Okay, good morning, everyone. I’m Hazak. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful Friday morning, Erev Shabbat Kodesh (eve of the holy Shabbat). As we study together, our parasha, Hashem commands Avraham regarding the mitzvah (actions) of Brit Milah (circumcision). It’s interesting: of all the mitzvot—we have 613—God explicitly gives Avraham the Brit Milah. There’s a lot of discussion about why God commands him to do this one. There are many mitzvot. But either way, the Pasuk (verse) says—this is Bereshit, at the end of the parasha, Book of Bereshit, Chapter 17, Pasuk, Kaf Bet, 22—God finished speaking to him. What does that mean? God ascended from upon Avraham. That means God leaves Avraham. God takes his family, Kol Zachar (all the males), all his servants—all the males—and Vayamal et besar orlatam (and he performs circumcision).
So here, the Malbim notices something very interesting. We know that a person entered a euphoric state to be in Nevuah (prophecy). You should know, in ancient times it was like being on a high. You were connected to Hashem. You were feeling God, and it was something you really wanted to feel. When you were in prophecy, you were like, “Wow, in heaven.” It was unbelievable. For the people who experienced it, sometimes it was dangerous because they didn’t want to leave. It’s almost like—if you could imagine—certain drugs and what they could do to a person. People who taste this high, this feeling, this clarity, this whatever—I don’t know, I never did it, okay? I don’t know what it is, okay? No one please suspect that I did any of this. But they say, okay, they say that it gives you amazing feelings, and you want to do it again and again and again. You never want to leave that state. And to get prophecy, you almost had to have someone guide you, to help you get there. It was a meditation. It was very, very deep. We don’t have this today. We don’t have prophecy today.
Now, in the Jewish world, to get this feeling, you had to work many, many years of your life on becoming a refined human being and getting there through self-work. There were other fake forms of prophecy, which is what Avodah Zarah (idolatry) offered you. They offered you a way of cutting the line, of being able to get the high without working on the high. It was always a shortcut. That’s what they were trying to sell: Avodah Zarah back then. And people ran to it. People ran to it.
But either way, the Malbim says that, in general, one of the benefits of prophecy is that after hearing the word of God, the heightened state of awareness did not immediately end. There was an aftereffect. Okay? And what we find here by Avraham Avinu, though, is very interesting. The Pasuk says that the second God finished, God left. God did not remain. He didn’t dwindle. He didn’t hang out. He didn’t allow any feeling to continue—this amazing feeling that usually, right? The runner’s high, the prophet’s high. But God left immediately. He didn’t linger, and He didn’t allow the feeling to persist.
And the question is, why? Why not? Why didn’t God stay there for a little bit? The Malbim explains something very, very powerful: this was intentional. Hashem is teaching Avraham, and He’s teaching us, one of the most important lessons of all of Judaism. It’s nice to have a high feeling, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal of life is action. This is a world of action. This is Olam HaAsiyah in the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). There are four worlds. This world is Olam HaAsiyah. This world is the world that we fulfill. This is the world of doing.
God says, “It’s nice that you’re feeling nice over here, Avraham, with Me. I like it, but let’s go. Straight to work. Start doing the mitzvah.” There’s an urgency. You have a mitzvah; get to it. Because true religion, true spirituality, is not about how inspired we feel, but what we do with that inspiration. Devekut, closeness to Hashem, is nice. But it’s only amazing if it’s a means to an end. If a guy is close to Hashem all day but does nothing about it, if he stays in this euphoric, prophetic stage, it’s empty. That’s not Judaism. Judaism, Torah, is filled with 613 mitzvot, actions. Even the great level of spirituality involved in Avraham’s prophecy—whatever level of spirituality he reached that day—was not as important. It was as important as the immediate completion of a physical act of a mitzvah.
What a Malbim, my friends. Prophecy is nice, but it’s not the goal. Action is key. Action is key.
We find a very similar idea in next week’s parasha. Next week we’re going to read Vayera, right after the Brit Milah. Avraham does the mitzvah, and he’s in pain for three days—a lot of pain. The parasha next week begins, Vayera elav Adonai, be'Elonei Mamre, vehu yoshev petach ha'ohel, kechom hayom (Hashem appeared to him at the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day). Vayera elav (God appeared to Avraham). God appears to Avraham next week. Why? Why does God appear to Avraham? Rashi says, levaker et hacholeh (to visit the sick), he’s visiting Avraham. Visiting the sick is a mitzvah. God does mitzvot; God was visiting the sick. That’s what the Gemara says. It was the third day of his Brit Milah. And Avraham now has this beautiful experience again, of being able to be with God. All of a sudden, he looks up and sees three men, three people who need a place to eat. And Avraham runs to them.
