Fervor and Self-Sacrifice: Avraham's Reward

1“After these things the word of Hashem came to Avram in a vision, saying: Do not fear, Avram; I am a shield for you; your reward is exceedingly great.”¹ The Ramban learns from the words “exceedingly great” that the Holy One, blessed be He, promised Avraham reward both in this world and in the World to Come, and the Sforno says the same.² But this is hard to understand. We hold that “there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world.”³ How, then, do we find here a reward for a mitzvah in this world?

2A second passage, a little further on, also needs explaining: “He took him outside and said, ‘Look now toward the heavens’ … ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed in Hashem, and He reckoned it to him as tzedakah, righteousness.”⁴ This is truly astonishing. Why did Hashem count it as righteousness for Avraham Avinu that he believed in Hashem? Avraham was the head of all believers; is believing Hashem's word to be counted for him as righteousness and a great virtue? Even for the simplest Jew, faith in Hashem comes first of all. It is the beginning and foundation of the whole Torah, the first of the Ten Commandments, “I am Hashem your God,”⁵ and without it nothing else can even begin. How much more so for Avraham Avinu, “the greatest among the giants.”⁶

3A third question comes from the verses that follow: “He said to him, ‘I am Hashem Who brought you out of Ur Kasdim to give you this land to inherit it.’ And he said, ‘My Lord, God, by what shall I know that I will inherit it?’ And He said to him, ‘Take for Me a three-year-old heifer …’”⁷ Rashi explains: “He did not ask Him for a sign. Rather, he said before Him: In what merit will my children endure in it? The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: In the merit of the korbanos,” the sacrificial offerings.⁸ What makes the korbanos so great that their merit, more than that of any of the other 613 mitzvos, should earn the inheritance of the Land?

4Let us first recall what my holy father and teacher, zt"l, taught, as quoted in an earlier maamar, on the verse “So Avram went, as Hashem had spoken to him.”⁹ At first glance the words “as Hashem had spoken to him” seem unnecessary. He explained that the moment Avraham heard Hashem command him to go to the Land, he yearned and burned to go, with an intense longing. So the verse credits him as though he had gone at once. This is the meaning of “So Avram went … as Hashem had spoken to him”: right after Hashem spoke to him, even before he had set out, it was already counted for him as though he had gone. Those are his holy words.

5The holy Shelah discusses the verse “You shall surely give to him, and let your heart not be grieved … for because of this thing Hashem will bless you.”¹⁰ He asks why the verse needs the long phrase “for because of this thing Hashem will bless you,” and he explains. A person who gives charity does not deserve reward simply for handing over his money, since the money is not really his. He only holds it in trust, as the verse says: “Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold, says Hashem.”¹¹ But when he gives with fervor, with delight and with a whole heart, for that he receives reward and Hashem's blessing. That is what the verse means: “Let your heart not be grieved when you give to him, for because of this thing Hashem will bless you.” In other words, know that it is precisely because “your heart is not grieved when you give to him,” because you give gladly and with fervor, that Hashem will bless you. Those are his holy words. We learn from the Shelah's words that for longing and fervor in doing a mitzvah, there is reward even in this world.

6We may say that faith in Hashem works the same way. This is the meaning of “And he believed in Hashem, and He reckoned it to him as tzedakah.” That Avraham Avinu believed in Hashem is certainly nothing new, for every simple Jew stands on that level. What set Avraham apart was his mesirus nefesh, his readiness to give his life for his faith in Hashem, as when he was thrown into the fiery furnace, and on other occasions as well.¹² This is what the Holy One, blessed be He, counted for him as righteousness: that he gave his life over for the sake of faith. The verse calls it tzedakah, which also means charity. Just as charity is rewarded not for the giving itself but for the fervor, for giving with a whole heart and a willing soul, so it is with faith. Hashem credited Avraham not for the faith itself but for his mesirus nefesh, which also came from delight and fervor. That is the meaning of “He reckoned it to him as tzedakah.”

7This also answers our third question, why it is the korbanos, of all mitzvos, whose merit earns the inheritance of the Land. The essence of korbanos is mesirus nefesh, as the Ramban explains.¹³ [These are his words there: “Since people's deeds are completed through thought, speech and action, Hashem commanded that when a person sins and brings an offering, he should lay his hands on it, corresponding to action; confess with his mouth, corresponding to speech; burn in the fire the innards and the kidneys, which are the seat of thought and desire, and the legs, corresponding to a person's hands and feet, which do all his work; and sprinkle the blood on the altar, corresponding to the blood of his own life. All this so that a person should think, as he does all these things, that he sinned against his God with his body and his soul, and that it would be fitting for his own blood to be spilled and his own body burned, were it not for the kindness of the Creator, Who took a substitute from him and let this offering atone, its blood in place of his blood, a life in place of a life …” So far his words.] And it is in the merit of this mesirus nefesh that Avraham's children will endure in the Land. Mesirus nefesh was Avraham Avinu's strength and his defining middah, his character trait. His way was to serve the Creator with mesirus nefesh, and in this merit he was privileged to inherit the Land. He rooted this strength in his children after him, and in this merit they will endure in the Land.

8This resolves our first question: how could the Holy One, blessed be He, promise Avraham “your reward is exceedingly great,” when there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world? In light of what we have explained, we may say that the reward Hashem promised was not for doing the mitzvah but for Avraham's fervor and his mesirus nefesh. We find this level in Avraham Avinu, as we said in the name of my holy father on the words “as Hashem had spoken to him”: as soon as he heard the word of Hashem, he burned like fire to do his Maker's will.

9May Hashem grant that we be privileged to reach this middah, as in the words of the early Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu, “When will my deeds reach the deeds of my fathers?”¹⁴ And may we bring near the coming of Moshiach. Amen, may it be His will.