These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly portion: #1311 – I Had Eggplant Parmesan for Lunch Friday: Can I Have Fleishig for the Shabbos Seuda? Good Shabbos!
It is certainly a sobering ethical lesson that even though the people of Sodom were the antithesis of all that Avraham stood for morally, nevertheless Avraham’s ahavas habriyos (love of all creation) compelled him to try to save the city upon hearing that they were facing imminent destruction. However, I would like to focus our attention today on a comment Avraham made in “apologizing”, so to speak, to Hashem for his brazen defense of the city. Avraham says “…Behold, now, I have begun to speak to my L-rd although I am but dust and ashes.” (Bereshis 18:27).
Avraham excuses himself for speaking to the Master of the Universe when he himself is “only afar v’efer” (dust and ashes). Rashi here notes that “afar v’efer” is not merely a colloquial expression. Rashi interprets: “and behold I should have already been nothing more than dust as a result of my battle with the kings.” Avraham Avinu had just engaged in war with the mightiest army in the world. They should have crushed him; pulverized him into dust – and yet he emerged victorious. Furthermore, “I should have already been ashes as a result of my encounter with Nimrod (who threw me into the fiery furnace in Ur Kasdim).”
In other words, “I am afar v’efer” is not merely a rhetorical expression. Avraham states “If not for Your mercy towards me, saving me from two certain death sentences, I would have already been turned into afar v’efer!”
Rabbi Avraham Buxbaum, a former talmid of Ner Yisroel, came out with a very nice sefer on the weekly parsha, in which he makes the following observation: Avraham states over here, “I am afar v’efer” in the present tense. This is noteworthy because Avraham is not afar v’efer now. Avraham really means I was almost dust and I was almost ashes, but right now I am alive and well. Yet Avraham speaks in the present tense.
We learn from here the key to remaining appreciative of something that has happened sometime in the past. It is an extremely common scenario for a person to go through a near death experience and then recover. He may be cured from a life-threatening illness. He may have been in a terrible accident and have walked away from it. It is the nature of people that when they emerge from those type of situations, they proclaim “I am now a new person. From now on, I will never miss davening. I am never going to speak lashon ha’rah. I am always going to daven with a minyan.” However, invariably, what happens to most people is that with the passage of time, it becomes “same old, same old.”
I know a very fine fellow, who, by his own admission – I am not accusing him of this – experienced this. This fellow was in a terrible car crash. He was hit by a truck and walked away from it without a broken bone. The State Trooper who pulled up to the accident site, upon seeing the car, proclaimed it to be a miracle. “No one walks away from such a crash.” The person made a seudas ho’da’ah (meal of thanksgiving). He was very shaken and moved by the whole experience. He told me that he started learning various mussar sefarim, etc., etc.
Now, almost a year later, the effect of the experience dissipated. By his own admission, he does not feel the same way. What is the key to a person maintaining that same feeling of hakaras hatov and gratitude to the Ribono shel Olam, thus enabling the person to maintain the kabalos he accepted upon himself at the time of the “salvation”?
The key is to keep the day of the crash in mind. Live in THAT time frame rather than in the present. That is what Avraham is saying: Right NOW I consider myself afar v’efer because I should really be a dead man! I remember to this day the moment I entered into the fiery furnace and I didn’t burn up. That miracle is ever-present in my mind.
However, if a person focuses on how he is TODAY, rather than immediately after the incident, then his feelings of overwhelming gratitude will inevitably dissipate. The key is to stay focused on the day that it occurred.
Rabbi Buxbaum gives an example: A person has been unemployed for several months. To say the least, it is a very depressing situation. He can’t pay his debts. He must come onto the largesse of other people. It can be humiliating and ego destroying. Then someone gives him a job. The day he receives the job and the day he starts receiving a paycheck again, it literally becomes “Layehudim hoysa orah” (To the Jews there was light – Esther 8:16). The person is so grateful: “I am working. I am making money. I am being productive. I have a job.”
However, six months later he does not like the working conditions. He thinks he should be getting a raise already. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like that. The boss yells at him. He is grumpy, etc., etc., etc. How does that happen? Why does this happen? It is because the person looks at himself in the present and thinks “I have a job. I don’t like the job. What did my boss do for me?”
A person must try to bear in mind the way he felt the day BEFORE he got the job. “Remember how depressed you were – those feelings of worthlessness that you had!” A person should always try to look at where he is NOW, relative to the day BEFORE he got the job! That is the key. “I am afar v’efer.”
