Revealed to Him: Holiness Built from Below

1“Hashem appeared to him in the plains of Mamre.”¹ The commentators, the Alshich and the Kli Yakar, look closely at the wording.² Why does the verse say “to him” here, without naming Avraham, when in other places it says “Hashem appeared to Avraham”?

2Rashi comments on “in the plains of Mamre”: “It was Mamre who gave him advice about the circumcision.” Commentators such as the Daas Zekeinim of the Baalei HaTosafos and the Peirush HaRiva ask a question here.³ Did Avraham Avinu, the head of all believers, need a gentile's advice in order to fulfill the mitzvah of circumcision, a mitzvah the Almighty Himself had commanded him?

3aIt seems we can answer with the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on the verse “You shall be holy.”⁴ The Midrash comments: “Could it be that you are to be holy like Me? The verse says, ‘for I, Hashem, am holy’: My holiness is above your holiness.”⁵ The holy R' Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov, zt"l, asked a question on this Midrash, as the sefer Sidduro shel Shabbos records.⁶ What is it telling us? Surely it is obvious that Hashem's holiness is greater than the holiness of a mortal born of woman! So he explained what the Midrash means: “My holiness Above” comes entirely “from your holiness,” from the holiness of Israel. When Israel walks in the way of the Torah and the mitzvos, it gives holiness Above, as it were. So far his words.

3bMy holy father explained that this follows Chazal's teaching in the Gemara: “From where do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, puts on tefillin and prays?”⁷ The explanation is that every mitzvah creates a spiritual light and root Above. When Israel carries out the mitzvos physically, Hashem makes and creates that light and spiritual root, and this, as it were, is Hashem's “putting on tefillin.” This is also the meaning of “You shall be holy,” read the way Chazal expound the word vehayu, “and they shall be”: “they shall be as they are.”⁸ In other words, holiness must come precisely from the physical side of things. This holiness brings about “for I, Hashem, am holy”: Hashem, the Creator of all, makes out of it the holiness that is Above. So a Jew of high spiritual standing, who grasps the root of every mitzvah, must not imagine that he need only do what is “like Me,” in the Midrash's words, that is, what is purely spiritual. He must keep the mitzvos simply, as they are, for the mitzvos are the life-force of every single person. That is what “My holiness Above is from your holiness” means. Where does the holiness Above come from? All of it comes from the holiness of Israel below. So if, Heaven forbid, the mitzvos are not kept, there is nothing from which to create the light and the spiritual root Above. Those are his holy words.

4Along these lines we can explain our verse, “Hashem appeared to him.” Avraham Avinu served Hashem with all his strength, and his whole body clung to the Creator. He rose so high that his two kidneys would advise him to do his Maker's will, as Chazal teach.⁹ Through this power holiness flowed forth and was made Above, in the spirit of “My holiness Above is from your holiness.” In other words, Hashem took pleasure in the lights of holiness that Avraham drew down through all his deeds. This is the meaning of the verse's words, which in the Hebrew run “to him, Hashem”: through the power of Avraham's avodah, his service of Hashem, below, holiness was made for the Creator, blessed be He.

5We can take this further with what my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l, wrote in the holy sefer Divrei Binah.¹⁰ When Avraham Avinu asked Mamre about the circumcision, he was not asking, Heaven forbid, about the act of the mitzvah itself, whether to circumcise or not. The point is rather this. Chazal teach that Avraham Avinu is called tamim, “whole,” because of the circumcision.¹¹ This led Avraham to think that he had been commanded to circumcise himself because he had a deficiency and had not yet perfected himself. He was downcast over it: he was already ninety-nine years old, and still he had not set himself right. It was about this that Mamre gave him advice concerning the mitzvah. Mamre explained to him that the Holy One, blessed be He, had not given him the mitzvah of circumcision for his own rectification [for Avraham was already whole and perfect in his deeds], but for the sake of his descendants for all generations.

6We find the same idea in the blessing said at a bris milah: “Who sanctified the beloved one from the womb.” “The beloved one” is Avraham Avinu, as Tosafos, the medieval commentators on the Gemara, explain.¹² He was holy from the womb, and for himself he did not need circumcision to set himself right. Rather, as the blessing continues, “and his offspring He sealed with the sign of the holy covenant”: he was commanded about circumcision only to bring holiness and wholeness into his descendants. Avraham Avinu was circumcised, then, so that his descendants after him would be connected to his mitzvah. He himself was the seal of holiness, entirely holy to Hashem.

7The same idea lies behind Rashi's comment on the verse “And God went up from upon Avraham”:¹³ “This teaches that he became a chariot for the Shechinah.” The meaning is this. Above, in the Divine Chariot, we find the face of a lion and the face of an eagle.¹⁴ Yet in this world, it would seem, the lion and the eagle are impure creatures. How, then, can they be in the Chariot Above? The explanation is that everything in the physical world comes down and is drawn from spiritual roots in the upper worlds. Above, the roots of all things are entirely in holiness, for there is no contraction there, Heaven forbid, and nothing impure. Only in this world is holiness greatly contracted. So there are things whose holiness, as they descend into this world, becomes so contracted and hidden that they turn into something impure. That is the case with the lion and the eagle: in their root Above, in the Chariot, they are holy, and only in their descent below are they impure.

8So too the tzaddik who serves Hashem in holiness and purity reaches a level where, for him, there is no contraction, and everything is holiness. He refines all his middos, his character traits, and everything else, and raises them to their root Above, where all is holiness. That is why tzaddikim are a chariot for the Shechinah, as the Divrei Binah explains.¹⁵

9This also lets us explain a statement of Chazal: “The coin of Avraham Avinu: a young man and a maiden on one side, and an old man and an old woman on the other side.”¹⁶ Taken literally, it is hard to accept. Would Avraham Avinu occupy himself with coins and material matters? And what do the figures of a young man and a maiden, an old man and an old woman, mean? We can explain that Avraham's “coin,” matbe'a, refers to the natures, teva'im, and the middos of his soul.¹⁷ He brought all of them into holiness, devoting every faculty and middah to his Father in Heaven. The young and old figures stand for these middos and natures. The young man and the maiden stand for fervor and holy fire, as is the way of the young; the old man and the old woman stand for coolness, as is the way of the old. These two middos, fervor and coolness, take in all the faculties and middos, as the Baal HaTanya, R' Shneur Zalman of Liadi, explains in Likkutei Torah.¹⁸ All of this Avraham devoted to avodas Hashem, raising it and bringing it into holiness. He submitted everything to Hashem and became a chariot for the Shechinah.

10This answers our first question. That is why the verse says “Hashem appeared to him” and not “Hashem appeared to Avraham.” The name Avraham hints at “father of a multitude of nations.”¹⁹ The verse teaches us that Hashem did not reveal Himself to him in the merit of the many, because he was “father of a multitude of nations” and many depended on him. Rather, Hashem appeared “to him,” for his own sake and for the holiness of his own body. He had made all his faculties subject to holiness and had become a chariot for the Shechinah, until he reached a level where Hashem appeared to him in his own merit, for he was entirely holy to Hashem.

11May Hashem grant that through our deeds we be privileged to give satisfaction to our Creator. May the merit of our holy forefathers strengthen us, and may it be His will that we not be ashamed before them. Amen, may it be His will.