Vayera 5766
** Beginning this week, we shall be sending out to you a 1-3 page lesson learnt based on the Parasha of the week. With G-d’s help, we hope to continue this program indefinitely. **
This week’s Parasha Insight…
One of the less commonly studied sections in Parashat Vayera is the story of Avraham's experiences in Gerar. Just as they did when they went to Egypt years earlier, Avraham and Sarah pose as brother and sister, concerned that the people of Gerar might wish to marry Sarah and would therefore kill her husband. Avimelech, king of Gerar, indeed has Sarah brought to him, thinking that she was unmarried. That night G-d appears to Avimelech in a dream and warns him that he will die for having taken a married woman. So in the morning, Avimelech returns the woman to her husband. He asks Avraham, "What did you see that you did this thing?" He wanted to know why Avraham tricked him into thinking that Sarah was his sister, rather than his husband. Avraham replies, "Ki Amarti Rak En Yir'at Elokim Ba'makom Ha'zeh" – "Because I said: There is only no fear of G-d in this place," and he thus feared that he would be killed.
Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman HY"D, speaking at a rabbinical conference in Germany in 1933, cited the interpretation of the Malbim (Rabbi Meir Leibush Ben Yechiel Michel, 19th century) to this Pasuk. The Malbim writes that Gerar was a very moral and ethical country. They had a constitution and laws protecting people's rights and ensuring the just and proper treatment of everyone. However, Avraham knew that there was one very important element missing: "There is only no Yir'at Elokim [fear of G-d] in this place." An ethical system of manners and etiquette can endure only to a point. When people's passions and desires get in the way, (when the king of Gerar lays his eyes on an attractive woman,) then only Yir'at Elokim can restrain them. An ethical environment and system of laws will not stand in the way of man's instincts and drives when he is overcome by passion. The ethical customs and values of Gerar did not stop Avimelech from abusing a female visitor to his country. Passions and drives can be restrained only by Yir'at Elokim, by a sense that there is a G-d above us who watches everything we do and holds us accountable for our actions.
Rav Wasserman applied this message of the Malbim to the state of the Jews in German society in 1933. He warned his audience that the civilized laws and superior culture in Germany did not guarantee the Jews' safety in the country. So long as the etiquette and propriety of Germany society was devoid of Yir'at Elokim, of any religious content, it would not stop the German population from allowing the animalistic quality within the human being to burst forth and consume them. Many of the rabbis in attendance at this conference objected to Rabbi Wasserman's warnings. "This is Germany," they exclaimed. They insisted that the Germans' refinement of character and humanistic values guaranteed the Jews' civil rights and protection. Unfortunately, Rabbi Wasserman was correct. Once the German population was overcome by a rage of hatred, their manmade ethical barriers collapsed. In 1933, Time Magazine ran a feature article on the Germans' exceptional concern for animals' rights, and the laws they passed to protect animals. But then just a few years later, they committed the most unspeakable atrocities against the Jewish people. Their exceptional moral standard did not last because it was not predicated on Yir'at Elokim, on religious conviction.
Egypt was the greatest, most advanced civilization in the ancient world. Their achievements in construction, embalming techniques, and astronomy are recognized and admired even today. Yet, this same empire issued an edict that all newborn Hebrew males must be drowned. When the legal system and ethical conventions are followed without Yir'at Shamayim, they cannot guarantee against even the gravest atrocities.
On a recent trip to China, I saw an advertisement soliciting donations to help protect disease-stricken bears in China. These bears are being treated in animal hospitals, and the public is being called upon to help fund the effort to save these suffering bears. At the same time, Chinese law restricts couples to one child per family, and couples who want specifically a boy routinely opt for abortion when they discover that the wife conceived a girl. Or they simply may let the newborn girl die without reporting her birth to the authorities. A society that displays such compassion and sensitivity to bears is capable of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent babies each year, because they lack the ever so crucial trait of Yir’at Shamayim.
It has been said that in America God is only on the dollar bill. True, America is committed to human rights and religious freedom, but this commitment does not flow from religion (from a fear of G-d.) The only enduring ethic is that which is predicated on Yir'at Shamayim. Any other basis for moral conduct, as we know from Gerar, Egypt, Germany and China, will collapse the moment one's personal desires and selfish interests are at stake. For those of us in America, we must be careful and be cognizant that although we live in a seemingly sound culture, however at any moment the tides can turn, for here too, society is not governed by Yir’at Elokim.
