Three Departures: Desire, Middos and Pride

1“Hashem said to Avram, ‘Go for yourself …’” It seems to me that a person must serve the Creator, blessed be He, on three levels, one after the other. First, he must break the power of desire stamped into a person by nature, such as eating, drinking and the like, so that he eats in holiness and purity. Through this he breaks the power of “elohim acherim, other gods,” that is, the pull of nature, for Elokim (אלקים), God, has the same numerical value as hateva (הטבע), nature.¹ Once he has broken the power of these other gods, he is privileged to come to the level of fear, which is “Elokim chaim, the living God.”²

2Second, a person must break the low middos, the character traits, that have been in him by birth, from the day he left his mother's womb. Some people are born with worse traits than others in one middah or another, anger, for example, or the like. Once he has broken the power of these low and bad traits, he is privileged to come to love of the Creator, blessed be He.

3After all this, he must come to the third level, hispa'arus, glory, as explained above in Parshas Noach:³ that all his deeds be beautiful and glorious. As the Tanna said, the right path is whatever is a glory to the one who does it “and a glory to him from people.”⁴

4This is what the verse hints at in “Go for yourself from your land.” “From your land” hints at the first level, the earthly, physical desires stamped into the body, which a person must leave. “From your birthplace” hints at the second level, the bad traits that are born with a person. “From your father's house” hints at the third level. For the base kind of glory comes to a person mainly when he takes pride and glories in his fathers, that he is the son of great men. He must leave this bad trait for another glory, one that is good in the eyes of Hashem and man, like the Tanna's “glory to him from people.” “To the land that I will show you” hints at the land on high. And this is the meaning of “Bow down to Hashem behadras kodesh, in the beauty of holiness”:⁵ adorn holiness and give it beauty, and this is the third level, glory.

5The verse “Nofes tittofnah sifsosayich kallah, Your lips drip honey, O bride …”⁶ also hints at these three levels. Nofes tittofnah, “drip honey,” hints at the level of fear, for another verse speaks of lips “dripping mor, myrrh,”⁷ and Chazal expounded: do not read mor but mar, bitter, the bitterness of awe in a student sitting before his teacher.⁸ “Your lips, O bride” hints at the level of love, like a bride beloved by her groom. “Honey and milk are under your tongue” hints at the third level: all his deeds are sweet as honey and a glory in everyone's eyes.