Continuing on in Parshas Lech Lecha, the past week when we were learning, I got excited over a few things we read in Rashi. I just felt that they were things I had learned more than once before but never understood deeply and related to my own life.
Hashem promises Avraham Avinu that he will have children, “[a]nd He took him outside and said, ‘Gaze, now, towards the Heavens, and count the stars if you are able to count them!’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be!’” (15:5).
Rashi explains the words “He took him outside” in three ways:
- P’shat – He took him out of his tent to look up at the heavens and count the stars. It struck me that Avraham Avinu was waiting for decades and decades for a child, and had probably given up at some point, and now he was being told to take in all those stars and know that that’s how many children he would have. How someone’s situation can change, when Hashem says it’s time!
2. “Go out from your mazal, because Avram and Sarai will not have children but your names will be changed to Avraham and Sara, who will be different people with a different mazal.” Sometimes we need to make changes in order for things to change, to become new people in some way, so old patterns can be broken.
3. Hashem lifted Avraham above the stars and he gazed down upon them. In an instant, Hashem can move us out from one place where we have one limited perspective and into another place where we see new possibilities with completely new eyes.
In the next perek, Sara Imenu tells Avraham Avinu that he should marry Hagar in order to have a child, which he does. Immediately thereafter, Hagar is expecting a child and “her mistress became lighter in her eyes” (16:4). Rashi describes how Hagar said, “Everyone thinks that my mistress is such a tzadekes, but look at this, she was married for years and never had a child, and I’m having a child right away. How big of a tzadekes can she be?”
I admit, this struck a nerve with me. It’s a complex I still have from time to time, being seen as having not done something I should have to be married by now. I know, completely irrational and at odds with how I think most of the time. But there will always be people around who see the world in black and white terms, and say things like, “You should be davening more” because they’re sure they know the reason things happen in your life. (Completely as an aside, the “shidduch crisis” might be as popular as it is because it’s a very easy way for many people to feel superior about something — their married status — that they did nothing out of the ordinary to earn. A friend’s take.) Always remember that if you are faced with a nisayon, it is not your fault and it is what Hashem wants your neshama to go through. Our Avos and Imahos had major nisyonos. They weren’t regular human beings and they are proof that challenging things can happen to great people, despite their goodness and best efforts.
Thanks for reading. For more of these uplifting ideas, learn Chumash again!
