Simple Faith: Avraham's Gift to His Children

1“He took him outside and said, ‘Look now toward the heavens and count the stars,’ … ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed in Hashem, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”¹ The commentators, the Ramban, the Mizrachi, the Alshich and the Sifsei Chachamim, ask why it was such an accomplishment for Avraham Avinu to believe in Hashem.² He was the head of all believers. Why, then, did the Holy One, blessed be He, count it for him as a merit and as righteousness?

2We must also look closely at the next verses, where Avraham is promised the Land: “He said to him, ‘I am Hashem Who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you this land to inherit it.’ And he said, ‘My Lord, God, by what shall I know that I will inherit it?’”³ Why did he ask “By what shall I know?” about the Land, when he asked no such thing about the promise of children just before?

3The Midrash says: “‘And he said, My Lord, God, by what shall I know?’ He did not say it as one who complains. Rather, he said to Him, ‘In what merit?’ He answered him, ‘Through the atonements that I place before you,’” meaning in the merit of the mitzvah of bringing korbanos, the sacrificial offerings.⁴ This too needs explaining. Why did Hashem make the merit of entering the Land depend on the korbanos in particular, more than on all the other mitzvos of the Torah?

4We can explain this as follows. As is well known, the Shelah and others wrote that there are two kinds of faith.⁵ The first is simple faith, without philosophical investigation. It comes through the tradition of our fathers, who handed down to us the belief that there is no palace without a master, that is, that the world has a Master, and that everything comes from His power. The second is faith that comes from investigation: people study the ways of the stars and the paths of the heavens until they arrive at the recognition that there is a Creator of the world. The holy sefarim have already explained that faith born of investigation can make a person stumble, Heaven forbid, and stray from the way of Hashem. Only rare, chosen individuals, such as the Rambam and a few like him, could reach their level of faith by way of investigation. We know what the pious R' Yosef Yaavetz wrote in his sefer Or HaChaim.⁶ When the Jews were expelled from Spain, those whose faith rested on investigation did not withstand the test. Only those who believed with simple faith, without any investigation at all, stretched out their necks to die for it, even women and children.

5Avraham Avinu was great enough to arrive at faith through investigation. But he did not want to, because he wished to plant simple faith firmly in the hearts of his children after him. So he gave up that level and believed in Hashem with simple faith alone, without any investigation or inquiry. This is the meaning of “He took him outside and said, ‘Look now toward the heavens and count the stars.’” The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to grant Avraham understanding in matters of faith, so that he could study the pathways and courses of the heavens and come to grasp His greatness. But Avraham Avinu gave all this up: “and he believed in Hashem,” without any investigation. Of this it says, “and He reckoned it to him as righteousness”: he was credited for giving up understanding and spiritual levels for the sake of the generations to come. That is why Hashem promised him, “So shall your offspring be,” meaning that this faith will remain with his children, so that they too will be privileged to have simple faith. This answers our first question.

6But Avraham Avinu had a fear. Once Israel entered the Land and dwelt “each man under his vine and under his fig tree,” perhaps, Heaven forbid, the verse “Yeshurun grew fat and kicked” would come true in it.⁷ The Maharsha explains Chazal's saying “Three things broaden a person's mind,” one of which is a beautiful home.⁸ He writes that “broaden” means these things can lead a person's mind and soul to chase after the pleasures of this world, as in the phrase used of the wicked prophet Bilam, “and his soul was broad,”⁹ meaning greedy. That is the gist of his words. This is what Avraham feared: once his children were settled in the Land in beautiful homes, they might, Heaven forbid, seek and pursue the desires and pleasures of this world. Then they would forget Hashem, the God of their fathers, and their simple faith would be damaged.

7aThis, then, was the meaning of Avraham Avinu's question “By what shall I know?” Rashi and the Midrash explain it as “In what merit will they endure in it?” What would help his children hold on to their faith in Eretz Yisrael, so that their simple faith would not be damaged? For it is precisely through simple faith, as the expulsion from Spain showed, that they will endure and hold fast to pure faith. And what would help them always know that everything is brought about and done by Hashem's power? Hashem answered him: the merit of the korbanos.

7bAs we know, the foundation and root of the mitzvah of korbanos is “The offerings of God are a broken spirit.”¹⁰ Korbanos are brought so that a person will come to a broken heart and to teshuvah. He reflects that everything done to the offering ought to have been done to him, and that only the Holy One, blessed be He, had pity on him and commanded that the offering be slaughtered in his place.¹¹ This brings him to lowliness of spirit, and through that lowliness he will recognize and know that everything comes from Hashem's power, and he will come to complete faith. Chazal said, “Whoever is arrogant is as though he worships idols,”¹² for an arrogant person has no faith. If so, since “the measure of good is greater,”¹³ the opposite is surely true: one who is humble believes in Hashem and knows that there is nothing apart from Him. That is why Hashem answered that in the merit of the korbanos Avraham's children would be privileged to hold on to their pure faith. This answers our second and third questions as well.

8May Hashem grant that we be privileged to reach the level of simple faith, and in its merit may we be granted the redemption, as Chazal said.¹⁴ Amen.