This week’s Torah portion is Chaye Sarah, which means the life of Sarah. Sarah has died at 127 years of age; and Abraham purchases a plot of land for her burial, large enough to be a burial estate for his family. It is a deed of sale embedded in the Torah. He then prepares to send his servant, Eliezer, to his family in Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac.
The servant asks if Isaac may come along on the journey, but Abraham will not permit it. Abraham says that God of Heaven and Earth will send an angel to make his errand successful. As he approaches his destination, the servant prays, “God, God of my master Abraham, may you so arrange it for me this day that you do kindness and Truth with my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water and the daughters of the townsmen come out to draw water. Let it be that the maiden to whom I shall say, Tip over your jug so I may drink and who replies drink and I will even water your camels, her will you have designated for your servant, for Isaac, and may I know through her that you have done kindness with my master. (Gen 24:13-14)”
The Torah reports that he had not yet finished his prayer, when Rebecca came out and offered to give him water, and to water the camels too. The text says, “The man was astonished at her. (24:21)” Eliezer finds out that she is Abraham’s relative and when he asks about lodging, she extends her family’s hospitality to him. Why should he be astonished? Perhaps it is because of the speed with which these events occurred. Also, perhaps it is because we are not used to having our prayers answered. The Talmud speaks about one reason the prayer was answered: because Eliezer was not praying on his own behalf.
There are several instances of this in the Torah. We read, “And Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants” (Gen. 20:17), and immediately after it says: “And God remembered Sarah as God had said,” [i.e.] The Talmud remarks: “as Abraham had [prayed and] said regarding Abimelech.”(Baba Kama 92a); another instance is the prayer of Moses about Miriam, when he cries out to God, “Please God heal her now!” (Num. 12:13), and she was healed at that moment. For Eliezer, when his prayer was immediately answered, it must have been a kind of spontaneous conversion. It’s not often that we have a shattering, peak spiritual experience in our everyday lives; an experience which is such a meaningful coincidence that it convinces us that the Divine Presence reached across the divide which separates Heaven and Earth, into our very lives. We don’t expect to encounter God in the everyday. Perhaps this is what Abraham meant by, “God of Heaven and God of Earth” (Gen. 24:3): that the Divine Presence encounters us at unexpected moments.
We don’t often believe our own experiences. If we did, we would not have had to wander 40 years in the wilderness after having seen the 10 Plagues, the parting of the sea, the giving of the 10 Commandments, the manna, and the pillar of cloud leading us each day. We would have trusted in God’s care and protection. We often attribute God in the mundane to mere coincidence. When the Torah says that Eliezer prayed that God do kindness and truth with his master, this is to say that when things go our way, we experience kindness. When we recognize Divine help, this is truth. It’s real. Another person may not recognize it from the outside, but we know it inwardly.
Does God answer prayer? Sometimes, and not always in the form we have asked for. Does God hear prayer? I’m convinced that the answer is yes, always. We should remember that is up to us to make the contact, through prayer, intentionally keeping the awareness of the Divine Essence in our consciousness, and through developing our relationship to the Divine. Out of our closeness can come the reaching from the Divine realm into the mundane, into our human affairs. As King David witnessed and wrote, God is there to all who call, to all who call upon God in truth” (Psalm 145:18). May our prayers, our calling out to God, allow us to experience the reaching out from shamayim, from the heavenly realm, into our lives for goodness and for blessing.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Friday, January 9, 2015
The Mystery of God's Support
This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha, or, go for yourself, in which Abraham, whose name is still Abram, receives the call from God to leave his family and go forth from his native land to a land God promises to show him. He is told he will be greatly blessed with land, fame, and descendants, and that God will bless his friends and curse his enemies. This portion shows, in a series of incidents, how God teaches Abraham. There is a midrash that the sages like to quote, “Abraham knew the Torah before it was given.” I’ve seen this in more than 3 sources. I think Abraham must have been a very good and moral person to begin with; however we see Abraham being educated slowly, as well, in this portion.
First there is a famine. Abraham asks Sarah to say she is his sister, so that he will not be killed. As the custom was to seize the beautiful wife and kill the husband, she agrees, but Sarah is taken into Pharaoh’s harem, a terrible turn of events. If Abraham had trusted that God would curse his enemies and protect him, would he have needed to lie? Would he have put Sarah in danger? We don’t’ know. God sends an illness to Pharaoh’s household so that no one feels well enough to have sexual relations, and Abraham leaves with Sarah unscathed and great wealth, the payment in a sense, given to Abraham by Pharaoh when he seized Sarah. God has taught Abraham that God will keep the promises of blessing and protection.
Then comes another test: there is a war of 4 chieftains fighting 5 chieftains. Lot, Abraham’s nephew is captured; so Abraham enters the war to get him back. Abraham is successful, and after the war is over, the victorious kings assemble to divide the spoils of war. What happens is strange; and we know that the sages taught that there are no coincidences. God arranges for a man named Malchizedek, whose name means righteous king, to be present. Malchizedek is described as a priest of God the most high,” who lives in Jerusalem. As they are about to divide the spoils, Malchizedek brings out bread and wine, which has become our Jewish custom, perhaps an ancient pagan custom, but also perhaps something Abraham picked up from this non-Jewish priest. He then blesses Abraham.
