As the founding figure of our people, Avraham was entrusted with two divine missions. First, he was promised that he would father a vast and enduring nation, with descendants as numerous as the grains of sand and as influential as the celestial stars. The second divine pledge was that he would be awarded Eretz Yisrael, a land of Hashem. Leaving behind his homeland and his past, drawn by these sacred promises, he journeyed into the future of Jewish history.
Courage and Vision
Throughout his odyssey, Avraham faced a host of trials, each testing his faith in these dual promises. Crushing famines ravaged the promised land while an oppressive army of four tyrannical kings imposed their totalitarian rule upon the peoples of this land. When a major region of his land was slated for divine annihilation, Avraham pleaded tirelessly for their survival. Unsuccessful, he watched as a major parcel of his promised land in the region of Sedom was reduced to a smoky crater. Amid every hardship, despite daunting setbacks and moments of deep uncertainty, Avraham held steadfast to his faith that one day this land would be his, destined for his children. Through famine and fire, under the shadow of tyrants and barren skies, he clung to the quiet certainty—that this land, would one day bloom for his descendants.
Avraham also faced heart-wrenching challenges to the second divine promise of raising a great nation. As he grew older, with each passing year, he remained childless- his dream of a legacy lowly fading to dust. In his search for an heir, he married a foreign woman, Hagar, yet this decision was fraught with complexity, as his beloved wife, Sarah, struggled to accept the presence of a non-Jewish co-wife. His firstborn, Yishma’el’s moral questionable behavior cast doubt upon his suitability as the chosen one. Ultimately, as tension grew between his elder and younger sons, Avraham was painfully forced to send Yishma’el away to safeguard Yitzchak’s legacy.
And then, just as the path seemed clear, Avraham faced the most unfathomable trial: the divine command to sacrifice Yitzchak, the only child left to carry on his legacy, seemingly erasing every promise of a great nation. Avraham faced dramatic challenges to his twin divine promises of land and nation.
Yet, through each storm, Avraham responded with unbreakable courage and vision, his faith illuminating the darkest tests while he advanced down a path carved by divine promise.
Phase two
Toward the twilight of his life, after the climactic trial of the Akedah, Avraham’s journey took a turn toward tranquility and silence. No longer did Hashem speak to him in prophetic promises or urgent commands; the steady flow of divine visions and angelic encounters faded. The man who had once conversed freely with malachim, braved wars and weathered cataclysms, now drifted into a quieter, more pedestrian life.
Yet, even in this quieter phase of his life, Avraham’s twin missions of settling the land and nurturing a family pressed on with undiminished intensity. When his beloved wife Sarah passed, he faced the painful reminder that he did not own even a small parcel of the land divinely promised to him. Forced into lengthy negotiations with the locals, he sought nothing grand—only a modest burial plot to honor his wife’s memory. Yet this humble request required three rounds of complex bargaining, and, even then, he was heavily overcharged.
Of course, the challenge of building a nation of stars and sand also remained challenging. By now, Avraham is elderly and no longer able to travel. Refusing to allow his son to marry local morally degraded women, he instead sends his servant, hoping against hope to find a suitable wife for his son from his own family—the family he had long since departed from, with whom he had lost contact over the years. What are the chances, he wonders, that these distant relatives would raise a child with the moral and pious qualities necessary to carry on the legacy of Jewish history? Avraham continues to face relentless and formidable challenges to his dual mission of land and nation, but now they unfold in a quieter, more subdued manner.
And this is precisely Avraham’s final trial. It is easier to summon courage and vision when facing dramatic trials. The urgency of crisis elicits our deepest resolve and awakens the strength to rise beyond ourselves. When the drama fades, when life slips into a quieter rhythm and the heroic moments give way to everyday tasks, it becomes harder to sustain courage and vision. The steady tide of routine can obscure our sense of purpose, making it a greater test of faith to hold onto courage amid the ordinary. Avraham’s final test was to preserve his mission even as the grandeur of his past battles softened into the quiet tedium of daily life.
Phase two of the war
As our righteous and just war to defend our homeland and our people enters its second year, we face this same challenge. In the early days of the conflict, we were shaken to our core, traumatized by unspeakable horrors and realizing that the future of the State of Israel hung in the balance. We were thrust headlong into a world of uncertainty, clinging clung to life and to our state with nothing but our fingernails, struggling to hold on.
Yet, our people rallied swiftly, uniting to form a defense against the nightmarish scenarios our enemies sought to impose upon us. With each passing day, our resolve deepened, but the challenge of maintaining our vision and courage amidst the ongoing struggle remains ever-present.
A year later, we find ourselves in a different stage. Though the broader course seems to favor our triumph, we feel as though we are entrenched in a quagmire, caught in a tense limbo. We toggle between military strategies and diplomatic solutions, fully aware that stabilizing our borders will require both. Our days are filled with military successes and miraculous nissim protecting us from heavenly attacks —but also punctuated by unspeakable trauma as we continue to watch our children fall in battle.
In these moments of stagnation, it is difficult to maintain sight of the larger vision. The pain, the uncertainty, and the overwhelming loss cloud our ability to keep our eyes fixed on the end goal.
The situation is compounded by the return of partisan politics. The country is deeply divided on how to achieve the release of the hostages. Alleged scandals shake the government, drawing public attention away from our common struggle. And, of course, the implacable divide between those who defend the country and those who chose not to, has become an unbridgeable rift, a daily source of social strife and division.
The drama of the early days of the war has given way to confusion, to a sense of being mired in the mud. We are submerged in politics and diplomacy, suffocating under the weight of political and ideological division.
Can we still hold fast to our vision of the larger mission—to resettle this land and defend it against the forces of evil who seek to deny us our rightful place in the land of Hashem? Will the bond of solidarity with our people remain strong, or will it fade with the passing of days and the erosion of immediacy? Can we see through the haze of the everyday and appreciate this moment of history? Can we muster strength and courage to overcome inertia and stagnancy?
Hashem give us vision. Hashem give us courage.
The writer is a rabbi at the hesder pre-military Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, with YU ordination and a master’s in English literature from CUNY. His most recent book, Reclaiming Redemption: Deciphering the Maze of Jewish History (Mosaica Press), is available in bookstores or at www.reclaimingredemption.com
