The Wise Servant and the Leaping Earth

1The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 60:2) says: “‘A wise servant shall rule over a son who shames, and among the brothers he shall share the inheritance’ (Mishlei 17:2). ‘A wise servant’: this is Eliezer. ‘Shall rule over a son who shames’: this is Yitzchak, who put all the nations of the world to shame when he was bound on the altar. ‘And among the brothers he shall share the inheritance’: among Israel. Just as they invoke the merit of the Avos, he too invokes the merit of the Avos.”

2To explain the Midrash, let us begin with the teaching of Chazal (Berachos 7b). R' Yochanan said in the name of R' Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi): “From the day the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, no one called Him ‘Master’ until Avraham came and called Him Master, as it says, ‘And he said: My Master, Hashem, how shall I know?’ (Bereishis 15:8). Rav said: Even Daniel was answered only for Avraham's sake, as it says, ‘Now hear, our God, the prayer of Your servant and his pleas, and let Your face shine... for the sake of the Master’ (Daniel 9:17). It should have said ‘for Your sake’! Rather, it means for the sake of Avraham, who called You Master.” The matter is explained by Rashi on the verse “I will make you swear by Hashem, God of the heavens and God of the earth” (Bereishis 24:3). Later Avraham says only “God of the heavens,” and not “God of the earth” (Bereishis 24:7), although above, when he said “I will make you swear,” he mentioned both. Rashi explains that Avraham meant: Now He is God of the heavens and God of the earth, but when He took me from my father's house, He was God of the heavens and not God of the earth.

3aThe matter rests on the verse “who speak of You for a scheme” (Tehillim 139:20), literally, “who exalt You for a scheme.” The nations exalt Hashem in order to carry out their scheme. They say, “Hashem is high above all nations; His glory is upon the heavens” (Tehillim 113:4). Hashem, they claim, is so exalted that it is beneath His dignity to watch over the lowly earth. His glory is upon the heavens alone: just as He is supreme, so His dwelling is in the heavens above, and His providence extends only to the host of heaven and the angels above. In their foolishness they put a limit on Hashem's exaltedness, saying that His glory and exaltedness make the heavens above, and only the heavens, a fitting dwelling for Him. But we, believers and the children of believers, who believe that Hashem's exaltedness has no end and cannot be fathomed, say that He “lowers Himself to look upon the heavens and the earth” (Tehillim 113:6). Measured against His glory, looking at the heavens is the same lowering as looking at the earth, for He is without limit, endless and unfathomable. As it says, “To whom will you liken Me, that I should be equal?” (Yeshayahu 40:25), and, “For Hashem is exalted, and He sees the lowly” (Tehillim 138:6). That is, one who sees and understands Hashem's exaltedness “will see the lowly”: he will see and know that everything is lowly and small before Him. It is only that Hashem contracts the preciousness of His glory and greatness and watches over the heavens and the earth, over all creatures above and below. For Him there is no difference or distinction between earth and heaven.

3bThis is what Chazal taught in the Mishnah (Berachos 54a): “All who concluded blessings in the Beis HaMikdash used to say ‘until the world.’ Once the heretics corrupted things and said there is only one world, they instituted that people say ‘from the world to the world.’” The Sadducees used to say that there is only one world: that His providence is only in the upper world, while He handed the lower world over to the order of the heavenly bodies. So Chazal instituted “from the world to the world,” declaring that He watches over the upper and the lower beings, and “the whole earth is full of His glory” (Yeshayahu 6:3). This was the error of the ancient nations. When Avraham Avinu came, he made Hashem's divinity known in the world: that Hashem is exalted, that His greatness has no end and cannot be fathomed, and that His humility matches His greatness; that He watches over the lowest of the low, that there is no place empty of Him (Tikkunei Zohar 57), and that there is no god besides Him. Afterward, even when people did believe, they still said that His divinity is revealed only to man, the choicest of creatures, and only to tzaddikim who cleave to Him wondrously. These are called children, as Chazal say (Bava Basra 10a): “When they do the will of the Omnipresent they are called children, and when they do not do the will of the Omnipresent they are called servants.”

