The True Greatness of Abraham, and its Crucial Message for Today

What was so great about Abraham?

Abraham passed ten tests, including, most notably, the near sacrifice of his son Isaac. Even so, despite these magnificent accomplishments, he might be defined by actions that are not even counted among them.

The clues to that fact are found towards the beginning of this week’s Torah reading. We are told of God’s great love for Abraham: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice“ (Gen. 18:19). This declaration, which indicates it is the basis for Abraham’s selection as the ancestor of the Jewish nation, is stated in the context of God’s informing him of His plans to destroy the city of Sodom.

Already, Abraham is explicitly identified as one who has extended care and concern for humanity, and his acts of kindness have been described in exquisite detail in the preceding verses. Still, there is particular significance granted to what happens next, after he is informed of the impending destruction. He immediately approaches God and advocates and negotiates on behalf of the people of Sodom. According to the Netziv of Volozhin, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, in his widely cited introduction to the book of Genesis, it is this act – more than all of the ten tests – that characterizes Abraham’s essence in a way that dominates the theme of the first book of the Torah.

This is, by itself, extraordinary. And yet, there is more to it still. If Abraham’s actions were to be described as kind, compassionate, forgiving, or tolerant, that would be understandable and praiseworthy. However, this is not the terminology that the Netziv is applying to Abraham. Drawing on language from the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 25a) that calls Genesis Sefer HaYashar, or the Book of the Upright, he notes that this is due to its depiction of the forefathers, who are identified as yesharim, as upright, by none other than the arch-enemy of the Jewish people, Bilaam (Num. 23:10).

Why, as he asks, is that the appropriate term for this behavior specifically? Unfortunately, his answer is somewhat hard to discern. He repeats the point about Abraham being not only righteous, pious, and an extreme lover of God, but also being “civil with the other nations of the world… extending them love and concern for their welfare” (translation by Rabbi Elchanan Greenman on Sefaria). How does this explain the choice of words?
In between, the Netziv writes of the “generation … during the destruction of the Second Temple, who are described as a perverse and twisted generation. … though they were righteous and pious, toiling in Torah study, they were not upright in their societal behavior. And so due to the baseless hatred for one another residing within their hearts, they suspected anyone who was not religious in accordance with their viewpoint to be a Sadducee or heretic, [leading] to rampant murder along with a transgression of all the other evils in the world, causing the Temple’s destruction. … the Holy One blessed be He is yashar, being intolerant of those types of [distorted] righteous individuals. [He is only accepting] of those who act in a way that is socially yashar – unlike those who act in a perverse manner, even when their actions are performed for the sake of Heaven. As such [a deficiency] can lead to the destruction of [God’s] creation and the ruin of civilization.”
This language, as powerful and important as it is, continues to require explanation as to how the terminology fits the content. At its core, what the Netziv is describing here is intellectual honesty. Abraham cared for others, but not simply because he was a soft touch, but because he had a strong sense of justice and righteousness, as the verse overtly states. As such, he extended himself to others and also advocated on their behalf if he could not understand how justice was being served through their treatment. The fact that the people of Sodom, as the epitome of selfishness and wickedness, served through their very existence to undermine all that he sought to accomplish in the world, did not hold him back from expressing his belief that they were being mistreated.

In this sense, the pious but unjust members of the generation of the Temple destruction can be understood as well. While ostensibly righteous in their ritual conduct, they allowed their personal biases and allegiances to impact how they judged others. Their assessments did not reflect any objective truth but rather their own loyalties and inclinations. Despite their other noble attributes, this fundamental flaw was fatal.
Notably, as many commentaries ask, Abraham did not object when his own beloved son was the subject of that ultimate test of near sacrifice, a seeming extreme contrast to his attitude towards the evil-doers of Sodom. In fact, the Ran maintains (Derashot 6) it is more than that. He was not even explicitly commanded to offer up his son. God merely made it known that this was His wish, and Abraham refused to seek any opportunity to escape from that direction. The distinction, however, is clear. The binding of Isaac was never presented as a punishment, simply as the inscrutable will of God, and thus Abraham had no reason to see it as unjust. In the case of the people of Sodom, where punishment was the explicit premise, he argued that perhaps there were innocents among them. This is a distinction in which the factor of Abraham’s love for his son and his distaste for his ideological opposites played no role, and he therefore gave it no space.

This crucial quality of Abraham is deeply needed in the United States today. American society is in crisis, as anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of pernicious bigotry have become tolerated, to different degrees, on both the left and the right, within the Democratic Party and the Republican Party as well. Those who are unwilling to recognize that dangerous and destructive speech and behavior can come from their own friends and allies, and who do nothing to prevent the spread, are a part of the problem.

Similarly, the intellectual honesty that requires identifying damaging behavior within one’s own camp must emanate from the descendants of Abraham in an undeniable and clear fashion. It should be manifestly evident that support for the State of Israel comes not from tribalism or a belief in Jewish superiority but from a genuine confidence in the justice of the Zionist cause and the moral and righteous conduct of its people.

To return to the Akeda, the nature of this ultimate test has long troubled commentators and philosophers, both in terms of its purpose and its structure. What was the goal of this ordeal and who was its beneficiary? Was it always the intention that Isaac not be sacrificed, or was it indeed originally the plan that Abraham sacrifice his son, but it was somehow repealed? The former possibility seems more likely and more consistent with the Jewish religion, but it presents the questions of why put Abraham through this seemingly misleading experience and allow him to draw such a profoundly incorrect interpretation.

One might suggest that these questions can be approached through a unifying thesis of the Akeda. The faith of Abraham is one that is diametrically opposed to that of the idolaters that surrounded him, and one that completely rejects the doctrine of child sacrifice and instead embraces a philosophy of compassion, care, and concern for all of humanity. However, it was crucial for it to be communicated that Abraham’s approach was not born simply of softness or lack of passion. His zeal and sense of sacrifice were equal to and greater than that of those so willing to inflict pain on those closest to them. He chooses, with effort and focus, to devote that energy to love and outreach. The path of chesed is not necessarily the easier path.

Here again the Abrahamic model is desperately needed. The world is increasingly impacted by those who believe they are serving their God by wreaking violence, suffering and death in the name of religion. It is vitally important that those who know the falsity of such an approach display that they are not simply cowards who lack all conviction, but are equally devoted to a God of truth, justice, and peace, who loves the upright.
The Midrash Tanchuma taught that God conducted the Akeda so that the world would know that He chose well when He chose Abraham. The world of today needs to hear that message more than ever.