Ready to Receive: Humility, Lot and Charan

27“So Avram went, as Hashem had spoken to him …” It seems we can explain this through a question the early commentators already raised on the Mishnah “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and handed it over to Yehoshua.”¹ Why does the Mishnah change its wording, speaking of kabbalah, receiving, for Moshe, and of mesirah, handing over, for Yehoshua?

28The answer is that Israel did not all receive the Torah given on Mount Sinai in one and the same way. Hashem chose Mount Sinai from all the mountains to give the Torah on it because it is the lowest of all the mountains, for the main thing is to engage in Torah with humility. Moshe Rabbeinu was humbler than any man,² and through his humility he was fit and ready to receive the Torah from Mount Sinai, which was also humble. So the Midrash says, “When Mount Sinai saw Moshe, it ran toward him,” and the reason is that both were humble. That is why the Mishnah says, “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai”: from the level of Sinai, which is humility. Not so the rest of Israel, who were not on the level of humility; that is why there were thunder and lightning,³ to break them and bring them to humility through fear and awe. So too Yehoshua was not quite on Moshe's level, as Chazal say, “The face of Moshe was like the face of the sun, the face of Yehoshua like the face of the moon.”⁴ That is why the Mishnah speaks of handing over to him.

29This is the meaning of “So Avram went, as Hashem had spoken to him”: he was ready to receive Hashem's word the moment He spoke to him, for he was a great tzaddik. Even so, “Lot went with him.” This is the yetzer hara, which is called Lot: even on a great level, the tzaddik must beware of the yetzer hara, lest it lead him to sin, Heaven forbid. “And Avram was five years …”: chamesh, “five,” counted on its own, means that he was rectifying the hei (ה), the letter whose value is five, of the holy Name. “And seventy” hints that he was on the level of ayin (ע), the letter whose value is seventy and whose name means “eye.” This is in the spirit of what I have explained on “The eyes of Hashem range over kol,” over “all”:⁵ the tzaddik is called kol,⁶ and “the eyes of Hashem” clothe themselves “in kol,” in the tzaddik. It is in his power to open the Creator's eyes in watchful care upon Israel. This is “The eyes of all look to You with hope”:⁷ the eyes clothed in kol, in the tzaddikim, yesaberu (ישברו), “look with hope,” a word that speaks of shevirah (שבירה), breaking: they break and annul the decrees decreed by Him. The Holy One, blessed be He, decrees, and the tzaddik annuls.

30To return to explaining the verse: “And Avram was … years old when he left Charan (חרן)”: then he went out of the charon (חרון), the wrath; that is, he annulled the decrees and the wrath.⁸ “And Avram took Sarai his wife”:⁹ he took the feminine level too and raised it up. “And Lot” is the yetzer hara: he turned him, too, to good, until Lot also became “his brother's son,” an offspring of the good inclination, which is called “his brother.” This is in the spirit of Chazal's words: “‘With all your heart’: with both your inclinations.”¹⁰