4aThen Avraham Avinu, with the strength of his faith, showed them their error and made Hashem's divinity known in the world. He was the first of the believers, as the piyut says, “Eisan,” Avraham, “recognized Your faithfulness.” They had erred in two things. The first: the Creator is Creator and Guide of all creatures, and “He is equal and treats small and great alike.” So Avraham said, “Behold, I have begun to speak to my Master” (Bereishis 18:27): to the Master of all the earth, who watches over everything, even over small and lowly people. For even from the earth we can speak to Him, but only on condition that we know our lowliness before His exaltedness and greatness. This is what Chazal say (Sotah 10a–b), that Avraham had everyone call out the Name of Heaven. And in Bereishis Rabbah (43:7), the Holy One, blessed be He, tells him: “My Name was not known to My creatures, and you made Me known among My creatures.” He accustomed everyone's mouth to the Name of Heaven, teaching that all of them can bless and praise Hashem.

4bThe second error concerned those who are called servants when they do not do the will of the Omnipresent. They are not like servants who rebel against their master, whose master then has no connection to them. A human master has no essential ownership of a servant, only an outer ownership, bought with his money. But with Hashem, “Hashem's portion is His people” (Devarim 32:9). He created us; He is one Father to us all [cf. Malachi 2:10]. His ownership of us is essential, like a father's ownership of his son, who is his own flesh and bone. An essential ownership is eternal, while an ownership bought with money can sometimes fall short of being complete. So even when we are like servants, we are still bound to Him, for “I am Hashem, who dwells with them in the midst of their impurity” [cf. Vayikra 16:16].

5This is what is taught (Tanna d'vei Eliyahu 31; Sanhedrin 105a). Israel asked Yechezkel ben Buzi the Kohen: “If a Kohen sold his servant, may the servant still eat terumah?” He said, “He may not.” They said to him, “So it is with us. When we were in the city and the Sanctuary of the Holy One, blessed be He, we served Him. Now that we have been exiled among the idolaters, ‘let us be like the nations, like the families of the earth’ (Yechezkel 20:32).” Yechezkel answered: “Even if your bones are broken, your eyes gouged out and the blood of your mouth pours onto the ground, you must accept the kingship of the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.” And he told them: “What enters your mind shall never be, that you say, ‘Let us be like the nations.’ Says Hashem: surely with a strong hand, with an outstretched arm and with outpoured fury I will reign over you” (Yechezkel 20:32–33). Against your will I will reign over you. This is what we wrote: we are bound to Hashem in essence, for “Hashem's portion is His people.” We cannot run away from Him, and even against our will He will reign over us.

6aThis is what Chazal meant: no one called the Holy One, blessed be He, “Master” until Avraham Avinu came and called Him Master. He had everyone call out the Name of Heaven, and he said, “Behold, I have begun to speak to my Master,” teaching that even as servants before a Master we can speak to Hashem, as explained above. “And even Daniel was answered only for Avraham's sake, as it says, ‘Now hear the prayer of Your servant... for the sake of the Master.’” The Gemara objects that it should have said “for Your sake.” The difficulty was not the third person, “for the sake of the Master,” for we find that many times in the holy Torah. For example, “And to Moshe He said: Go up to Hashem” (Shemos 24:1), although it was Hashem Himself who told him to go up, and it should seemingly have said “Go up to Me.” The main difficulty was that it should have said “for the sake of Havayah,” Hashem's four-letter Name.

6bAs is known, the Name Adnus (Adon-ai, “my Master”) appears interwoven with the Name Havayah, their letters alternating, and this serves to sweeten harsh judgments. In truth Havayah is woven into Adnus. The holy books say that Adnus, spelled out in full, is the sheath and the sanctuary of the Name Havayah, and Havayah is what fills the sanctuary within, like body and soul: the physical body is the sanctuary of the soul. This is why Havayah is pronounced as Adnus, as Chazal say (Kiddushin 71a): “I am not pronounced as I am written. I am written as Havayah and pronounced as Adnus.” And the holy books note on the verse “Hashem is in His holy Sanctuary (heichal); hush (has) before Him” (Chavakuk 2:20) that heichal has the same numerical value as Adnus, sixty-five, and so does has. This is what we say in prayer: “Act for the sake of the desolation of Your Sanctuary.” So the Gemara's difficulty was this. The verse says, “Let Your face shine upon Your desolate Sanctuary, for the sake of the Master (Adnus).” It should have said “for the sake of Havayah”! And the Gemara answers: “For the sake of Avraham, who called You Master.” Act for us in his righteousness.

