After years of political agitation and mass demonstrations by supporters worldwide, these brave men and women were finally free to go to a land where they could live openly as Jews. They had stared down the powerful Russians with sheer will, and had overcome.
Where did this incredible strength come from? What drove these Jews, who had nearly lost all of their national identity and spiritual connectivity, to risk their lives by standing up against one of the strongest and most fearsome governments of its time?
* * * * *
Nearly four thousand years ago, society was firmly ensconced in the Fertile Crescent. Mesopotamia was the largest and most developed area within this broad region.
The leading ruler at the time was Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod, described as “a mighty man in the land… a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Bereishis 10:8-9). Like other rulers of his era, Nimrodclaimed divinity. His subjects worshipped him and offered him sacrifices. Those who refused were considered treasonous and faced a penalty of death. He was the one who initiated a full-scale rebellion against God, which included the construction of the ill-fated Tower of Babel (Bereishis 11:1-4.)
It was at this time that Avraham was bornto the idolater Terach and his wife Amthalai. Avraham was no warrior, yet he would present Nimrod with his greatest personal challenge, and in so doing would set the world on an entirely new historical trajectory.
At a very young age Avraham recognized the underlying fallacy of polytheism. He understood that the world, with all its complexity and sense of purpose, must have been created by a single, caring God. It could not have been formed by the corporeal, inanimate, harsh deities that filled his father’s idol shop.
One day, to prove his point, young Avraham smashed the entire inventory except one statue, placing a hammer in the largest one’s hands. When his enraged father beheld the scene, Avraham calmly suggested that the chief idol had destroyed all the others following a serious dispute.
The absurdity of his reply – and of idolatry in general – was plain enough to see. His words cut right through Terach. Years devoted to the promulgation of idolatry were negated by the wit and tenacity of his eldest son. Avraham would have to be taught a lesson and so he was summarily summoned before mighty Nimrod.
The monarch was not about to allow one of his subjects to compromise his longstanding locus of power. If he refused to relent, young Avraham would be cast into a fiery furnace. Avraham, however, stood his ground, and entered the inferno with a deep faith in a God with whom he had never communicated. Certainly he had never witnessed God’s miraculous capacity. His unswerving trust was rewarded when he emerged unscathed, an awesome and bewildering sight for Nimrod and his court.
For many years thereafter, Avraham successfully transmitted his monotheistic message. He taught anyone who would listen that God was deeply invested in the conduct of man and wished for humans to live ethical lives. People would gather around him and ask him questions. He would teach each of them according to their respective knowledge until he would bring them to the path of truth.
His determination to transmit this message paid off. Suddenly, at the age of seventy-five, God communicated openly and directly with his faithful servant for the first time. He directed Avraham to a new location and an even higher calling. Avraham was to pick up and leave everything he had ever known and travel to a faraway, unknown destination. It was only there that he would achieve his true mission in life and experience the long-elusive joy of fatherhood.
