“Be strong!” Have you ever said that to someone going
through a rough time? It sounds like a platitude, but it is a bracha, a blessing
you are bestowing upon the person that reminds them that they will get through
their troubles and be able to see how those troubles helped them reach a new place
in their lives.
There are different types of strength. It is probable to say
that instinctively when we bless someone to be strong, we are wishing them
koach, which is a very physical sense of strength. Our koach, our fortitude,
helps us push through each day and put one foot in front of the other.
This week’s parsha, Parshas Vayera, however, is filled with
a far more powerful strength, an inner strength that Judaism refers to as
gevurah, and we can gain insight into exactly what it is by the words of the
sages in Pirkei Avos 4:1: “Who is a strong man, one who subdues his yetzer (inclination).”
Most often we think of the term yetzer with the yetzer harah, the evil inclination,
and then envision the little devil sitting on our shoulder urging us to do
wrong. But evil is far too limited a concept for defining a person’s yetzer. For
instance, one who wakes up tired may just want to skip davening for the day…
the idea that that would be evil seems a bit drastic. The yetzer is the natural
force of our physical selves working against…or for in the case of the yetzer
hatov… our spiritual selves.
One might think that the parsha begins with a powerful punch
of gevurah when it is understood that three days after his circumcision, Avraham
ran forth to greet and serve his guests. Is this not an incredible
demonstration of the spirit’s will to do good overcoming the body’s physical limitations?
Or they might point out how Avraham ignored any psychological fear of
punishment from the Al-mighty to stand and challenge Hashem’s decision to
destroy Sodom. There is certainly incredible inner spiritual strength in
Avraham, but that strength is driven by his over-arching character trait of
chesed. Avraham loved his fellow man (and woman). He cared deeply about all the
people in the world, and this was far more of a driving force in him than gevurah.
In order to understand gevurah, we need to study Yitzchak. Most
people would say that the Akeidah is the defining moment of Yitzchak’s life.
Although it is not obvious from the straight text of the Torah, it is implied
(and understood by the sages) that Yitzchak was aware of his father’s
intentions to offer him up as a sacrifice, and he made himself willing. This is
the gevurah of Yitzchak, that he could put his will to live (the most basic and
the strongest of yetzer) to the side in order to fulfil the Divine will. He did
so without argument or complaint, and he did so with his whole heart.
How, one must ask themselves, was it possible for Yitzchak
to accept that his father would do such a think with nary a whimper or cry? Perhaps
the answer is that his gevurah, his ability to ignore even humankind’s most
base survival instinct, was because his neshama was able to understand that
every journey Hashem puts us on has a purpose, even if we will never understand
what that purpose is.
In order to understand Yitzchak’s innate gevurah, we have to
remember where he came from. Yitzchak’s neshama could only come to earth when
his parents transformed themselves into different people (when their names were
changed) and after Avraham circumcised himself. We know how desperately they
wanted a child; it is mentioned over and over again, and we know the great
lengths Sarah went to try to help Avraham have an heir. Yitzchak was the child
born of a man and a woman who could have felt greatly disappointed in their
inability to be fruitful, and multiply and who nevertheless did not falter in
what they saw as their life’s mission of sharing Hashem. Their patient faith is one of the
cornerstones of Yitzchak’s personality. The other cornerstone was laughter.
When they named him Yitzchak, Sarah declared “Hashem has
given me laughter. All who hear will laugh with me” (21:6). There are lengthy
discourses written on the significance of laughter in Yitzchak’s story – how Sarah
laughs, how Avraham laughs, how Hashem discusses the laughter, and of course
how his name is based on the word laughter. It is such an interesting dichotomy
when you think of all the pain of waiting that they went through for him, when
you reflect on the trials Sarah faced in offering her handmaid to her husband,
and yet they came through it to a place where there was laughter. Perhaps here
we can learn about the power of laughter over the inclination to fall to
despair. If we can find a way to twist our yetzer from embracing our physical/psychological
pain, we can pull ourselves away from it. We can help the neshama carry
forward.
The vast majority of us will only ever struggle to begin to
comprehend the spiritual strength of the avos and emahos. We do, however,
understand their struggles. We know how hard life can be, and how there are
periods in our lives that are incredibly challenging and even deeply traumatic.
The narratives in Bereishis are a gift to us. They are a place we can turn to
see that survival, physical and spiritual, leads to growth. Even more, in the
narrative of Parsha Vayera, we are reminded that there is power in laughter,
and it is the power of hope that will take us to a place where that laughter
will be full of joy.
May we all find moments of laughter and may we all find the
strength to carry forward in the journey.
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