Lech Lecha — No, Thank You

When, as they approach Egypt, Avram asks Sarai to pretend she is his sister, he explains “so that it will be good for me and I will remain alive because of you.” (Beraishis, 12:13)

Rashi’s comment on the words “it will be good for me” – “so that they [the Egyptians] will give me gifts” – puzzled me, as they surely have many, for years. Avram, who later in the parshah (14:23) spurned even a shoelace from the king of Sdom, is concerned with gifts?

An intriguing possible understanding of Rashi’s words occurred to me. Shlomo HaMelech, in Mishlei (15:27) teaches us that “the one who hates gifts will live.”

It may be that the greatest expression of that attitude isn’t only “in theory,” in hating the idea of gifts, but in actual practice – namely, that it’s the attitude toward an actual proffered gift that helps ensure life. 

And so, perhaps Avram wanted gifts to be offered to him, so that he could “hate” the fact that he was offered them… with the result being that, as he continues, “I will remain alive…” – echoing Shlomo HaMelech’s words.

Postscript: Interestingly, the concept of shunning gifts as bolstering life is reflected in a snippet from a 1960s folk song:

“Some people never get, some never give;

Some people never die and some never live.”

There is, Chazal teach us, “chachmah bagoyim,” wisdom among other nations.

Noach – Taking on the Divine

What were the builders of the Tower of Bavel thinking?

How could people presumably aware of Hashem think they could somehow stand in opposition to Him?

The “Mei Marom” (R’ Yaakov Moshe Charlop, zt”l) offers a tantalizing thought: The place m earth called Bavel possessed a deep spiritual nature of “overcoming the Divine” – which eventually expressed itself properly in the cases recorded in the Gemara (e.g. Bava Metzia 59b, Rosh Hashana 57b) where a beis din “overruled” Hashem – that is to say, asserted the ability He gave them to do so.

Perhaps, Rav Charlop suggests, it was that spiritual reality of the place that inchoately resonated with its inhabitants, leading them to feel that, indeed, in their own way, they had the “ability” to challenge Hashem.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

A Note to Visitors

Over the course of the Jewish year just begun, I will be posting parsha observations that I previously posted 5 years ago. Although they will be “reruns,” I hope you will find them worth visiting, or revisiting.

The first of those offerings is below.

Plumbing the Meaning of the Torah’s First Word

The Torah’s first verse is purposely unclear.  As the Ramban (Nachmanides) points out, the deepest truths of how the universe was created are unfathomable and inscrutable, hidden, ultimately, in the realm of mysticism, not physical science.

It is intriguing, though, that the Torah’s first word, “Bereishis,” implies, as the Seforno explicitly states, that time itself is a creation – a notion that comports with traditional cosmological physics (if not with scientists who, terrified at the notion of a “beginning,” postulate a “multiverse” of universes, conveniently beyond observation).

Likewise intriguing is that, according to the Talmud, the Torah’s first word can be split into two words, “bara” and “shis.”  While the Gemara sees in “shis” a hint to an Aramaic word meaning “conduit,” hinting to an underground channel into which liquid poured on the mizbe’ach, the altar, would descend (a channel created at the beginning of time – Sukkah, 49a), the word can also, and most simply, mean “six.”

As in the six types of quarks, currently believed to be the fundamental particles of which all matter is, ultimately, comprised.

“He created six”?

 © 2020 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vizos Habracha – The Bridge-Idea

The Chasam Sofer notes that the Torah’s last word, “Yisrael” and its first one, “Braishis,” share the letters aleph, shin, resh and yud… spelling ashrei.

Ashrei can be translated as “praiseworthy” or “fortunate.”  That latter meaning may be the key to the “bridge idea” connecting the end of the Torah and its beginning, which we seek to connect on Simchas Torah when we complete the yearly Torah-cycle and begin it anew.

Our recognition of how truly fortunate we are – to have been granted existence and the opportunity to play a role in the Divine plan, to daily receive Hashem’s gifts of life and sustenance, to be part of Klal Yisrael – should inform every Jew’s outlook and attitudes. 

And the joy it yields should be front and center of our minds during z’man simchaseinu and Simchas Torah.

(c) 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Haazinu – Nations, Be Warned!

Most commentaries understand Devarim 32:43 as “Nations! Sing the praises of His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will bring retribution upon His enemies and He will appease His land and His people.”

It would thus refer to the end of history, when the nations of the world will be dazzled by a clarity that eluded them until that point. And so harninu, “sing the praises,” is an imperative (or a prediction, in the sense of “they will sing the praises”).

Rav Hirsch and the Alshich read the pasuk differently (and perhaps in a more grammatically defensible way). In Rav Hirsch’s words (the English translation of the German original), the words refer to the ongoing present: “Therefore, nations, make the lot of His people a happy one.”

As his commentary on the pasuk expands: “The treatment accorded to the Jews becomes the graduated scale by which the allegiance accorded on earth to Hashem is measured…”

So the words, read that way, are not a prediction but rather a warning – an informing of the nations of the world that they will be eventually judged by how they treat the Jews. Rav Hirsch adds that “It was anticipated – as has actually occurred – that this Book of Hashem’s teachings would become the common property of the world, through the hands of its scattered bearers.”

And that its “principles of the equality and brotherhood of all men and the duties of respecting justice and the rights of man… [be] brought into practice.”

Even if the ultimate judgment of the nations of the world will take place only in the future, the passing into extinction of some of the world’s most Jew-oppressive regimes has already occurred. The ancient Romans and Greeks, and more recent oppressors like the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all molder in history’s compost bin.

Today, unfortunately, there persist not only nations but also forces within otherwise benevolent countries, including our own, that seek to slander and attack Jews, both verbally and physically.

They are all warned.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran