Old Age and Days: Serving with Every Trait

1“And Avraham was old, coming into days, and Hashem blessed Avraham with everything.”¹ But how does the end of the verse connect to its beginning? Was it because Avraham was old that he earned Hashem's blessing?

2The Midrash says: “Rav Acha said: You may find a person who has old age but not days, or days but not old age. But here, old age matched days and days matched old age.”² What does this Midrash mean?

3Let us first cite a teaching of Chazal in the Gemara: “The coin of Avraham: an old man and an old woman on one side, a young man and a young woman on the other.”³ Tosafos, the classic commentators on the Gemara, ask how Avraham Avinu could have put the image of a person on a coin, when it is forbidden to make the form of a human being.⁴ There is also a wider question: why would Avraham Avinu busy himself with coins at all?

4My holy father and teacher, zt"l, spoke on the words “coming into days,” ba bayamim, basing himself on a teaching of the Sfas Emes.⁵ The Sfas Emes explains why the Yid HaKadosh, zt"l, was given that name. Every day the Yid HaKadosh served Hashem with a service so completely renewed that from one day to the next he rose in his service as far as one rises from being a gentile to being a Jew. That is why the tzaddikim of his generation called him Yid HaKadosh, meaning “holy Jew.” In the same spirit my holy father explained the verse “And Avraham was old, coming into days”: each and every day Avraham served Hashem, blessed be He, with a new service. This is what the Torah stresses with the words ba bayamim, “coming into days.” Those are his holy words.

5To understand all this, we can explain as follows. On the verse “If you will walk in My statutes,” the Midrash says:⁶ “This is what is written, ‘I considered my ways, and I turned my feet back to Your testimonies.’ Dovid said: Master of the world, every single day I would plan and say, ‘I am going to such-and-such a place, to such-and-such a house,’ and my feet would bring me to the synagogues and the study halls. That is what is written, ‘and I turned my feet back to Your testimonies.’” But what business could Dovid HaMelech have had elsewhere? Every day he occupied himself with Torah from midnight until morning.⁷ So how can it be said of him that every day, before his learning, he planned to go somewhere else?

6We know that there are two paths in avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The first is to overpower the yetzer hara. But there is another, finer path: to bring the power of the yetzer hara itself into matters of holiness. That is, a person should take the very desire and craving he felt when, Heaven forbid, he was sinning, and bring them into holy matters, so that he is aflame with longing when he does mitzvos. This is how the holy sefarim, the Noam Elimelech, the Degel Machaneh Efraim and the Be'er Mayim Chaim, explain Chazal's teaching on “with all your heart”: “with both your inclinations, with the yetzer tov and with the yetzer hara.”⁸ It means that we must serve Hashem, blessed be He, with the forces of the yetzer hara as well.

7This is the meaning of the Midrash we cited, where Dovid HaMelech said, “I considered my ways.” He meant: I took stock of my soul.⁹ Whenever the yetzer hara, Heaven forbid, wanted to make me stumble and put a longing for sin into me, as when every day I would plan my way to such-and-such a place, I strengthened myself and brought this very longing into avodas Hashem. And when he said that his feet would bring him to the beis midrash, he meant: I took all these forces and brought them into holiness. This is also the sense of Dovid HaMelech's words about himself, “But I am prayer”:¹⁰ I raise all my longing up to Heaven.

8aThis also resolves a question of the commentators, which the Kli Yakar cites from the Rishonim, the early authorities.¹¹ How could the Torah promise, “I will give your rains in their season …,” when “there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world”?¹² And a second question: what do Dovid's words in the Midrash, “every single day …,” have to do with the verse “If you will walk in My statutes …,” to which the Midrash attaches them? We can explain this with a teaching that the holy sefer Divrei Binah cites in the name of my holy ancestor of Shidlovtza, zt"l, on Chazal's words “If there is no flour, there is no Torah.”¹³ He explained it with a parable. A king sent his troops to war and told them that he had prepared storehouses for them along the way, full of every good thing. They went and searched, but they did not find them. One clever man among them studied the map the king had given them, and he saw that they had strayed from the road. After they went back to the right road, they did indeed find every good thing, and they fought and won.

