Broken from Within: Kindness and the Camel

43“They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted their eyes … and their camels were carrying spices and balm …” Rashi explains why the verse makes their load known.¹ To my humble mind, it seems that we should look first at Avraham's words to his servant Eliezer: “I will make you swear … that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of Canaan, but you shall go to my land and to my birthplace.”² At first glance the wording is puzzling. Avraham's whole aim was only that his son marry a wife from his family. He could have said briefly, “Go to my family and take a wife for my son from there.” Why mention the daughters of Canaan? It seems that whatever a person wants to break the power of, he must break with its own likeness, from within itself. So we find that Ovadiah the prophet prophesied against Edom, and Chazal expound: “Ovadiah was an Edomite convert. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: From them I will bring upon them; from the forest itself comes the handle for the axe.”³ This was Avraham Avinu's intention: he wanted to break the power of Canaan. What did he do? He told Eliezer, “that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of Canaan,” because Eliezer was a Canaanite slave. Avraham wanted their power to be broken by their own: Eliezer, who came from Canaan, would himself break Canaan.

44“And Eliezer took ten camels … and all his master's goods were in his hand.”⁴ Rashi explains that “his master's camels” could be told apart from other camels.⁵ But following our path, it seems as follows. The Gemara says, “One who sees a camel in a dream: death was decreed on him, and he was saved from it.”⁶ We should give a good reason why seeing a camel in a dream should in fact hint at rescue from death. It seems that in the impure chariot, the array of the forces of impurity, there is a “camel.” Gamal, camel, is the same word as gomel, one who does good, as in gemilus chessed, an act of kindness. Through acts of kindness a person breaks the power of the “camel” of the impure chariot. So when he is shown a camel in a dream, he is being given a hint: through acts of kindness he breaks the power of the camel of the sitra achra, the “other side,” and he is saved from death. This is “And he took ten camels.” There were ten because every mitzvah is included in ten; and gemalim, “camels,” means his master's acts of kindness, gemilus chassadim. That is “of his master's camels.” “And all his master's goods were in his hand”: he took in hand all his master's good deeds, to break the power of Canaan.

45aThis is the meaning of the Mishnah: “A camel laden with flax …”⁷ The camel is the tzaddik who breaks the power of the camel of the impure chariot through his acts of kindness. This tzaddik draws the flow of blessing into the world. That is “laden with flax”: he loads upon himself the world's flows of blessing, for flax hints at the flow of blessing, in the spirit of “who give my bread and my flax and my wool.”⁸ “It entered the shop and caught fire from the shopkeeper's lamp”: the Holy One, blessed be He, is called the shopkeeper, and the Torah is called the shop, as the Tanna said, “The shop is open and the shopkeeper gives credit.”⁹ “It entered the shop” means that this tzaddik who practices acts of kindness also engages in Torah. And that is “caught fire from the shopkeeper's lamp”: he set himself alight with great holiness through the Torah.

45bThis tzaddik, who engages in Torah and acts of kindness, can bring about everything. That is “the shopkeeper is exempt and the householder is liable”:¹⁰ the main obligation lies on the tzaddik, who is bound to bring everything about. He is called the householder, for he bestows on the world as a householder provides for his household. The Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, is not under the obligation, since the tzaddik alone, through his holy deeds, can bring about everything. But “if the shopkeeper placed his lamp outside”: if, Heaven forbid, people do not do the will of the Omnipresent, then Hashem must go around after them so that they will engage in His holy Torah. For He longs for Bnei Yisrael to learn His Torah, and He must bring His lamp, the light of His Torah, out to them. Then “the shopkeeper is liable”: the obligation falls on Hashem to bestow on them in His great kindness.

46This is “They sat down to eat bread”: the tribes wanted to bring about and draw down the flow of blessing through their eating. “And they lifted their eyes and saw, and behold, a caravan of Yishmaelim … and their camels were carrying spices and balm …”: even the sitra achra, the impure chariot, carries every kind of spice, which hints at every kind of blessing. For they too are sweetened, to do good to Israel. Understand this.