"And an angel of God called to him from heaven and said,
'Abraham! Abraham!' And he said, 'Here I am.' And he said, 'Do
not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest
thing to him, for now I know that you are a God fearing man, and
you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me.' "
(Bereishit - Chapter 22:11-12)
The Ramban states: At the beginning Abraham's fear of G-d was
latent; it had not become actualized through such a great deed.
But now it was known in actuality, and his merit was perfect,
and his reward would be complete from the Eternal, the G-d of
Israel.
We are accustomed to think that when we completely understand
something but we haven't yet acted upon it, the only thing we
are missing is the action. From this verse Rav Yerucham
Levovitz, the great pre-WWII Mirrer mashgiach learns that this
is a fundamental mistake. The truth is that if one's
consciousness and understanding do not bring forth fruitful
actions then their ideas and perceptions are not actually real
and are in fact close to nothing.
If one starts to build a house and he builds the foundation but
never finishes the house, the construction which is left
uncompleted is never called a home and is almost considered
worthless. The same is true in the world of spirituality.
Abraham was not called a G-d fearing person until his internal
understanding of the Creator brought him to this holy and
righteous act.
All of us have many deep insights as to the nature of G-d and
clearly understand right from wrong. Yet in reality, if we do
live our lives according to our understanding it means that we
think we understand when in fact we do not. G-d put us into this
world to act and the bottom line is that essentially we are what
we do not what we know.
This should shake us until our very foundations.
Questions or Comments? Ask them here!
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