Today we have another lesson from the great Rabbi of Brisk, from volume 4 of his book (page 219):
A young man was imprisoned, not because he committed a crime but due to a technicality- he did not fill out a certain form that was required of him. It was Erev Kippur, and when the Brisker Rav found out about it, he sent a message to someone who could get him out before Kippur. The man said that he couldn’t do anything at that hour on Erev Kippur. The Brisker Rav replied, “Don’t tell me you can’t. Tell me you don’t want to.”
The man started giving excuses, and again the Brisker Rav said the same thing, “Don’t tell me you can’t. Tell me you don’t want to.”
Eventually, the man got the young man out before Yom Kippur, and he he came back to the Brisker Rav, literally moments before Yom Kippur, to notify him of the news.
The Brisker Rav then said, “Now I will tell you my source for the concept of when a person says ‘I can’t,’ it really means, ‘I don’t want to.’
The Gemara in Baba Matzia (86b) talks about the third day of Avraham Avinu’s Brit Milah, when Hashem made it extremely hot in order not to trouble Avraham Avinu with guests.
Avraham sent Eliezer out to look for guests, but he didn’t find any.
When he came back and said he couldn’t find any, Avraham said, “I don’t believe you, There is no trust in slaves.”
Avraham Avinu then went out on his own, and Hashem sent the three angels.
The Brisker Rav questions how this could be said about Eliezer, who was considered Avraham’s trusted servant- How could it be that there was no loyalty or trust?
The answer, he says, is that Eliezer went out, searched and didn’t find. Avraham Avinu then said, “Don’t say that there are no people. Say you don’t want to bring people (in order not to trouble me).”
Of course, in the end, there were people. Avraham Avinu wanted, and therefore he found.
The one who told this story is Rav Meir Tzvi Bergman, the son-in-law of Rav Shach. He added an additional point, based on the Rama M’Pano, a great mekubal. The pasuk says, Poteach Et Yadecha Umasbia Bchol Chai Ratzon…”
God opens up his hands and gives everyone what they want .”
But the obvious question is, does God really give everyone what they want? Not everyone gets what they want.
The Rama M’Pano said that Ratzon doesn’t mean that God gives what you want, rather, it refers to what God wants.
God wants to give.
What causes the whole word to get is God’s will, which is to benefit others.
God’s will is to do good for creation. That’s why He created the world.
He continues and says that we, too, have to follow the ways of God. On God it says, “God is merciful, you have to be merciful,” and just like God has an absolute will to do good to others, and nothing stops God from that, so too, a person has to be like that.
That was Abraham Avinu’s level of Hessed. His Hessed was that of, “Don’t say you can’t, say you don’t want.”
There is a pasuk in Shir Hashirim
( perek ד pasuk ט) where it says,
לִבַּבְתִּ֙נִי֙ (באחד) [בְּאַחַ֣ת] מֵעֵינַ֔יִךְ בְּאַחַ֥ד עֲנָ֖ק מִצַּוְּרֹנָֽיִךְ׃
You have pulled on my heart strings, with one of your eyes, and with the Anak around your neck.
Rash says that Anak refers to one of the giants, Avraham. He was special amongst our Avot.
Why was Avraham called a giant? Rashi refers us to a pasuk in Yehoshua (14,15) where it refers to Hebron as the place where
הָאָדָ֧ם הַגָּד֛וֹל בָּעֲנָקִ֖ים
The great man amongst the giants lived.
Simply, this refers to the giants, but the Midrash says (and Rashi in Yehoshua quotes it as well) that this giant amongst men refers to Avraham Avinu.
Why was he a Gadol?
Because a Gadol is someone who, as Rav Yerucham Levovitz says, gives to those who are small. A great man is a man who takes care of smaller people. Avraham Avinu was a giant of a man, possibly because Avraham Avinu had an absolute Ratzon, to the level of God ( as much as we can say that) in the area of Hessed. The ultimate Hessed comes from the ultimate Ratzon. That’s why the story of Abraham Avinu’s Hessed is the story that shows us his Ratzon.
It was not there were no guests, it was that Eliezer didn’t want there to be guests.
Do say you can’t, say you don’t want.
Have a wonderful day.