We are taught that Avram Avinu was given ten tests by Hashem to develop and become the Patriarch of monotheism. We find one of these tests hinted to at the end of last week’s parsha when Chazal teach us the story of Avram being thrown by Nimrod, the wicked king, into a fiery furnace. We find another test in the beginning of this week’s parsha when Avram is asked to leave the comforts of his home and travel to some uncertain location.
As an educator, there is something odd about the sequence of these tests. If a teacher were to give a child an exam that assesses advanced algebra and geometry, would it make sense for him to create a second assessment that covers basic addition and subtraction? Isn’t that what Hashem is doing here? After such a huge test, being asked to give up his life and jump into a furnace, does it make sense to be given the apparently smaller test of leaving his hometown to travel to somewhere else? If he passed the first more difficult test, wouldn’t it be obvious that he could pass this second, easier test?
Rav Chaim Pinchas Sheinberg zt”l offers an insight that not only explains the sequence of these events, but it enlightens our viewpoint of life’s challenges. He says that the essence of a test “lies in the power to awaken in a man’s spirit his hidden potential for greatness and to bring it out into reality.” A test is not measured by how big or difficult it appears, but rather by the potential it has to have man grow beyond his natural inclinations and change them. The test of the fiery furnace at Ur Kasdim was huge; Avram consciously chose to give up his life for Hashem, rather than acknowledge idol worship. But as big of a test as that was, it was a single, isolated, one-time event. It was an event, not a process.
The Vilna Gaon writes that the main purpose of a person’s life is to constantly grow and improve one’s character. He uses a strange language and says, and if you don’t do this, “why live?” Is there nothing else to living? The answer is NO. Do not think that you can live a life of Torah and Mitzvot without also refining your character; without improving your middot, our lives are nothing at all.
We know character refinement is hard, because it requires us to break our natural habits and inclinations. We all become accustomed to acting in certain ways that become second nature; to change that is very difficult. Hashem is teaching us with the test of Lech Lecha that we can change. A person can change his nature if he makes a continuous and intense effort. Avram is told to first leave his country, then his family and finally his father’s house. To leave his country is not as difficult as leaving his family; leaving his family is not as difficult as leaving his father; that is just too hard to imagine. So the test of Lecha Lecha goes from easier to harder, hence being the test of change, divorcing oneself from the comfortable past. In essence, the test of Ur Kasdim was unique; to die al kiddush Hashem is not an opportunity that everyone is given. However, that was a one time, out of the ordinary test. In some way that is easier than going through the daily grind of continuous personal growth.
We all face tests on a daily basis. We wake up in the morning and are confronted with making the choice to take time to daven, to daven with a minyan or not to daven at all. We enter the workplace where we are confronted with challenges of honesty and integrity; do we cut corners to make an extra buck or to save ourselves some time? Do we treat everyone we encounter with a warm, friendly demeanour? These kind of tests call into question some of our basic tendencies, what we have grown accustomed to doing, the way “we have always done things.”
Hashem first tested Avram with death and then with life. For the test of death, Avram was helped with the miracles of Hashem. For the test of life, he was left to grow completely on his own. Are you ready for that test?
Very nice thought Rabbi! Hazak ubaruch
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