For Whom is he “Father Abraham”?

For Whom is he "Father Abraham"?
Lech Lecha
October 19th, 2007
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

For two thousand years there has been a fight in the world. For the first nearly seven hundred years it was atwo-way fight. For the last thirteen hundred years it has been a three-way fight. This fight has not only changed the course of human history. It has defined it. This fight has caused the deaths of untold millions of people, many of whom probably never really understood why they died. And if I am certain about anything I am certain that the person at the very beginning of this "food chain," is either horrified in heaven or rolling over in his grave. This person allegedly lived approximately three thousand five hundred years ago. Never in his wildest imagination could he have imagined the fight made over him.

If you have been quickly doing the math, then you have calculated the date of 1500 B.C.E. The answer to the Jeopardy question is: Who is Abraham? And the fight has been to claim Abraham's mantle, to be his descendant, theexclusive recipient of the original divine blessings. If we read this week's Torah portion carefully, we can surmise, that if he could have understood the course of human history, maybe, just maybe, he would have given the promises back to God. To be Abraham's true descendant requires a very special characteristic. Which one, I will leave hanging in abeyance for a moment. This fight from antiquity is being fought today, on the streets of Baghdad, the hills of Jerusalem, at the retreat I attended last Thursday of the Virginia Council of Churches, in the mass media, and the letters to the editor in the Times-Dispatch and newspapers throughout our country. The fight for his mantle is very much alive.

I.

This week's Torah portion begs for an introduction and there is none. Last week's ended simply at the end of a genealogy list descending from Noah. Terach starts out for Canaan from his home in Ur and takes his family with him. He dies in Haran, leaving Abraham, Sarah and Lot in the lurch. For reasons only God can divine, He blesses Abraham with theblessing of greatness. Through Abraham, and obviously his descendants all of humanity will be blessed. Abraham will be great and so will his renown. He is God's lightening rod: those who bless him are blessed by God and those who curse him are cursed by God. Later God promises Abraham the Land of Canaan to be his forever. Whoever will be Abraham's true heirs inherit the mantle of the land and the blessing. They are to be the bearers of His True message to all humanity. There is nothing greater than that.

II.

How did this affect Abraham?

Did it go to his head and does he strut all the way from Haran to Canaan?

Did he stand outside of his tent in a boastfully lording it over all who pass by?

The answer is a resounding No!!  That is not how the story unfolds.

Abraham recognizes that there are people already there with a history of their own. When Abraham takes his first tour he notes: "The Canaanites were then in the land." He conducts himself towards them respectfully. Later when his and Lot's shepherds cannot get along, he initiates the peace by offering Lot the choice of land, and not taking what he (Abraham) wants. He says: Al nah tehi m'erivah – let there be no strife! Lastly, after rescuing Lot from the kings, when Malchitzedek king of Jerusalem offers Abraham a reward, Abraham wants nothing.

While the Torah refers to Moses as eish anav m'eod, a very modest/humble man, I suggest that Abraham deserves that title as well. He never elevates himself above others. He never boasts of his position. He is always humble and even self – effacing. He argues with God on behalf of others, Sodom and Gomorrah, but silently observes God's command over his own, the binding of Isaac. He pays full price for burial land for Sarah, recognizing the ownership of others, despite that God said it was his! Jewish history begins with Abraham. The covenant made with him by God is our first covenant, the second being at Sinai. Maybe he doesn't have the vision of the next three and a half millennium, that his covenant is still sealed in our flesh and that his descendants, you and me, would still walk his walk. But nevertheless Abraham modestly and even humbly wears the mantle.

III.

For the first fifteen hundred years following Abraham it wasn't much of a fight, really. No one else wanted to be a Hebrew, an Israelite, or a Jew. They could be Canaanites and Moabites, Babylonians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, among others. Anyone who wanted to join us could convert simply, and clearly, many in the Greco-Roman world were searching for something more/better/other and did so. Following in Abraham's footsteps, except for one episode, we never forced anyone to convert, never fought to make anyone convert, and did not send missionaries to induce them to convert. In fact, we faced death if we did convert anyone to the faith, no matter how true we believed it was.

With the advent of Christianity, the new faith advocated that they were the New Israel, that theirs was the New covenant, Testament, and that their faith replaced ours. When the Roman Empire became Holy, it now had the political power to enforce it and punish non-believers. Our fight was not to make others believe, but to save ourselves from destruction.We fought from inside ourselves for ourselves. We created glorious literature, wondrous liturgy, and stirring music. With the advent of Islam, three faiths now contended to be Abraham's sole and exclusive heir. While the phrase "Abrahamic Faiths" really only came into vogue after 9/11, the fact that Islam and Christianity proclaimed from their outsets to be the sole and exclusive owners of Abraham's mantle, blessing and role, taking that from us, became, is and remains the dominant political and religious dynamic of world events.

That explains:
            the meshugenah from Iran's insane ranting against Israel;
            the machinations of Palestinians who refuse to acknowledge any place for Jews in
                        the Middle East;
            Ann Coulter's pronouncement that we, Jews, can never be "right with God" 
                        through Judaism and we need to give it up;
            the constant refrain of being of the United States being a "Christian" country;
            the Correspondent of the Day, this past Wednesday, October 17th, who labeled me
                        as someone "with insufficient good will, with little love of the Truth, will
                        not believe;"
            and the minister, after I twice presented Judaism's teaching that if I hurt someone
                        my atonement process is between that person and me, that's what I believe
                        God wants me to do, that he had to insist that my view did not work and 
                        only his, that Jesus died for my sin and my atonement had to be that faith,
                        where upon the Moslem and I turned to each other with sympathetic
                        glances.
That is the short list.

IV.

The story of Abraham in our Torah, which introduced him and his God to the world, would truly look at all of this as a great and terrible scandal which means trap. I have been attending a conference under the aegis of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies that has as its topic The Scandal of Particularity. It is a trap to claim exclusivity and seek to enforce that on others.

It is right to believe in your own faith, as I do and proclaim about ours, and respect others in their own.

It is right to believe that your faith is The Truth - I typed that in bold and with capital letters – knowing that faith is not provable, by definition!

It is right to share your faith with those who are interested in learning it and/or adopting it as their own. For 15 years here in Richmond I have been teaching a course in Basic Judaism. But stop knocking on my door.

Someone may even think that I am going to their definition of hell, which is not my definition, because I am not saved. But respect me for believing that my religious system teaches me another path of salvation to a different definition of heaven.

Conclusion

I end where I began. If Abraham could have foreseen the consequence so his election by God, maybe he would have argued with God and given back the blessings. Maybe he would have jumped into the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and ended the story then and there. I don't know. But this Shabbat's sedra clearly shows us a humble and modest man, who wore the mantle in an unassuming and unpretentious manner. The Midrash says that he and Sarah sat by their tent, awaiting those who passed by and inquired. That is the litmus test to be Abraham's descendant. Micah phrased it "to walk humbly with your God." I don't know how it will all end. I am not sure that God does either, having given us free will to make heaven or hell on earth. Yet our faith holds out hope, that without explaining how, without requiring me to convert anyone, in the religious use of the word mysteriously, all peoples will find their way back to Abraham's God, to the simplicity of The One.

As we say at the end of Alaynu:

Bayom hahu yiyeh Adonay Echad u'sh'mo Echad.

On that day, God will be One and His Name One.

May that day, ending strife and warfare, bring mutual respect and peace come soon.
                                                                                                            
Amen.