7This is the Midrash we began with: Eliezer invoked the merit of his master. A master has only an outer ownership of a servant, bought with his money, as we wrote above. But all this applies only to an ordinary servant. When a servant learns Torah from his master, the master owns him in essence. As the holy books write, the Rebbe gives birth to the soul, while the father gives birth to the body. And as the verse says, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel!” (Melachim II 2:12). Through this the teacher owns him in essence. Eliezer, Avraham's servant, “drew and gave others to drink of his master's Torah” (Yoma 28b), so Avraham Avinu owned him in essence, and therefore Eliezer could call upon the merit of the Avos. This is what the Midrash means: “‘A wise servant’: this is Eliezer.” He learned the holy Torah, which gives intelligence and wisdom to the one who studies it, as the verse says, “making the simple wise” (Tehillim 19:8). Through this, “among the brothers he shall share the inheritance”: just as they invoke the merit of the Avos, he too invokes the merit of the Avos, for Avraham Avinu owned him in essence, like a father his son.

8“And among the brothers he shall share the inheritance.” It is a servant's nature to grow haughty toward his master, because he does not come from distinguished lineage. Yet Avraham Avinu, with all the power of his righteousness and holiness, would say, “Behold, I have begun to speak to my Master, and I am dust and ashes” (Bereishis 18:27). This is “among the brothers he shall share the inheritance”: the main thing is to know truly that by his own efforts and good deeds a person has no connection or bond at all to the holy Avos. His bond is only by way of inheritance, as the Aramaic expression has it, “he inherits it.” Even a bad son inherits, as Chazal say (Kesubos 53a): “Do not be among those who transfer an inheritance, even from a bad son to a good son.” This is what the Midrash says on “And he said, Hashem, God of my master Avraham... do kindness with my master Avraham” (Bereishis 24:12): “You began: complete!”¹

9aBy way of hint, we can explain the words of the holy Ba'al Shem Tov, cited in the sefer Avodas Yisrael, on the verse “And I came today to the spring” (Bereishis 24:42). These are his holy words: “Rashi explains: ‘Today I set out and today I arrived. From here we learn that the earth leapt for him, shortening his journey. R' Acha said: The conversation of the Avos' servants is finer than the Torah of the children.’ From this very verse a Divine Name emerges for the leaping of the earth. This is the meaning of ‘Today I set out and today I arrived; from here, that the earth leapt’: from here itself, from these very words, the earth leapt for him. Understand this. And the holy Rav, the Maggid, zt"l, explained that this is what Chazal meant by ‘the conversation of the Avos' servants is finer’: hinted in their conversation are wondrous secrets, with unifications for the leaping of the earth, which the children cannot reach even through their Torah.” Thus far his words.

9bSeemingly we must understand what the Maggid meant by saying that their conversation hints at secrets and unifications for the leaping of the earth. Eliezer told the story after the earth had already leapt for him! The explanation may follow the Ibn Ezra on the verse “I will make you swear by Hashem, God of the heavens and God of the earth”: “The reason for this here is that ‘the daughter of so-and-so for so-and-so’ on earth is decreed from heaven [cf. Sotah 2a], and this is a secret.” His words are explained as follows. It is known that the Name of Da'as, the Name tied to deep knowing, is Alef-Heh-Vav-Heh. It is hinted in the initials of es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz, “the heavens and the earth” (Bereishis 1:1), and it is the King's seal, with which heaven and earth are sealed. As is known, Da'as is what joins heaven and earth. The Zohar (I:8), the Midrash on Parshas Ki Sisa and the holy books say that heaven and earth are groom and bride. The philosophers wrote that heaven and earth are matter and form: the earth receives from the heavens, which give. And it is known that the purpose of the lower union is to make form out of matter. This is what the Ibn Ezra meant by “The reason for this here.” Avraham said “God of the heavens and God of the earth” because “the daughter of so-and-so on earth is from heaven”: he was hinting to Eliezer about the union of groom and bride.

9cChazal teach (Mo'ed Katan 18b; Bereishis Rabbah 68): “Some go to their match, and for some the match comes to them. Yitzchak's match came to him; Yaakov went to his match.” This is the meaning of “the earth leapt for him.” In the verse v'avo hayom el ha'ayin, “And I came today to the spring,” the initials also spell the Name of Da'as. Only, Vav-Heh, hinted in v'es ha'aretz, “and the earth,” the bride as explained above, here come before Alef-Heh, hinted in el ha'ayin. This is the hint of “Yitzchak's match came to him.”