8bThe parable means this. The Holy One, blessed be He, sends the soul into this world and prepares for it every good thing and all its material needs, so that it can wage the war against the yetzer hara. But this is on condition that one walks on the right road, which is the way of the Torah. If, Heaven forbid, one strays onto a road that is not good, the flow of bounty does not reach him. The clever one, however, looks at the map the King gave, which is the Torah, and sees that he has strayed, and that this is why he does not find every good thing. If he corrects his ways and walks according to the Torah on the straight road, he will find, as a matter of course, every good thing and all the needs that Hashem prepared for him.

9Accordingly, we may say that the Torah's promise, “I will give your rains …,” is not counted as reward for a mitzvah. It is the bounty already prepared and waiting for a person from the time his soul comes down into the world, so that he can serve Hashem. He need only walk the straight road, fulfilling “If you will walk in My statutes,” and at once he receives his bounty. This answers the first question. It is just as in the Midrash we cited, “I considered my ways”: when a Jew walks only in the way of Hashem and brings all his longings into holiness, he is walking on the King's road. Then he lacks nothing, and all the good mentioned in that passage is rightly his.

10With this we can explain Chazal's words about the coin of Avraham Avinu. The word matbea, “coin,” points to the teva, the nature, and the middos, the character traits, of Avraham Avinu. The words “an old man and an old woman on one side, a young man and a young woman on the other” mean that he dedicated all his forces and middos to avodas Hashem and brought everything into holiness. “A young man and a young woman” hint at warmth, and “an old man and an old woman” hint at coolness. The simple way of service is to fulfill the mitzvos with warmth and longing, and to meet the yetzer hara with coolness. But Avraham, who was privileged to be a chariot for the Shechinah, a vehicle that carries it,¹⁴ brought everything into holiness. He raised even the middah of coolness to the root of holiness, and he used both middos in avodas Hashem.

11The Midrash, too, becomes clear: “You may find a person who has old age but not days.” “Days” hints at warmth, and “old age” hints at coolness. Not every person reaches the level where he can use both of these middos in avodas Hashem. But Avraham raised all his middos to the root of holiness, and so he was able to use both warmth and coolness in avodas Hashem. Between them, these two encompass a person's main forces and middos. That is the meaning of “But here, old age matched days and days matched old age.”

12We may say that this is the meaning of the verse “And Avraham was old, coming into days.” Avraham Avinu brought everything into holiness, and he was able to raise both of these middos, “days” and “old age,” and use them together in avodas Hashem. Because of this, “Hashem blessed Avraham with everything,” for [bringing everything into holiness is the King's road, and] on the King's road one lacks nothing, as we have explained. This answers our opening question.

13The Midrash speaks of this on the verse “And these are the days of the years of Avraham's life”:¹⁵ “It is written, ‘Hashem knows the days of the wholehearted, and their inheritance shall be forever.’ ‘Hashem knows the days of the wholehearted’: this is Avraham, as it says, ‘and be wholehearted.’ ‘And their inheritance shall be forever’ refers to ‘And these are the days of the years of Avraham's life.’ For the Holy One, blessed be He, cherishes the years of the righteous and wrote them in the Torah, so that the inheritance of their days will be remembered forever.” So far the Midrash. In other words, the Torah recorded these days so that the generations to come would learn from the Avos how they served Hashem with all their forces and middos. As we have seen, Avraham Avinu used both of these forces in avodas Hashem: the quality of “days” and the quality of “old age.” This was written for all generations so that we can learn from their ways and gain some connection to this level, even if only a small share of it.

14May Hashem help us all to join ourselves, at least in some small way, to the ways and middos of Avraham Avinu that we have described. The verse says of Avraham, “that he will command his children and his household after him,” and yetzaveh, “he will command,” comes from tzavsa, “joining.”¹⁶ Through this joining we will be privileged to fulfill what the verse goes on to say, “and they will keep the way of Hashem”: we will walk in the way of Hashem, and then every good thing will come to us of itself, along with abundant blessing. And Chazal's words will be fulfilled in us: “Israel is redeemed only in the merit of the Avos.”¹⁷ So may we be privileged to see this speedily. Amen.