Weekly Devar Torah from Rabbi Nourollah

וירא — When It Doesn’t Make Sense

There is a question many good people carry quietly in their hearts.

“I’m davening more.”

“I’m working on my middos.”

“I’m giving more tzedakah.”

“My Shabbos is getting stronger.”

“I’m closer to Hashem than I’ve ever been.”

And then comes the next sentence:

“So why is my life getting harder?”

The davening goes up, and the business goes down. One person has tried every segulah there is, while friends who barely keep anything are getting married all around her. Another is kind, thoughtful, and caring, always the first to reach out, and somehow still struggles to find friends.

Hashem, I’m trying my hardest. Why does it seem to be going the other way?

Parashat Vayeira gives us an answer. It is not an explanation. It is a way to stand.

Two Kinds of Tests

Not every test is the same.

Some tests are hard. Very hard. But they make sense.

“I lost a job. I’ll find a better one.”

“I’m not married yet. Hashem is waiting for the right one.”

“It’s hard to make a living. I’ll work harder.”

You may not see the ending yet. That is why it’s a test. But you can see how it could end well.

A test like that requires strength. You grit your teeth, you carry the weight, and you keep going.

And then there are tests that don’t make sense.

The good person who keeps getting better while life keeps getting worse. The tzaddik who lived his whole life with integrity, never speaking a bad word about anyone, and still suffered. Things that don’t add up, and seem painfully unfair.

The Torah describes this:

״וְאָנֹכִי הַסְתֵּר אַסְתִּיר פָּנַי״

“And I will surely hide My face.”

Why the double language? Because there are two levels of hiddenness. The first hiding asks: Why is this so hard? The second hiding asks: How can this possibly make sense?

For the first kind of test, strength is enough.

For the second kind, strength is not enough.

That is the whole lesson of the Akeidah.

The Test That Made No Sense

Avraham Avinu had ten tests. Nine of them were hard, but every one of them made sense.

Leave your father’s house, because there you will grow. A famine, which Avraham can accept as Hashem asking more of him. Separating from Lot, who was going in the wrong direction. Bris milah. Welcoming guests in his pain. Each one was difficult, but Avraham could see that Hashem was leading him somewhere better.

Those nine required strength, and Avraham had strength.

Then came the tenth.

״קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ אֶת־יְחִידְךָ אֲשֶׁר־אָהַבְתָּ אֶת־יִצְחָק וְלֶךְ־לְךָ אֶל־אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה״

“Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak, and go to the land of Moriah.”

This one makes no sense.

Hashem had promised, ״כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע״, “Through Yitzchak your descendants will be called.” How can the future itself be brought up as an offering?

Avraham spent his whole life doing chessed. How can he now be asked to do the very opposite?

Sarah waited ninety painful years for this child. Now he is to be taken from her?

There is no way to see how this ends well. The whole future seems to go up in smoke.

This is the second level of hiddenness. And that is why the Midrash teaches that only at the Akeidah did the Satan try to talk Avraham and Yitzchak out of it. You cannot talk Avraham out of something hard; he had done hard things all his life. But here the Satan had an argument: “It doesn’t make sense.”

So what do you need for a test that doesn’t make sense?

Hineni — I Am Ready

The Torah tells us before the command is even given:

״וְהָאֱלֹהִים נִסָּה אֶת־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּנִי״

“And God tested Avraham, and He said to him, ‘Avraham,’ and he said, ‘Hineni.'”

Why do we need this exchange? Why not go straight to the command?

Because this word is the answer to the test before the test even begins.

We usually translate הִנֵּנִי as “Here I am.” Rav Hirsch teaches that it means: I am ready.

Avraham is saying: Ribbono shel Olam, I don’t yet know what You will ask. I may never understand it. Whatever it is, I am ready.

Strength says: “I can carry this.”

הִנֵּנִי says: “I don’t need to understand it to be Yours.”

Strength is for the tests that are hard. הִנֵּנִי is for the tests that make no sense.

And that is what the Jewish people said at Har Sinai: ״נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע״, “We will do, and we will understand.” Readiness comes first. Understanding, if it comes at all, comes later.

This is why tzaddikim can be greater than malachim (Sanhedrin 93a). An angel has no free will, so of course he is ready. A Jew standing in confusion, with every reason to step back, who still says הִנֵּנִי, has reached a level higher than an angel.

And this readiness is not reserved for a once-in-a-lifetime moment. We train it every day. The avreichim in the kollel who learn with fire, though no one pays them for focus. The Hatzolah member who leaves the Shabbos table without a second thought. The bikur cholim volunteer who shows up for someone she has never met. These are not separate lessons. They are practice. A Jew who says הִנֵּנִי in the small moments is building the muscle he will need when the cloud comes.

Who Sees the Cloud?

״וַיִּשָּׂא אַבְרָהָם אֶת־עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק״

“Avraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar.”

The Midrash says that Avraham turned to Yishmael and Eliezer: “Do you see anything on top of that mountain?”

“Nothing.”

Then he turned to Yitzchak: “Do you see anything?”

“Yes. I see a cloud.”

Here the whole idea comes together.

Avraham and Yitzchak were both living with הִנֵּנִי. They were heading into a test that made no sense, and they saw the cloud. The others did not.

So Avraham said:

״שְׁבוּ־לָכֶם פֹּה עִם־הַחֲמוֹר וַאֲנִי וְהַנַּעַר נֵלְכָה עַד־כֹּה״

“Stay here with the donkey, and the boy and I will go up there.”

Chazal read this harshly: You are like the donkey.

Why so harsh? These were good men walking with Avraham to do a mitzvah!

But what is a donkey? An animal that can carry a heavy load.

That is exactly the first kind of test. Yishmael and Eliezer had strength. They could carry heavy things. But when the road turned into something that made no sense, they could go no further. They had strength without הִנֵּנִי. And so they saw nothing.

Only a person who is ready can walk up the mountain into the cloud.

In the Cloud, HaMakom

Now read the pasuk again.

״וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק״

הַמָּקוֹם means “the place.” But HaMakom is also a name of Hashem.

Avraham was standing מֵרָחֹק, far from understanding, looking at a cloud of confusion. And in that very cloud, he saw HaMakom. He saw Hashem.

That is the reward of הִנֵּנִי. Not an explanation, but Hashem Himself.

Generations later the same picture appears at Har Sinai:

״וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם מֵרָחֹק וּמֹשֶׁה נִגַּשׁ אֶל־הָעֲרָפֶל אֲשֶׁר־שָׁם הָאֱלֹהִים״

“The people stood from afar, and Moshe approached the thick cloud where God was.”

Again מֵרָחֹק. Again a cloud. The people saw darkness and stepped back. Moshe, with the readiness of Avraham, walked straight in, because that is where Hashem was.

The cloud that makes you want to step back is the very place where Hashem is waiting.

Hineni in Your Cloud

Maybe you are standing in front of that cloud right now.

You are trying, and it is getting harder.

You are davening, and the answer is not coming.

You are doing everything right, and it still does not add up.

I cannot tell you why. No one can.

And it may not get easier. It may not be sorted out.

In that cloud, relief is not always found.

Money is not always found.

Health is not always found.

But Hashem is always found.

A hard test asks for strength, and you have it. A test that makes no sense asks for something deeper, and you have that too. It was planted in every Jew by Avraham Avinu on the road to Moriah.

So do what Avraham did.

Lift your eyes to the cloud.

Don’t stay behind with the donkey.

Walk in.

And say:

“Ribbono shel Olam, I don’t understand, but in this cloud I can see You.

הִנֵּנִי.

I am ready.”

← Previous: Lech Lecha  ·  All Parshas