Lech Lecha. Why Avram?

We are three weeks into the Torah and we are twenty generations along. HaShem’s patience with men’s yotzer harah (bad instincts), can be measured in time. Firstly, Adam didn’t make it long. God didn’t have much patience with him. Then it seems He waited ten generations before his patience ran out again and God selects Noah and company as the only survivors after the flood. In this Parashat again after ten generations, He selects Avram as the one to lead the nations to come. Why Avram? What do we know about him? –Nothing at all.

We know more about why Noah was chosen, than why Avram was chosen. At least in Parashat Noah it’s written: “Walk before me and be thou whole-hearted.” We know Noah was Tamim, whole-hearted. Today’s parashat starts immediately with “Lech Lecha,” without any clarification. Rambam, Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, spends a great deal digging into Avram’s earlier life – that part the Torah does not mention. He sets it up with explaining that in the days of Enosh, men fell into grave error. They argued: “Since God created the stars and spheres to govern the universe, placing them on high…they need to be praised, glorified and paid homage to…” But with the passage of time, Rambam continues: “They arose false prophets, started making idols, and forgot all about the One God.” People started only recognizing and believing and worshiping idols made of wood and stone.

Rambam continues that only a few, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem and Eber, did recognize the One God. In this manner, he writes, the world continues on its course until there was born the pillar of the world.

In his effort to explain Avram, Rambam continues: “Forty years was Avram when he acknowledges his Creator.” What happens next is directly comparable with the behaviour Moses displays during his awareness of what his mission should be and Avrams awakening. Both Avram and Moses become angry and even physically violent. They both protest in similar ways against wrong – in the name of right.

Avram begins debating on behalf of the One God. According to Rambam, he tries to convince his fathers’ customers not to buy the images his own father Terach purveys and sells for a living. We can imagine a kind of Judaica store or even a souvenir shop to which Avram protests. Avram is good at debating the reason why there’s One God, so good that the King of the Chaldeans pursues him. Now we know that Avram is seventy five years old when he, Sarai and Lot depart from Charan. So you can say that HaShem watched Avram for 35 years debate and flee and become a pure believer before finally saying: “Lech Lecha.”

Rambam thinks it’s because Avram came close to Canaan and called upon God, that God spoke to Avram. Just like Moses, with the words “Lech Lecha”, God uproots Avram in the direction of the promised land. Just like Noah, Avram is the only shimmer of light left on earth. We know that from the words: ”…and in thee shall be blessed all the families of the earth.”

But where is Avram’s resumé?

The Torah doesn’t explain why Avram is perfect for the job. There aren’t clear words like: “Walk before me. Walk with me.” Or, words like: “…if you walk in My statutes,” or “if you hearken to the Lord your God,” as in the case of David, Solomon and Isaac. Rambam concludes that it isn’t Avram’s inner struggle with idols and outer struggle against them that makes him HaShem’s choice. No, Rambam clearly thinks that the real reason is that the Chaldeans had persecuted Avram and that he was heading into the direction of Canaan and that there his name, would become great and the nations would be blessed through him.

Our Sages were not content with making Avram out to be a martyr. They credit him with something amazing. They go as far as to believe that Avram observed the whole Torah even before it was given.
The bottom line for hiring Avram without a resumé, without references, the Sages agree was simply the choice. The choice by the President, CEO and Chairman himself: God – and who is going to argue with that?