And look at this Gemara. The Gemara says—this is Masechet (tractate) Shabbat, page 127—Amar Rav Yehuda Amar Rav (Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav). Avraham Avinu says to God, “God, it’s nice chatting with You. I love this high that I’m on, the runner’s high, the prophet’s high. It’s really nice. It’s been great catching up, God. Thank You for visiting me. I like this feeling. Inspiration. But I gotta go. I have a mitzvah to do. Please wait, God. I have some guests to attend to.” It is greater to welcome guests than even to speak to Hashem. Because speaking to Hashem is nice. It’s inspirational. But that’s not the goal of this world.
The Gemara says that all of the pleasures of this world don’t add up to one second in the next world. All of the pleasures of this world don’t add up to a second in the next world. But that very same Mishnah continues and says that all of the next world cannot lead and give you what even one second of this world can. It’s nice to be in the next world. It’s nice to have Ruach HaKodesh (divine inspiration) and prophecy and to be with God. But there’s something about action: the ability to do and to perform. That is always something we can do in this world. We are not here to receive highs and inspiration. It’s nice, and sometimes we get too obsessed with that. “I want to feel it. I want to feel it. I’m not feeling it.” Don’t worry about feeling it. That’s not the goal of this world. The goal of this world is not to feel it.
You know, in a marriage, we’ve become very obsessed with feeling. We want to feel the spark. We want to feel the love. And of course, there are ways of doing it. But don’t worry about feeling the spark, okay? Let’s just do what we need to do in our marriages. Let us spend the time we need to spend with our spouse. Let us care and be concerned. We’re too concerned and involved today about feelings. The Torah says it’s more important to do. Take action in your marriage.
Torah Chaim has a similar idea at the beginning of Lech Lecha (our own journey). We’re introduced to God saying to Avraham, “Lech Lecha.” What does God say to Avraham? Instead of beginning, maybe, with a nicer phrase—“And God appeared to Avraham,” like in next week’s parasha, Vayera—you could have begun by saying, Vayera elav Hashem (Hashem appeared to him). God appeared to Avraham, and He said, “Lech Lecha.” But instead of beginning with a word of Vayera, of inspiration, of appearing, of prophecy—no, it begins with Vayomer (a commandment).
Furthermore, the Torah Chaim asks, why not tell me about the miracle of Ur Kasdim? God saved Avraham from the fire. But the Torah Chaim says that’s all nice. That’s all beautiful. But the yardstick for measuring a Jew is not the miracles he could perform. And it’s not whether he’s inspired or whether God appears to him. You want to know what a great tzaddik (righteous person) is? A great tzaddik, to put the head down, and could they observe the commandments. When God tells me something, am I able to just follow it and observe it and say, “Okay, yes, I’m in”? That is how we measure a righteous person. Not by Vayera, not by whether God appeared, but by Vayomer—by whether I listened to the call of God.
The Chafetz Chaim says it in a beautiful way. They say that one time rabbis were sitting together and saying, “You know, this one is such a tzaddik because he does this miracle, and this one is such a tzaddik because he does that miracle.” As Chazal (our sages) say, tzaddik gozer, HaKadosh Baruch Hu mekayem (the righteous person decrees; the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills). When a tzaddik decrees, HaKadosh Baruch Hu fulfills. A tzaddik down here makes a commandment, and God up there listens. The Chafetz Chaim responded, “I prefer the other way around. I prefer HaKadosh Baruch Hu gozer ve-tzaddik mekayem (the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees, and the righteous person fulfills). I prefer that Hashem up there makes a commandment, and down here we observe and fulfill. Not that down here we make commandments, we make all these requests, and we have God fulfill them. No, no, no. I’d rather God with the requests and we fulfill.”
