Count the Stars: Seeing Hashem's Greatness in Prayer

45“And behold, the word of Hashem came to him, saying.” Notice the wording “And behold, the word of Hashem.” The verse should have written “And Hashem said to him,” as the Torah writes everywhere. The word leimor, “saying,” is superfluous as well, for here it cannot mean what it means everywhere else, “to say to others.”

46aIt seems we can explain it this way. When the Holy One, blessed be He, told Avraham, “Your reward is harbeh me'od, very great,”¹ Avraham thought that Hashem meant the things of this world, for harbeh, “much,” is a word of number, and it fits them: the things of this world are separate things, one beside another, so harbeh can be said of them, as Hashem said to him. Not so the things of the World to Come, for harbeh cannot be said of something spiritual. Because Avraham thought the promise was about this world, he said, “What will You give me?”² meaning: What use to me are the things of this world, when I have no son? So he came down from his level and began to pray for a son. But Hashem does not let the tzaddik turn aside and come down from his level. That is why the verse says, “And behold, the word of Hashem came to him, saying,” and this answers both questions. Hinei, “behold,” speaks of something ready at once: the Holy One brought him back into his level immediately, so that he would be ready leimor, “to say,” the word of Hashem. From then on he was on that level, where nothing but the word of Hashem would be his to say, always, and not the physical matters of this world, as at first.

46bThen Hashem, blessed be He, said to him, “This one shall not inherit you …,” and “He took him outside”:³ He brought him out of the level he had come down to at first. And He said to him, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars.” Hashem was telling him: Do not lower yourself and come down from your level to the things of this world; rather, “look now toward the heavens,” contemplate the greatness of God. A person can see God's greatness most of all when he looks toward the heavens and sees the stars in their courses, at their watches, shining in the brilliance of their light.⁴ From this, awe comes to a person, and he understands Hashem's greatness. That is “and count the stars.”

47aAlong the way, let us explain a question people ask. The Gemara says, “One who dwells in Eretz Yisrael is like one who has a God, and one who dwells outside the Land is like one who has no God.”⁵ People point out that the two halves contradict each other. First it says, “One who dwells in Eretz Yisrael is like …,” which implies that in truth he has none; then it says, “One who dwells outside the Land is like one who has no God,” which implies that in truth he has one.

47bWhat we said about the stars explains it. The Gemara says, “One who stands outside the Land and prays should direct his heart toward Eretz Yisrael, and one who stands in Eretz Yisrael should direct it toward Jerusalem.”⁶ So all the prayers of Israel go up through one gate. It follows that a person who wants his prayer to be heard must have in mind that he is praying in Eretz Yisrael, with the Beis HaMikdash built and the altar standing in its place in His holy house; it is then as though he were living in Eretz Yisrael now. Through this he comes to clarity and complete deveikus, cleaving to Hashem, and prays with full intent, in fear and in love, as though he were standing in the Holy of Holies. This is the counterpart of what we wrote about the stars: a person must contemplate God's greatness through the sight of the stars and the constellations, “Who created these,”⁷ as though he saw it all with his own eyes. So too, when he prays, he must picture in his mind that he is really in Eretz Yisrael and in the Beis HaMikdash, seeing it all with his own eyes.

47cSo the meaning of “one who dwells in Eretz Yisrael” becomes clear on its own. It is the person we described, who pictures himself standing in Eretz Yisrael, and through this, clarity comes into his prayer. He “is like one who has a God”: he resembles the person who contemplates God's greatness and grasps the Creator, blessed be He, through His works, the stars, and so comes to complete faith that God exists. “And whoever dwells outside the Land” is one who does not conduct himself this way when he prays, with the attention we described; he “is like one who has no God,” like one who does not trouble to know whether he has a God.

48To return to the explanation of the verse: Hashem told him, “and count the stars,” meaning, keep your attention on God's greatness. “And He said to him, ‘So shall your seed be.’”⁸ At first glance the words “And He said to him” are superfluous, since Hashem was already speaking to him. But this is a separate saying: his prayer for children, too, should be made with this same intent, the one that turns on the greatness of God, blessed be He.