak represents the
fullness of the fear of God. And he
adds: “The discerning one will
understand,” meaning that these three
qualities refer to the three sefirot: hessed, gevura, and tiferet. This will be explained later in the essay.
Through this gateway we can attain
deep insights into the ways of avodat Hashem in all its purity. This we will now attempt, with the help of Hashem.
Basic Forces
Three basic forces exist in man by
means of which he can achieve his spiritual goals. Each one is different in its
origin and character.
1.
HESSED.
Through the power of loving kindness, a person turns his efforts towards
his fellow beings and tries to make them happy and influence them for good to
the best of his ability. Elsewhere we
have called this “the power of giving.”
2.
THE
FEAR OF GOD. In contrast to hessed, in
which a person turns his attention chiefly outwards, with the fear and awe of
God, a person turns inwards on himself.
His chief concern is that his actions will meet the strict criteria of
the Divine will.
3.
TRUTH. Searching for truth clarifies for a person
the right way in avodat Hashem. This
enables him to avoid turning either to the right or to the left. One who is
guided by the desire for truth will be less likely to fall into the extremes of
hessed and yir’ah and will thus avoid their negative aspects, as described
below under the subtitle “Extremes”.
We can also see these three
qualities correspond to the “three things on which the world stands: Torah, the Temple service, and deeds of
love.” Torah corresponds to truth (and
the sefira tiferet); the Temple service corresponds to sacrifice, negation of
self; fear of God (the sefira gevurah) and deeds of love are, of course,
hessed. The three character traits which
“banish man from the world” are the opposite of these. Jealousy is the opposite of hessed: lust is
the opposite of gevura (which, in essence, is the conquest of the yetzer),
while kavod (prestige-seeking) is the opposite of truth, for it is well-known
that all the honor and prestige of the world is falsehood and bluff.
Generally a person’s character is
based mainly on one of the three dominant forces we discussed above. We usually find that all a person’s thoughts
and deeds are influenced and guided by his particular dominating quality.
When a person decides to devote his
life to the service of Hashem, his first act should be to discover and
recognize his dominating quality. He
should then try to develop it and perfect it and remain true to it to the best
of his ability. But he should not be
satisfied with this. There are other
qualities hidden within him, and to reach his full potential he must try to
develop these, too.
THE PERFECTION OF THE AVOT: AVRAHAM
In a similar manner, though on an
immeasurably higher level than we can comprehend, were the qualities of our
holy Forefathers. Each of them reached perfection
according to his dominant character trait and then went on to develop the other
two qualities as well, bringing them to perfection under the guidance of the
dominant quality. By these means, each
one succeeded in completing his portion in the creation. As the Zohar states: “Each one of the Avot knew the Holy One
Blessed be He through his own lens.”
That is, through the individual dominant quality of his mind.
Before God revealed Himself to
Avraham in Haran, he had already reached a very high degree of hessed on his own.
This is alluded to in the Torah by the words “the souls which they had acquired
(literally: made) in Haran,” which refer to the men and women Sara and
Avraham had brought near to the service of God.
There could be no greater hessed than this, since by this they gave
those men and women the greatest good in this world and in the next.
Almost all the tests which Avraham
had to face after this were in the direction of gevura. The command “leave your home” meant to leave
his father alone in his old age in order to fulfill God’s command. The battle with the four kings was certainly
an act of gevura. So was brit mila,
which separated him from the rest of mankind and might have impeded his successful
work in bringing the people close to Hashem.
All these tests were extremely
difficult for him because they were in opposition to the quality of hessed
which was natural to him. But it was by
this opposition and the work entailed in overcoming it that he grew in
spiritual status to an incomparable degree.
What he had done previously, guided by his own individual quality, he
now did out of a much more profound recognition of and trust in the Almighty.
The banishment of Yishmael and Hagar
by the command of God went even more against his inborn quality. [Indeed the
Midrash describes this as “the worst thing that had happened to Avram in his
whole life until the test of the ‘Akeda.
When he had successfully withstood this test, he was acclaimed by Hashem
as “one who fears God.”
Thus Avraham, despite his inborn
midda of hessed, acquired perfection in the quality of fear, in its highest
sense. He had shown himself able and
ready to accept the yoke of God’s kingdom without any reservations
whatsoever. All his possessions, spiritual
as well as material, were nothing in his eyes before the divine majesty of
Hashem.
EXTREMES
A person whose main quality I hessed
is in danger that, in his yearning to give to others, he may spend more money
than he can afford. Then, he will borrow
from others and spend it in turn.
Eventually it will be found that his excessive desire to do hessed was
counterproductive, for it led him to cause others loss because he could not
repay his debts. There is also the possibility
that he will eventually “be merciful to the cruel,” leading to “cruelty to the
merciful,” as we find in the example of Shaul Ha-melech. There is also another more insidious danger
that, by becoming accustomed to acceding to everyone’s requests, he may then
come to accede to the demands of the yetzer hara. This is why certain forbidden marriages are
referred to as hessed. (The whole
institution of marriage is, of course, a great hessed. Through it, people bestow a great bounty on
mankind by allowing a new generation to emerse.
But when this deviates from the bounds set down by the Creator, by a
person acting simply to gratify his desires or by way of sin, God forbid, then
it is called “the hessed of defilement.”)
Such is the lot of hessed, which is not limited by the quality of gevura.
Similarly, the quality of gevura—even
“the gevura of holiness”—if taken to extremes is liable to minimize a person’s
actions, even his good actions, as we saw above.
A person whose main quality is gevura,
unrestricted by considerations of hessed and emet (truth), is liable to tend to
other excesses. By concentrating too
much on himself, such a person is likely to minimize the importance of other
people. He may then fall under the power
of “taking.” Or, in addition to controlling
himself, he may come to dominate others and fall into the abyss of arrogance
and hatred. This is the “gevura of
uncleanliness” indeed. But this is what is liable to happen to gevura
when it is not controlled and guided by hessed and the love of other people.
But the quality of emet unites hessed
and gevura. When a person seeks the
truth—the point of truth in his heart—in every problem and decision, he is
freed from the danger of excess in either direction. The desire for truth
cannot lead to any unworthy action, as the other qualities can. On the contrary, truth will bring a person to
the only correct amalgamation of hessed and gevura in one organic and harmonious
whole.
The person of truth strives to find
the precise point of truth in every problem and decision. This corresponds to Torah, which is “a Torah
of truth.” A person who strives for
truth will never go wrong. On the contrary,
the search for truth will bring a person to the correct balance between hessed
and gevura. This is tiferet—glory—which is
the harmonious union of opposites.