What the Chafetz Chaim is saying is that this is how we measure a real tzaddik. Not by the inspiration. Not by God coming to me and my feeling this prophetic high. No, no, no. God immediately leaves, and Avraham Avinu immediately gets to work. All of this world cannot give you one second of pleasure like the next world. But all of the next world cannot give you what even one second of pleasure. And so I think it’s a very important message.
Our Rabbis tell us, Lo hamidrash hu ha'ikar, ela hama'aseh (Study is not the main thing, but action). You know, today there’s again an obsession with inspiration. “I just want to be inspired. I want to be inspired.” And so what happens? We go from class to class, from podcast to podcast, from video to video. And let me tell you something: this generation was blessed with amazing, amazing, entertaining Rabbis. And I believe it obviously has to be so. There’s always the balance of equal forces that Hashem had to create. In our generation, where there’s so much entertainment for negativity and so much pull toward the wrong things, if we had the rabbis of once upon a time, who were maybe not as entertaining— you know, the greatest rabbi ever, Rabbi Akiva, but the Gemara tells us that he was once giving a Shiur (class), and the students were sleeping. You’re sleeping in Rabbi Akiva’s class? Who sleeps in Rabbi Akiva’s class? It wasn’t one guy. It says the students were sleeping. They were sleeping. They were tired; maybe they had an overnight. But Rabbi Akiva wasn’t necessarily the greatest orator. They didn’t pick rabbis back then based on their speaking skills. Back then, often, by the way, the rabbi wasn’t even the one you heard speak. Just FYI. The Gemara says they had a translator. They had someone who spoke; the rabbi would speak low to him, and then he would project. Today a rabbi needs to be charismatic. He needs to know how to pull a crowd. Look for different things in a rabbi back then. Our generation was blessed with entertaining rabbis. People sometimes will play a class by a rabbi in the car instead of even a music playlist. They’re like, “I’d rather listen to a rabbi than Comedy Central. This rabbi is much funnier. I love the rabbi. Six stories.” That’s a beautiful thing. It should be like that.
We have to be very careful not to get caught up in the obsession of just listening and listening and listening. Sometimes, if the listening comes at the expense of doing, if it reaches a point where we just want to stay all day in this inspirational state—“I get inspired, like, wow, boom, next class. I get inspired, wow, boom, next class”—we’re missing the point. Because the rabbi who’s speaking wants you to play the next class, and the rabbi who spoke wants you to now get up and do something about that class. He doesn’t want you to just stay sitting, meditating, doing nothing about it. Where does inspiration get us? Inspiration is to get us off the couch, to move and to do. So feel holy, but do holy. Do a mitzvah. Do an act of chesed (kindness). We become holier with the mitzvot.
Here we are after Yom Kippur, and we feel like Hashem left us. “I was so close to God on Yom Kippur. I felt the rabbi in the shul (synagogue), the amens. We were yelling, we were feeling it.” But remember that Hashem left Avraham not so that He could abandon him, but to create space for Avraham to now do a mitzvah. Now do the Brit Milah; go ahead. When Hashem leaves us, sometimes we feel Hashem walks away from us. We feel distant from God. Sometimes we feel distant. There are times we feel a closeness, but there are times we don’t feel it. And you should just know that when you don’t feel the closeness to God, it’s actually in those moments that God is not stepping away, but creating a little bit of space to allow us to practice our commitment and implement the change.
It’s like when a parent pulls back a little from holding the bike, and the child may bike off into the distance, moving away from their parent. But it’s at that moment that they realize what their parent gave them is actually theirs now. And our job as parents—you should know—is to instill values. The goal of parenting is to instill values, to hopefully create in my child, at least value-wise—not in personality, but in values—a reflection of me. I want my child to reflect my values. That’s what I want. Our job here is to reflect Hashem in middot, in character. We’re here to emulate God. As a parent, I want my child to be like me, not in personality but in values. I hope that I can transmit those values. I hope that they don’t just do what I tell them to do when they’re in my house. It’s easy for a child to follow, to listen, to obey in the home. That’s not my goal as a parent. I do not want my kid putting Tefillin (phylacteries) when he’s living under my roof. The goal is that I want him to put Tefillin when he leaves. I want him to put Tefillin when he’s in college one day, when he’s out there on a business trip, when he’s not under my roof. I want him to know that the first thing that goes in the suitcase, like my father told me, is my Tefillin. I want my son one day—I hope that he absorbs that. The first thing you take is the Tefillin. I want my daughter to understand not to talk nicely when I’m listening, right? But when they’re out there with their friends in the street, and someone’s going to say something inappropriate or do something inappropriate, it’s there that I want my children to remember what I’ve taught them. And if they can do it when I’m not around, then mission accomplished, right? That’s how you know as a parent that you’ve succeeded. You know not when you’re with them; you know when you’re not with them.