It is strange because we are not told that Malchizedek blessed the other chieftains. He is fixated on Abraham; and then he says, Blessed is Abraham of God the Most High, the owner of heaven and earth, and blessed is God the Most High, who has delivered you foes into your hand. (Gen. 14:18).” It is almost as if Malchizedek is a plant, put there by God just for Abraham. What is Malchizedek teaching Abraham here? He reminds Abraham by stressing that God owns everything, that all the wealth belongs to God: in other words, the spoils of war don’t really belong to you or to the others. Malchizedek then reminds Abraham that God has given them the victory, not their own strength or military prowess. The Sages in Pirkei Avot famously said, “Who is wise, the one who learns from every person.”
The support that Malchizedek gives Abraham is just what Abraham needs at this very moment, to be able to do the right thing. Abraham gives a 10 % donation to this priest, another monotheist, and then he gives up all the spoils, the wealth he might have taken, and by the customs of the time, that he was entitled to, as war at that time was a money making proposition; kind of like investing in junk bonds: you may win big or you may lose big. Abraham then explains that it will be God who makes him rich.
This portion shows us that God teaches us through tests, and also by making sure that we are supported when we have to make an important decision, so that we will do the right thing. Abraham repeats what Malchizedek said, that God owns everything, and repeats the word for tithe, from the root, 10, esser, becoming fixated on the teaching that our money and also our time and our life’s energy really belong to God. If Malchizedek had not been there and said what he said, might Abraham have been tempted to take some of the wealth? Would he have invoked God’s name and Presence at that time? We don’t know.
What is clear is that God supported Abraham with Malchizedek’s presence and words, helping him to become an even greater blessing. May we realize that we are being tested and also supported in our lives and tests; that our time and energy and also our money really belong to God, and may we eagerly embrace God’s support and precious teachings, so that, like Abraham, we will be a very great blessing.
First there is a famine. Abraham asks Sarah to say she is his sister, so that he will not be killed. As the custom was to seize the beautiful wife and kill the husband, she agrees, but Sarah is taken into Pharaoh’s harem, a terrible turn of events. If Abraham had trusted that God would curse his enemies and protect him, would he have needed to lie? Would he have put Sarah in danger? We don’t’ know. God sends an illness to Pharaoh’s household so that no one feels well enough to have sexual relations, and Abraham leaves with Sarah unscathed and great wealth, the payment in a sense, given to Abraham by Pharaoh when he seized Sarah. God has taught Abraham that God will keep the promises of blessing and protection.
Then comes another test: there is a war of 4 chieftains fighting 5 chieftains. Lot, Abraham’s nephew is captured; so Abraham enters the war to get him back. Abraham is successful, and after the war is over, the victorious kings assemble to divide the spoils of war. What happens is strange; and we know that the sages taught that there are no coincidences. God arranges for a man named Malchizedek, whose name means righteous king, to be present. Malchizedek is described as a priest of God the most high,” who lives in Jerusalem. As they are about to divide the spoils, Malchizedek brings out bread and wine, which has become our Jewish custom, perhaps an ancient pagan custom, but also perhaps something Abraham picked up from this non-Jewish priest. He then blesses Abraham.
It is strange because we are not told that Malchizedek blessed the other chieftains. He is fixated on Abraham; and then he says, Blessed is Abraham of God the Most High, the owner of heaven and earth, and blessed is God the Most High, who has delivered you foes into your hand. (Gen. 14:18).” It is almost as if Malchizedek is a plant, put there by God just for Abraham. What is Malchizedek teaching Abraham here? He reminds Abraham by stressing that God owns everything, that all the wealth belongs to God: in other words, the spoils of war don’t really belong to you or to the others. Malchizedek then reminds Abraham that God has given them the victory, not their own strength or military prowess. The Sages in Pirkei Avot famously said, “Who is wise, the one who learns from every person.”
The support that Malchizedek gives Abraham is just what Abraham needs at this very moment, to be able to do the right thing. Abraham gives a 10 % donation to this priest, another monotheist, and then he gives up all the spoils, the wealth he might have taken, and by the customs of the time, that he was entitled to, as war at that time was a money making proposition; kind of like investing in junk bonds: you may win big or you may lose big. Abraham then explains that it will be God who makes him rich.
This portion shows us that God teaches us through tests, and also by making sure that we are supported when we have to make an important decision, so that we will do the right thing. Abraham repeats what Malchizedek said, that God owns everything, and repeats the word for tithe, from the root, 10, esser, becoming fixated on the teaching that our money and also our time and our life’s energy really belong to God. If Malchizedek had not been there and said what he said, might Abraham have been tempted to take some of the wealth? Would he have invoked God’s name and Presence at that time? We don’t know.
What is clear is that God supported Abraham with Malchizedek’s presence and words, helping him to become an even greater blessing. May we realize that we are being tested and also supported in our lives and tests; that our time and energy and also our money really belong to God, and may we eagerly embrace God’s support and precious teachings, so that, like Abraham, we will be a very great blessing.
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