You know this famous story: Avraham goes, he begs for Sedom, and he asks Hashem: 50, 40, 30, 45, whatever. Hashem says no. What does Avraham do the next day? He goes—the Pasuk (verse) says he gets up early to watch what Hashem does to Sedom. So why would Avraham do that? Why would he do that? No, because the answer is this: What Avraham wants, and what a Jew is supposed to always want, is: “I want whatever the emet (truth) is. I want what God wants.” Avraham felt that there could be a tzad (possibility), that maybe Hashem doesn’t want Sedom to be destroyed. So he tried with all his might to spare them. But after Hashem said, “No way, it’s done,” Avraham isn’t saying, “Oh, Hashem, you didn’t do what I wanted.” No, Hashem said no. That means the main thing to do is to destroy Sedom. It’s okay. Yeah, it’s one of the marks of great people. We see that by Avraham. Crazy thing by Avraham.
At the end of the parashah, we read about—you know what Hashem told Avraham? “I want you to take your whole past and your whole future and give it up.” Why? For 90 years, Avraham was going around telling the whole world—the Midrashim (rabbinic teachings) bring it down, the Mefarshim (commentators) bring it down—that God, Hashem, doesn’t want you to kill your kids. I think one of the Mefarshim says that the predominant Avodah Zarah (idolatry) of the day was Molech. You know what Molech is? Take your kid and sacrifice them to Hashem.
The Sforno says that he takes the ma’achelet. The ma’achelet means it was a specific knife. The Sforno says, you know what knife he took? He took the knife that he used to slaughter the animals to feed people with, to convince them that Hashem doesn’t want them to give up their kids. The same knife. Hashem told you: “You know that knife you did all that chesed (kindness) with to teach people about me? You know that knife that you used to tell people that God doesn’t want you to kill your kids? Go take that knife and kill your kid.”
Now imagine—I’m going to tell you something, a rule in life. People either look to the past or they look to the future. Meaning, everyone is proud of something. For some people, they’re proud of what was: “I’m proud of my past accomplishments. I’m proud of what I spent my life building.” For other people, it’s what will be: my kids, my grandkids, the legacy I’ll leave behind. Hashem told Avraham: “In one act, I want you to give up everything you worked for and everything you thought you were going to get. I want your past and I want your future. I want it all. And I want you to do it with the thing that you spent your whole life teaching people is not what I want.”
And what did Avraham say? Vayomer Avraham: “Whatever you want, that’s what I want.” This is what Akedat Yitzchak was. This is what Avraham did by Sedom. What I want is what Hashem wants. I have a tzad to think that maybe this is what Hashem wants me to do. So I pray for Sedom because I think that’s what God wants from me. God wants me to pray for Sedom, so I pray for Sedom. But once I see that Hashem’s plan is that Sedom shouldn’t survive, I’m not afraid to go see what happens. I’m not upset that Hashem didn’t do what I want. I asked for what the emet is. Hashem did that, man. Okay, so I was wrong.
We do this all the time. All the time. We ask Hashem, “Give me this, give me this, give me that,” and when we don’t get what we want, we get upset with Hashem. Why? You’re asking Hashem for what’s best for you, but you don’t know what’s best for you. I don’t know what’s best. I don’t know. Nobody knows anything. When a person asks Hashem for something, you have to do like Avraham. You come and you ask with everything you have. I’m gonna ask till I go to the end of this story, and after that, after that, whatever Hashem does is good.
We see that by Moshe. Moshe prayed with this. Moshe prayed—how many times did he pray? Va’etchanan, 515 times. He begged Hashem, “I want to go in. I want to go in. I want to go in.” The Gemara talks about why Moshe wanted to go in. He wanted to go do mitzvot (commandments). What did he want? Moshe doesn’t want to go and eat the honey of Eretz Yisrael. He wants to go do mitzvot.
And Hashem told him no. And then Hashem told him, “Go fight with Amon and Moav,” right? And then Amon and Moav go fight with Og and the Midyanim, I think. Not right now. By the way, after that, you’re going to die. If I were Moshe, I would just beg: “I want to prolong my life. He didn’t give me what I wanted. Why would I go run away? Why would I go run to do what he wanted?” The Pasuk says Moshe went that second to go do what Hashem wanted, even though he knew he was going to die.
Same thing at the end. Hashem tells Moshe, “Go up to the mountain. You’re going to die there.” Moshe’s going to hang out at the base. “I don’t want to go up to the mountain today. Okay, I can do it. I want to pray more Shacharit (morning prayer). I can learn more Torah. I’ll go up to the mountain next week.” No, no, no, no, no. Hashem said, “Do it now.” Moshe says, “I’m going to do it now.”
Hashem told me, “Sedom has got to go.” So Avraham says, “Sedom has got to go.” No problem. Sedom has got to go. Okay, that’s what Hashem wants. Hashem knows. Everyone has to work on that middah (character trait). I’m asking—in fact, they say, when you ask Hashem for anything, you have to say, “Hashem, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s good for me. I’m asking because this is what I think. But if it’s not good for me, don’t do it. You know what’s right for me. You do what’s right for them. You do what’s right for everything.”
If a person does that, a person is capable of doing everything that Hashem asks for, even the hardest test of mankind. But only if you understand that we don’t know anything. Hashem knows everything, and the only thing we’re doing is trying to use our sechel (intellect) to see what Hashem wants from us. And when we’re wrong, Hashem will let us know we’re wrong. And when that happens, we tell Hashem, “Okay, you’re right, I’m wrong. You know better than me. I’m still in. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Baruch Adonai le’olam (Blessed is the Lord forever). Thank you very much.