General Motors once ran a commercial which said, “It is typically American to ask – ‘What have you done for me lately?'” This is such an improper attitude! It is the diametric opposite of hakaras hatov. Hakaras hatov is constantly bearing in mind what someone else or what the Ribono shel Olam did for you. It is not a question of “What have you done for me LATELY?” That is not a Jewish mentality. That is not our mesorah.
Put differently, Pete Rose famously once said “You are only as good as your last at-bat.” That also is a treife hashkafa. A person must constantly be makir tov. This certainly is a challenge. It is human nature to feel otherwise. It is a chessed that the Ribono shel Olam blessed us with shikcha (forgetfulness) because if people would be obsessed for the rest of their lives with the impact of ‘the crash,’ they would go crazy. That is why we were granted shikcha. The Gemara says in Pesachim that there are three things without which the world could not exist, and one of them is shikcha.
If we didn’t have shikcha, we would always be confronted by the greatest tragedies in our lives. When a person, chas v’shalom, loses a relative, there is a decree that the deceased will be (somewhat) forgotten from their loved one’s heart after twelve months. It is not as painful as it once was. If it were as painful as the day it happened, people would not be able to go on.
So, emotionally it is a beracha. However, intellectually a person needs to be able to think “I remember what it was like when I did not have a job. I remember when that car hit me and I walked away unscathed. I looked at that car and thought ‘And I am but afar v’efer.’ I remember how it was when I got the diagnosis and I thought ‘That’s it!’ But, chasdei Hashem, I was cured.” That is what we need to remember: Keep THAT day in mind.
This is the lesson that Avraham Avinu is teaching us when he says “I am but afar v’efer.”
Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]
Technical Assistance by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]
This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas Vayeira is provided below:
- # 029 – Mila and the “Yellow” Baby
- # 071 – Last Will & Testament of R. Yehuda Hachasid.
- # 120 – After Milchigs: How Long a Wait?
- # 167 – The Bris Milah Seudah
- # 213 – Is lying ever Permitted?
- # 257 – Makom Kavuah and Other Davening Issues
- # 303 – Milk and Eggs in Halacha
- # 347 – Women and the Laws of Tznius
- # 391 – The Mitzvah of Nichum Aveilim
- # 435 – Declining a Kibud
- # 479 – Mitzvah of Inviting Guests
- # 523 – Walking by a Person Who Is Davening
- # 567 – Asking and Giving Mechila
- # 611 – Shalom Aleichem on Friday Night
- # 655 – The Bris Milah Seudah – Fleishigs or Milchig?
- # 699 – Zichrona L’vracha, Sh’lita and Neru – For Whom?
- # 743 – Chazoras Hashatz – More Important Than You Think
- #787 – Tefilah—Guaranteeing Success
- # 831 – Hagomel for Elective Surgery
- # 875 – Visiting the Sick – Are 2 Better Than 1? and Other Issues
- # 919 – Bas Mitzvah Celebrations – Kosher or Not?
- # 962 – Hard Cheese: Hot Dog After Pizza — Is There A Problem?
- #1006 – “I’m Mochel You” — Do You Really Have To Mean It?”
- #1050 – Saying No to a Rosh Yeshiva? Saying No to your host?
- #1093 – Tefilah B’Tzibbur: Must You Start Shmoneh Esrai Exactly With the Tzibbur?
- #1136 –I have a Toothache / Headache / Cold – Do I Still Have To Daven?
- #1179 – Walking Your Guest to the Door, To the Car – Do You Do That?
- #1223 – Davening at Netz or Davening with a Minyan: Which is Better?
- #1267 – Inviting Your Next Door Neighbor for Shabbos: Is that called Hachnosas Orchim?
- #1311 – I Had Eggplant Parmesan for Lunch Friday: Can I Have Fleishig for the Shabbos Seuda?
- #1355 – Doing Mitzvos First Time – Bar Mitzva & Tephillin; Women & Candles: Shehechiyanu?
- #1399 – Speaking Lashon Horah for the Sake of Shalom – Can it be Mutar?
- #1443 – Oops! I Started Shachris Shmoneh Esrai With Ki Shem Hashem – Now What?
- #1487 – Are you acting like a person who lived in Sodom?
- #1531 – Can you fulfill Bikur Cholim by a Telephone?
- (2022) – Bentching on a Cup of Wine – Do You Share It With Your Wife?
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