The Invisible Hand

How do you follow up on the Akeidah (Offering of Yitzchak)? How do you follow up on the destruction of S’dom by G-d, miraculous births and visits by angels of the Lord? How do you follow up on the Torah reading of Vayeira?

This reading does it with real estate transactions and an arranged marriage. This reading does it without divine conversations. And until the very end, this reading does it without any explicit action by Hashem.

It is a magnificent follow-up.

When Hashem brought the Jewish people out of Egypt, it was in the midst of miracles. The presence of Hashem was demonstrated to greatest powers on earth. But then, after a generation was born into the new covenant with G-d, the explicit role of Hashem receded.

Today, Hashem is active in our lives, but hidden.

The same pattern appears here. Avraham’s exodus from Charan was accompanied by a period of miracles and grand actions. But in this reading, after Yitzchak is born into the covenant with Hashem – and sealed into it with the Akeidah – Hashem seems to recede.

One imagines Eliyahu with his grand miracles – and his eventual realization that the voice of G-d is thin and still.

This reading is the archetype of our connection to G-d in a world where His presence is not so clearly revealed.

Immediately after the Akeidah, Avraham visits Hebron to buy a burial plot for his wife. In our tradition, he insists on massively overpaying for the plot. He could have paid less, or even accepted the property as a gift. Or, he could have buried Sarah by the side of the road.

But Avraham insists on paying a full price for a prominent piece of land. This purchase is an act of service and honor to Sarah before the children of Chait – and eventually before us. If he had buried her in a less prominent place, it would have diminished the honor he was giving. And if he had accepted paying anything less than full price, it would have meant sharing that act of giving with a lesser man. It too would have diminished the honor.

Avraham’s act honors and augments Sarah’s legacy. As we saw in Parshat Vayeira, Sarah had a tenacious dedication to protecting her life’s work with Avraham: the cultivation and preservation of the seeds of mankind’s relationship to the divine.

The Akeidah demonstrated that Avraham and Sarah’s legacy would always exist within the context of the fear of G-d. But it demonstrated it to Hashem.

The burial of Sarah demonstrates the importance of that legacy – but it does not demonstrate it to G-d, it demonstrates it to the rest of the world. This is one of the most powerful ways in which Avraham brings G-d’s name to other people.

He can only do it after his own relationship with the Almighty has been perfected through the Akeidah.

The Torah reading continues with Avraham tells Eliezer not to allow Yitzchak to leave the land or to marry a local woman. Eliezer must fetch a bride from Avraham’s birthplace and bring her back.

And if she does not come, then Yitzchak’s line will be terminated.

Avraham does as much as he humanly can to continue Yitzchak’s line – but always within the context of the G-dly relationship.

As with the Akeidah, Avraham puts all of his future into the hands of G-d. This time no request is made. Avraham has internalized his trust and his fear of the Almighty. In its own way, this uncommanded act is as great as the Akeidah itself.

Eliezer’s mission lasts for 67 verses. The Akeidah itself has only 19. What we witness in this story is our own reality; the hidden action of the divine and our role in realizing His place in our lives.