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Whenever asked, "How can you possibly have had so many stories?" I have the perfect answer. It's because, "And nothing was ever the same again," rings truer than, "and they lived happily ever after." More realistic - "happily ever after," is a fantasy, something we don't expect to happen - "nothing was ever the same," is a powerful item on the list of questions we should include, as did Doris Lessing, in a Cheshbon HaNefesh - Self Inventory.
In "Under My Skin," she wrote, "Once I was making a mental list of all the places I had lived in, having moved about so much, and soon concluded that the commonsense or factual approach leads to nothing but error. You may live in a place for months, even years, and it does not touch you, but a weekend or a night in another, and you feel as if your whole being has been sprayed with an equivalent of a cosmic wind." In other words, "nothing was ever the same."
I practice, "And nothing was ever the same," whenever reading a bible story. In this week's portion, Vayeira, God visits Abraham as he is recovering from surgery, Abraham forgoes the visit to welcome guests into his home, receives the news that 90 year-old Sarah will bear a son, has a seemingly unresolved argument with his wife, argues with God over Sodom, leaves the area to escape Lot's scandal, has Isaac, expels Hagar and Ishmael, signs a peace treaty with Abimelech, almost kills Isaac, and finally, learns that while he, the servant of God, must suffer so to have a son, his idol worshipping brother, Nahor, has generations of descendants without being repeatedly tested. Those, all, are mighty cosmic winds.
Combined, we probably have details of one month of Abraham's 175 years. We know only of the days on which he was sprayed by cosmic winds. Each detail is a life altering spray that, relished, must be read as concluding, "and nothing was ever the same."
I'm chasing and can't seem to catch the spray of God's visit to Abraham's sick bed, especially since Abraham, I assume grateful and honored by the visit, asks God to wait so Abraham can welcome some strangers into his home. Yes, "Hospitality is greater than receiving the Divine Presence (Shabbat 127a)," but how did someone soaking in the spray of the most powerful of cosmic winds have the presence of mind to run from the spray to welcome guests? Unless...
Unless it was the spray that informed Abraham that he should leave the Divine Presence to welcome guests, a cosmic wind itself, empowering him to argue with God over Sodom.
Rashi understands the cosmic message as teaching Abraham that the Divine Presence follows the direction of those who make judgment calls: "God said to Abraham, 'Sit, and I will stand, and you will be a sign for your children that I will stand in the assembly of judges while they remain seated, (Genesis 18:1)." An elevating message Abraham immediately applied but did not share with Isaac, who, midrashically, requested that his father bind his hands and feet together so that he not struggle to avoid Abraham's knife. Isaac had never been sprayed with the Divine Presence that follows our judgment calls. It's as if part of Isaac was already dead.
"Elevate him as an Elevation-Offering (22:2)," was the same cosmic wind that blew when God visited the hurting Abraham: "A father who does not teach his son how to elevate himself is sacrificing him. I visited you to elevate you, to empower you, to climb mountains knowing I will follow."
Abraham trekked three days up the mountain aware God was following him, confident his hand would be stayed. "He lifted his eyes (Verse 13)," and felt the cosmic wind spray his soul with renewed life and spirit.
"And nothing was the same ever again." As true for us as it was for Abraham, as long as we realize the cosmic wind blows from behind, as it follows our steps forward, with more force than it uses to spray us in the face.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
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