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Beit Midrash
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- Chemdat Yamim
- Parashat Hashavua
- Torah Portion and Tanach
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Rashi explains that Hashem came to inquire about his healing process. According to him, the Divine revelation was just a special form of bikkur cholim. Rashi’s grandson, the Rashbam, says that the Divine revelation was the arrival of the three angels. Ibn Ezra suggests that Avraham received a prophecy at that time, just that the Torah text does not reveal it. The Ramban discusses the approach of the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim that the visit of three angels was a prophetic vision rather than an actual visit. The Ramban rejects that approach and suggests other angles.
The existence of so many explanations is a sign that there is real difficulty. With the readers’ indulgence, I will introduce an approach that goes hand-in-hand with the presentation of the events’ sequential order. Yitzchak’s birth stretches out over Lech Lecha and Vayeira. Different messages in this context are distinguished from each other, in that in some Hashem is described with His Name according to the attribute of mercy (Hashem) and in others with the Name connected to the attribute of judgment (Elokim). Let us now take a look and analyze each revelation on these grounds.
A. Bereishit 17:1-2 – Hashem appeared to Avraham with the attribute of mercy, when he was 99 years old. The purpose was to present Avraham with a covenant promising him many offspring and charging Avraham to be tamim (unblemished).
B. Ibid. 17:9-14 – This was at the same time period and was done with the attribute of judgment. Again there was a covenant about plentiful offspring, and this time there was a command to fulfill the mitzva of brit mila. At the end, Hashem also revealed that Sarah was to give birth to a son for Avraham, whose name would be Yitzchak.
C. Ibid. 18:10-15 – This revelation uses the Name of mercy, and He repeated that Sarah would bear Avraham a son.
D. Ibid. 18:16 – 19:29 – The revelation with the attribute of mercy was about the destruction of S’dom.
We can now explain based on the concept that Hashem can "speak" in such a complex manner that multiple things are said at one time, but people are unable to absorb it in that manner (see Tehillim 62:12). The general framework is one of mercy, although the covenant is said in a manner that includes both attributes. Mercy is more directly involved in the command to be unblemished. Judgment is connected to the command of doing brit mila, which involves blood, pain, and crying. We posit, then, that the same revelation has different aspects that are recorded in neighboring sections. Therefore, there is no question of what was revealed, as it appears elsewhere.
We finish with another chiddush. The prophecy about the destruction of S’dom was given with the attribute of mercy. Indeed, it was mercy for all the good people whom S’dom abused (see Bereishit 18:20). Similarly, the modern "inheritors" of the Sodomites, the Gazans, acted with such cruelty that their destruction can only be seen as mercy. It is forbidden to be forgiving to the cruel!
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
