Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Even When It Doesn't Make Sense

 At the beginning of Lech Lecha, Avraham is promised that if he goes "to the land that I will show you", then, among other things, והיה ברכה and ונברכו בך כל משפחות האדמה. 

After the Akeida, one of the brachos is והתברכו בזרעך כל גויי הארץ. 

Isn't that a repeat? 

The obvious answer is that the bracha in Lech Lecha is a personal bracha to Avraham while the bracha after the Akeida is to all of his seed. 

It also seems that only later his seed is blessed b/c the Akeida involved his seed [and by extension, the seed of all the generations]. 

The Mussar is of course that intuitively he was harming his seed by following the directive of Hashem but in fact it gave them great bracha for eternity. So don't follow your intuition but the directive of Hashem - even when it doesn't make sense to you. 

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Is it also significant that the bracha to Avraham the individual and his future nation [i.e. the people reading this!!] is to be a bracha to the nations which would debunk the correctness of isolationist trends among our people. We are not meant to be, as one darshan put it, the Neturei Karta among the nations, but a blessing and light [as per Yeshayahu 49-6 וַיֹּאמֶר נָקֵל מִהְיוֹתְךָ לִי עֶבֶד לְהָקִים אֶת שִׁבְטֵי יַעֲקֹב וּנְצוּרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהָשִׁיב וּנְתַתִּיךָ לְאוֹר גּוֹיִם לִהְיוֹת יְשׁוּעָתִי עַד קְצֵה הָאָרֶץ]. This isolationism is not just from the greater world but from other groups within our people.

The way we are a bracha is not by watching tik tok or listening to inane podcasts and news shows but by being the best possible Jews we can be [as Maran HaRav ztz"l speaks about in numerous places such as אורות ישראל in the sefer אורות. Recently, some new shiurim have been uploaded so you can hear more about it]. 

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What is the difference between גויי הארץ and משפחות האדמה? 

And ונברכו vs. והתברכו?