10aThe hint for our avodah is this. It is known that a person's service of Hashem must begin with an arousal from below, which then awakens holy love from above. But “who shall ascend the mountain of Hashem, and who shall stand in His holy place?” (Tehillim 24:3). So the Creator, the merciful Father, constantly pours into us first an abundance of holiness and a revealed awakening, to arouse our souls to serve Him and to give Him satisfaction through our deeds. As the Rebbe R' Ber, the Maggid, zt"l, said: love comes from above, and fear comes from below, as the “feminine waters,” the arousal that rises from below. “And God has made it so that they should fear Him” (Koheles 3:14): to serve Him with an arousal from below. As the verse says, “What does Hashem your God ask of you, but to fear” (Devarim 10:12).

10bBut the Creator, who sees the end from the beginning, looked at the later generations and saw that they could not possibly be aroused to His service from their own side. So He constantly pours into us an abundance of holiness, to arouse our souls to serve Him and to fear the splendor of His majesty always. This is the hint of “Yitzchak's match came to him”: the arousal came from below. But that was only with Yitzchak, whose attribute was gevurah, severity, “the Fear of Yitzchak” (Bereishis 31:42). The Creator, in His great mercy, sees that it is impossible always to be on that level. So “Yaakov went to his match”: an arousal from above, the aspect of the groom. This is the hint in Lecha dodi likras kallah, “Come, my Beloved, to greet the bride.”

11This is what Rashi wrote on the verse “Only do not bring my son back there” (Bereishis 24:8): “‘Only’ limits: my son does not go back, but Yaakov, my son's son, will in the end go back.” Rashi's words hint at what we said. Yitzchak, whose attribute was fear, does not go out after his match; the arousal came from below, as feminine waters. But Yaakov, my son's son, will in the end go out after his match: out of Hashem's love, He will first arouse an awakening from above. This is also the hint in Chazal's teaching (Berachos 59b): “From when does one bless over the rains? From when the groom goes out to greet the bride².” The physical person cannot be the one who brings the blessing. It comes only once “the groom goes out to greet the bride,” through the awakening and the mercy from above.

12Let us return to our subject. Avraham Avinu would say Elokei haShamayim v'Elokei haAretz, “God of the heavens and God of the earth,” whose initials spell the Name of Da'as in its proper order, for he joined earth to heaven. He raised simple, lowly people from the earth to high and lofty levels, joining and binding them to heaven. As Chazal say (Sotah)³, Koneh shamayim va'aretz, “Possessor of heaven and earth” (Bereishis 14:19), means that he made heaven and earth Hashem's possession. He brought earthly things into Hashem's possession, and through this he became Hashem's partner in the work of Creation (Bereishis Rabbah 43). As is known, the purpose of creating the earth was to raise it to the very heights. As the verse says, “The heavens are the heavens of Hashem, but the earth He gave to mankind” (Tehillim 115:16): He gave it to mankind so that they would raise it to heavenly levels. (As we wrote above in Parshas Lech Lecha.)

13aThrough this wondrous light, from the sweetness and precious holiness of Shabbos, a person also gains Da'as, awareness. Shabbos is the aspect of Da'as, as the holy Torah says, “to know that I am Hashem” (Shemos 31:13). This is what Chazal say (Beitzah 16a): “An additional soul is given to a person on Erev Shabbos,” meaning additional awareness and understanding. That is why the Name of Da'as is hinted in the verse “For in six days Hashem made es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz, the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed (vayinafash)” (Shemos 31:17). Shabbos is a nefesh, a soul that gives: it gives the life-giving soul and the sustaining spirit to the weekdays that follow. This is “Zachor and Shamor, to establish them”: to establish the weekdays and give them life through the holiness of Shabbos, for as is known, Shabbos and the weekdays are called Zachor and Shamor. The hint is that through the extra awareness and Da'as a person gains in the holiness of Shabbos, he comes to know all his conduct during the weekdays. He can make a good accounting of his soul: what he has done, and “who am I, that You have brought me this far?” (Shmuel II 7:18).

13bAs we wrote above (Parshas Bereishis, maamar 2) on the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 10:9): “A parable of a king who made a wedding canopy, painted it and decorated it. What did it lack? A bride to enter it. So too, what did the world lack? Shabbos.” Just as the bride draws abundant joy into the seven days of feasting that follow the wedding, so the holiness of Shabbos gives life to the weekdays that follow it. See there at length.