When Love is Not Enough

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

Chazal say that the Akeidah, when Avraham Avinu was commanded by Hashem to bring his only son as an offering, was the greatest of Avraham Avinu’s tests. The Torah describes the Akeidah at great length, and throughout the year we ask Hashem to remember it and to forgive us in its merit. But this raises a question. Avraham Avinu’s very first test was very similar, yet the Torah barely hints at it, and we never mention it at all. Why?

That earlier test took place in Ur Kasdim, where Avraham let himself be thrown into a furnace rather than give up his emunah (faith) in Hashem. In some ways it was an even greater test than the Akeidah. At the Akeidah, Hashem commanded him; in Ur Kasdim, nobody commanded him anything, and he was ready to give up his life purely because of his own emunah. By the time of the Akeidah, Hashem had already spoken to him many times; in Ur Kasdim, Hashem had never spoken to him or revealed Himself to him at all. So why is Ur Kasdim barely mentioned?

Rav Elya Lopian gives a very interesting answer. In Ur Kasdim, Avraham showed tremendous mesirus nefesh (self-sacrifice), but his emunah was complete, and he understood exactly what he was giving up his life for. That clear understanding is what carried him into the furnace.

At the Akeidah, Avraham heard Hashem tell him to bring Yitzchak as an offering, but he could not understand it. First, Hashem had already promised him that through Yitzchak his offspring would be called (Bereishis 21:12). How, then, could he bring Yitzchak as an offering? Second, for years Avraham had been teaching the people around him not to sacrifice human beings to idols, and to do chesed (kindness) to others. Now he was being told to do something that looked cruel, the very thing he had always taught against. Third, he might even have thought that the real test was whether he would hold himself back.

With so many questions, Avraham’s mind could easily have wavered. Yet he said: Hashem commanded me, so I will do exactly what He commanded. I will not make my own calculations, such as reasoning that keeping Yitzchak alive might bring Hashem more honor. As the pasuk says, “Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha,” you shall be wholehearted with Hashem your G-d (Devarim 18:13). This is the greatest test of all. Doing what you understand is one thing. Doing what Hashem commands when you do not understand it, and when it goes against everything you do understand, is the real test. That is why the Akeidah, and not Ur Kasdim, was Avraham’s greatest test.

Rav Elya Lopian says that this also explains something else.  After Avraham showed that he was ready to bring his son, and Hashem stopped him, Hashem said, “Now I know that you fear G-d” (Bereishis 22:12). Why does Hashem speak about fear and not about love? The Akeidah certainly showed love, since Avraham was ready to give up his son, the person dearest to him in the world. The Orchos Tzaddikim says explicitly that at the Akeidah, Avraham’s love for Hashem overpowered his love for his son. And love is the higher level: the Gemara in Sotah (31:a) teaches that serving Hashem out of love is greater than serving Him out of fear. So why does the pasuk mention only Avraham’s fear?

Rav Elya explains that, in light of what we have said, the answer is clear. At the Akeidah, Avraham faced so many contradictions that love on its own could have led him somewhere else. Love could have argued: I love Hashem and want to give Him everything, but perhaps the best way to express that love is to keep Yitzchak alive, Hashem’s chosen child and the continuation of all the generations to come. Yirah (fear of Hashem) says something different: I am afraid to change anything Hashem said. I have to do exactly what He commanded, not what my own calculations, or my own feelings, tell me. Only through yirah was Avraham Avinu able to pass the test of the Akeidah.

Rav Bordiansky, the mashgiach of Kol Torah, takes this a step further. He says that even without all these contradictions, Avraham would still have needed yirah to pass the test. His strongest love was certainly his love for Hashem, but he also had a great, natural love for his son. What gave Avraham Avinu the strength for his love of Hashem to overpower his love for his son completely? How could he be so eager to get up early in the morning to do it? Only his yirah: the inner knowledge that he must only do what Hashem wants. His yirah, working together with his love, is what allowed his love for Hashem to overpower his love for his son.

The mashgiach continues: if this was true for Avraham Avinu, then for us it is certainly true. Every test we face, big or small, needs yirah, and we have to work tremendously on our yiras Shamayim. Every test means that a person has a desire to do something else, and the desires of the yetzer hara (evil inclination) are very, very strong. A person may love Hashem and love serving Him, but when the desire comes, an ordinary person may simply forget his love of Hashem for that moment. A person on a higher level will not forget, but he may talk himself into a heter (halachic permission), one that is not really true, so that he can do what he wants. The desire pulls him that strongly. The only thing that can hold a person back is yirah, an inner fear that says: I am afraid to do anything that Hashem does not want.

We find another example in this parsha as well. Avimelech asked Avraham, “Why didn’t you tell me that Sarah is your wife? I never would have taken her.” Avraham answered, “Because I said, there is no fear of G-d in this place” (Bereishis 20:11). He meant: I know you have good character traits, and I know you are a cultured people. But I also know that once you have a desire, you would even kill me to take my wife. The only thing that can stop a desire is strong yiras Shamayim.

Rav Bordiansky says that this is the problem with many of our tests. In our generation there are people

who learn and people who do many mitzvos, yet when a test comes, many of them fall, or at least do not

succeed. The reason is that their yiras Shamayim is not strong enough. That is what we have to work on.

So how does a person work on yiras Shamayim?  All the Gedolim say that a person must learn mussar (Torah teachings on character and fear of Heaven). The Mishnah Berurah, in Sha’ar HaTziyun (Orach Chaim 1:26), writes that every person, great or small, must learn mussar every day, and that this is the remedy for the yetzer hara. If you learn it every day even if you don’t feel it right away after awhile it will have a tremendous effect on you. The Steipler would tell people to even learn a little mussar with their children from the age of six. He explained that when children are young, these ideas enter easily.

Rav Aharon Kotler added another point. The Torah says that the king must learn Torah every day, so that he will learn to fear Hashem (Devarim 17:19). The Sifrei explains that learning first brings a person to action, and action brings him to yirah. We would have thought that yirah leads to good deeds, but the Sifrei says the opposite: good deeds lead to yirah. Rav Aharon explained that it is not enough to learn mussar; a person must live what he learns. Before he goes out somewhere, he should think: there may be a test there, so how will I protect myself? He should make a plan in advance. Even when he is simply walking in the street, he should keep in mind: I cannot do anything forbidden. Hashem and His Torah should be in his thoughts the whole time. This way of thinking will stop a person before he sins, and it strengthens his yiras Shamayim more than anything else.

The Steipler was a great example of this. He learned mussar, but beyond his learning, his mind was always on one question: am I doing what Hashem wants?  Am I following all the halachos. When he was a young bochur, he was offered a very distinguished shidduch with the Chazon Ish’s sister. He had to take a long train journey to meet her, and when he arrived and they began to speak, he fell asleep. The family could not understand what was wrong. It turned out that he had been afraid the train seats might contain shaatnez, a forbidden mixture of wool and linen, so he had stood for the entire journey and arrived almost fainting from exhaustion.

He lived this way his whole life. When he was old and could hardly walk, he was once walking to shul early on a Shabbos morning, stopping every few steps, when he lost his balance and began to fall. On one side of the path was a tree, and on the other side was a car. The Rabbanan forbade using a tree on Shabbos, and touching the car might also have caused a problem, so he held his hands straight out in front of him and fell flat on the ground. Then he immediately got up, without any help. He explained that there might also be a prohibition against bowing down on a stone floor, which is why, when we bow on Rosh Hashanah, we first spread a towel on the floor.

May we be zocheh to strengthen our yiras Shamayim, and succeed in all our tests.