And so this idea of stepping back, stepping away, creating space, is actually when you may be the farthest away, but in reality you’re actually closest. Because now you’re with your child forever. Now you’re in their heart. And wherever they go, you’re with them. And you may leave this world, and you may no longer be in this world, but they’ll never forget you. You’re in your child’s heart, in their actions, in their thoughts, in how they talk: “My father would do this. My father would do that.” So maybe physically, in distance, you’ve left, but you’re not really gone. When I let go of the bike and my child can bike on their own, I’m with them right there. They may be a block down, but as a parent, I’ve succeeded. And they take me with them.
And so when Hashem steps back after Yom Kippur, we have to think of that as a parent taking a step back from holding the bike. Now we’re on our own. For a moment, we may feel panic: “Where’d you go? I’m scared. Come quickly, help me, save me, hold me.” But we have to realize that it’s actually there that we can find Hashem most, carry Hashem with us, and bring Him into our lives, into our regiment and into our schedule. Hashem takes a step back not to abandon us. Hashem walks away to see: can we take Him with us? Can we really implement what we learned from Him?
And so here we are, heading now into the dead of winter. Yom Kippur is over. We have Cheshvan, called Mar, a bitter month. It’s called a bitter month because there are no holidays. We talk about going from high to low, and this is what it’s all about. Not just to be inspired, “I’m with Hashem; I want to be in shul all day.” No, no, no. Now let me see you take it with you. Let me see you grind. Let me see you work. When you feel far from Hashem, that is exactly where we can prove, “God, I haven’t left what You’ve given me.”
It’s when the kid goes off to college with the Tefillin, and sends a picture to their father and says, “Dad, you’re not over my shoulder. You’re not breathing down my neck. I don’t even know if you have any cameras watching me, but I just want you to know I didn’t forget what you told me about Tefillin. I’m still putting it, Dad.” Take a selfie. And so that’s what we’re doing. When we’re not feeling inspired, when Hashem walks away, that’s our chance to go to Him, to walk toward God. To Lech Lecha. To start on our own journey. Because the parent could hold the bike, but now you’ve got to go on your own. And at a certain point, God’s going to let go, the inspiration’s going to fade, and we’re going to feel alone. And it’s in those moments of aloneness that we actually become our own person.
Your parents eventually get to let go. In a company, your mentors can teach you, can show you, but eventually, at a certain point, you’ve just got to be able to ride by yourself. And it’s in those moments that you realize, “Wow, I’ve absorbed everything that I was taught. And it’s part of me now.” And actually, now I’m an extension of all those people who came before me.
And so, just like when Harry Potter waved his wand at Voldemort but he took that love and all the feelings of all the generations before him, of his parents’ sacrifice and everything. And in those moments when he was alone with Voldemort, he actually realized, “I have my parents right here with me. They may be dead, they may be in another world, but they’re right here helping me fight this fight. Because I became, I instilled, and I stepped up on my own without them physically holding my hand.” And when we do that, we see they all come to our aid, to our assistance. And they’re there, actually, in our heart.
So this is the amazing lesson of our parasha. Shekhinah (Divine Presence) is great. Receiving the Shekhinah is beautiful. But the second God finishes, God’s like, “All right, I’ll see you later. Let me see you do it on your own. Get straight to work. Do the Brit Milah.” And then, three days later, God comes back to visit him. Avraham sees three guests, and he’s like, “God, gotta go. Because You told me this. You told me that, as nice as it is to feel good, it’s better to make others feel good. So I’ll see you later, God. I got three guests to attend to. Bye. I would love to be here. Love to chat. Love to hang out. Business before pleasure. I gotta do some business. I got some work to do.”
And this is our parasha. Don’t worry about God listening to you. It’s more important for you to listen to God. And when we do, that’s when we step into greatness. And that’s when we become our own Lech Lecha, our own journey. Wishing you a wonderful Shabbat. Shalom, everyone. And hopefully we’ll see you all next week.