Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Who Is The Proper One

If I would ask you who would seem a better candidate as a shidduch, one who serves avodah zarah, eats nevalos v'trefos etc. but has exemplary middos or one who follows every letter in the Code of Jewish Law but has terrible middos, whom would you choose?  Avrohom made Eliezer swear that he would not under any circumstances take a wife for his son from the people of Cn'aan, only from his own family.  What did Avrohom find that his family had over everyone else, they seemed just as bad?  Did Avrohom just want to keep the wealth in the family😊?  The Derashos Haran Derush 5 explains that good middos are hereditary.  Since Avrohom had good middos it must be that such a gene ran in the family.  On the other, hand averos aren't hereditary, they are a person's choice and will not have any impact on the children.  So Avrohom wasn't worried about the averos, he was worried about the lack of middos.  The Ran understands averos can be changed, middos cannot.  I'm not sure scientifically what the Ran means, it is quite a chiddush.  However, it does seem in the aforementioned question the Ran would choose the averyon over the one with the bad middos (though admittedly I might be exaggerating things.)

Anyway, we glean from this Ran the importance of good middos.  Based upon this we can maybe understand a little bit the famous midrash that comments on how the story of Eliezer is repeated in great detail in the Torah and  every word he said is recorded as opposed to many laws which are merely hinted to in the Bible, yafeh sichasan shel avdeh avos yoser m'torasen shel banim.  What is the greatness of the sichasan shel avdeh avos? Rav Lessen explains that Eliezer was the chozer of the Torah of Avrohom and had  aspirations for Yitzchak to marry his daughter.  How disappointing must it have been for him for his wish not to be fulfilled.  If I was in his situation I might do the mission Avrohom sent me on, but it would be with a heavy heart and done as fast as possible without much care for the results.  The Torah understood that Eliezer did his mission wholeheartedly and therefore recants every detail in order to show us how a person has this ability to perfect his middos to do conquer his/her desires to do the will of God.  It is the sicha of perfected character traits that is yafeh more than the Torah of the banim.

לבי אומר לי that the explanation of the midrash is the sicha shel avdeh avos is the later generations discussing the learning, middos and actions of the previous generations.  This may be apikorses, but a person might know all four volumes of the Shulchan Aruch inside and out, he has torasen shel banim.  However, if this person has no understanding of how the previous generations acted and paskined then he won't be able to come out with the proper hanhagah.  That is why these days there are many seforim that write halachos but can't seem to come to a proper conclusion, the authors have torah, but are lacking the sicha of avseh avos.  This is why Chassidim take time to gather together (whether they call it a zits, sheves achim, farbrengen) to tell over stories of the previous generations to learn from the avos how the avdeh avos should act.  It is a sicha shel avdeh avos that compliments and sustains the torasen shel banim.       

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