Bereishit - Chapter 22:11 & 12: 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."

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. HaShem 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.

Action without understanding as the ultimate expression of faith? Is this parsha such a grappler because the instruction to Abraham is intended not to be understandable, or in other words there is no answer to the "why"? Even the desire to ask that question highlights the perfection of Abraham's faith by contrast. And if we do understand it as such . . . (insert moebian strip here). Wow.

"We are what we do, not what we know." I love that.

What a beautiful world we would live in if all the religions of the world agreed on that one aspect! Others justify or excuse their ungodly actions because of "what they know" (or claim to know) about what G-d wants. ("I can sin as often as I like because Jesus will forgive me as long as I believe in him." "I can kill innocent non-Muslims because Allah considers this a holy war.") As far as I know, only the Jews MUST make their actions match their knowledge of what G-d wants. To us, the ends do not necessarily justify the means. This is SO important! I honestly don't see why people of all religions don't get this. It goes BEYOND religion, to being mature enough to be responsible for your own actions.

Just a philosophical question now: If the entire world were made up of observant Jews, do you think we would live in a near-utopia? I know that people are people, no matter how much we strive to be holy. Still, I can't see much of the nonsense going on in this world happening in such a place. What do you think?

Rabbi Mitterhoff, thank you for this thought. It has helped me place into perspective what I have long thought - that knowledge of what Hashem wants from us must be linked to how we behave according to that knowledge.

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Originally posted by Paulette:

Just a philosophical question now: If the entire world were made up of observant Jews, do you think we would live in a near-utopia? I know that people are people, no matter how much we strive to be holy. Still, I can't see much of the nonsense going on in this world happening in such a place. What do you think?

This is an interesting thought, but I believe it is just purely philosophical. If one looks to the history of the world there has been 'nonsense' since the beginning. Almost all the 'anti-Jewish/anti-G-d' events recorded in the Torah include how the protagonists 'rationalised' their behaviour. In these terms, there is nothing different to todays rashoim than there was 3000 years ago.

I don't think, though, that the world is supposed to exist with only observant Jews. The idea is that we influence the world in fear, love and worship of G-d, eventually leading to the time when everyone (non-Jews included) will worship G-d in the rebuilt Temple.

Thank you for your explanation Rabbi Mitterhoff. I am coming out of a long journey of intellectual introspection and i find your words comforting sometimes thought can easily occupy too much of our whole energy that we neglect other areas of our being
i am grateful for the Torah perhaps now is the right moment for me to jump from my intellectual train-journey and put the same degree of energy in trusting Hashem and doing rightful things without intellectualizing too much
Shalom!

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