Avraham's Holy Second Nature Revealed to the World

1a“Go forth from your land” [Bereishis 12:1]. Rashi explains the word lecha (literally, “for yourself”) as “for your benefit and for your good,” and adds, “Moreover, I will make your nature known in the world.” As an allusion, and in terms of our own avodah, perhaps we can explain it as follows. It is known that Avraham Avinu's two kidneys welled up with wisdom (cf. Bereishis Rabbah 61:1)¹. That is, he sanctified and purified all 248 of his limbs and 365 of his sinews for the service of Hashem. He also merited to have the letter heh added to his name, which gave him mastery even over the five organs that are not under a person's control² (Nedarim 32b), so that he turned them all to good. As the Yerushalmi says (Sotah 5:5), “Avraham Avinu made the bad into good.” That is, he transformed all the bad traits a person has and brought them into holiness, so that he could serve the Creator with them. He was born of the impure, as it says, “I was formed in iniquity” [Tehillim 51:7], and “Who can bring the pure out of the impure? No one!” (Iyov 14:4). Even so, he trained all his limbs so thoroughly that they made not even the slightest movement against Hashem's will. Everything he did was in holiness and purity, until he had turned the bad entirely into good. For habit becomes second nature.

1bThis is what Hashem told him: “Go” — go out into the world, and show everyone how you do all the physical things of life. That is what Rashi means³ by “for your benefit,” “for your good,” and “I will make your nature known”: make known in the world the second nature you have acquired. As the Midrash Rabbah on this parshah says (cf. Bereishis Rabbah 41:1): “‘The tzaddik will flourish like a date palm’ [Tehillim 92:13]. Just as the date palm has desire⁴, so too tzaddikim have desire. And what do they desire? Hashem, as it says, ‘I have hoped and hoped for Hashem’ [Tehillim 40:2].” In other words, all their desire is completely holy, for Hashem alone, and nothing foreign shares in it [cf. Mishlei 5:17]. This was plain to see in Avraham, and Hashem commanded him to make it known in the world: every person has the strength and ability to turn all his bad traits to good, to sanctify and purify all 248 of his limbs, and to train himself never to do anything against Hashem's will, Heaven forbid, until the habit becomes second nature.

1cThrough this, Avraham merited to strengthen the attribute of chessed, kindness, in the world. As is known, chessed is the “right side.” The yetzer hara dwells in the left chamber of the heart, and the forces of strict judgment, the gevuros, are called the “left,” as in “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand embraces me” (Shir HaShirim 2:6). But Avraham turned the whole yetzer hara to good, as the Yerushalmi said above, and brought the entire left into the right, until everything was “right.” Through this, “Hashem's right hand is exalted” [Tehillim 118:16]. This is the meaning of “Avraham was one” (Yechezkel 33:24). Ever since the sin of Adam, every person is “two”: matter and form, body and soul; the yetzer tov and the yetzer hara; right and left. But Avraham was “one,” because he turned everything to the right and to good, as we explained above. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)