Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When we look at Avraham, we see a strange thing.
[00:00:08] The Torah does not introduce him, even bothering to tell us anything about him.
[00:00:15] The portion of Lech lecha starts with God telling Avraham, go to the land of Israel, which I will show you. Who is Avraham? Where does he come from? Why is God talking to him?
[00:00:28] No reference. All of the other great people that Torah is telling us about, Torah explains to us why they merited that God spoke to them, or why they merited certain things. Some background, something Avraham has no background.
[00:00:41] There was a guy, Avram, and God spoke to him.
[00:00:43] Why is that? It's very strange.
[00:00:46] So really that explains to us the essence of who Avram was and the essence of what a Jew is because all other people, when they were addressed to by God, for example, Noah, Noah, when God wanted to save him from the flood, first God says that they were righteous people. First they earned something.
[00:01:10] And after they earned, they were righteous, after they did great things, then God spoke to them. Because of that, God spoke to Abraham, not because of anything else, but because God spoke to Abraham.
[00:01:25] You see, the relationship of Avraham with God started with God. And it was on God's terms.
[00:01:33] It was not because of anything that Avram did. Now, I've got news for you.
[00:01:38] Avram really did a lot of great things. He was a righteous man. He discovered God's existence on his own.
[00:01:46] But having said that, we also understand that the fact that God spoke to him was just because of one reason, because God decided to speak to him.
[00:01:58] And really, this is an example. This is a metaphor of the difference between us Jews, the mission that we have in life. And we are descendants of Abraham and everybody else.
[00:02:12] Everybody else have their own relationship with God. And their own relationship with God is based on their own understanding, on their own thinking.
[00:02:23] To see that there is somebody who created this world and somebody who's running this world, you don't need to be a very spiritual person. It is a practical observation.
[00:02:32] The Rebbe spoke many times saying that people sometimes think that science contradicts religion. The Rebbe says, the more we discover how the world works, the more science we know, the better we understand how complex it is. So it could have not came on its own. Somebody at least had to make it. Somebody had to create it.
[00:02:52] So science shows us that there is a Creator here.
[00:02:55] So to understand that God runs the world, you don't need to be a very spiritual person. You just need to be a practical person.
[00:03:01] And that's the relationship of all the People around the world with God, they understand that there's God. The Jews, on the other hand, have a completely different relationship with God.
[00:03:12] Our relationship with God is on God's terms because God spoke to us. That's why, by the way, we are called the chosen nation. It is an interesting thing.
[00:03:21] We Jews are not called the smartest nation, even though many people think that we are. We Jews are not called very successful nation in the Torah, even though that's the typical image of a Jew. We are not referred to as the best nation, as the most pious nation. I have suspicion that we are not.
[00:03:39] God calls us the chosen nation. Do you know what it means to make a choice?
[00:03:44] You have to have two equal opportunities and then you make a choice between them. If these choices are not equal, you don't have a real choice. If I love apples and hate oranges and somebody gives me a choice between an apple and an orange, I don't really have a choice.
[00:04:00] I love apples. The nature that gave me love for apples and hatred for oranges took away my freedom of choice.
[00:04:08] So if God would have said, I'm making a contest for the smartest nation and whoever wins is going to be my nation, then we would have not been the chosen nation. We would have been the winner nation.
[00:04:18] God didn't make any contest. God chose us. Means he had a choice. He could have chosen any nation in the world.
[00:04:26] Could have chosen the Chinese, by the way. They are far more obedient and loyal. So he probably would have done better with them. They also, by the way, have higher cube than us Jews.
[00:04:36] So he could have chosen Germans or Russians or whoever it is.
[00:04:42] And the fact that we call ourselves chosen nation underscores that God chose us on his terms. He decided. He went iny meeny miny mo and chose us.
[00:04:52] So our relationship with God is on his terms, not in our terms.
[00:04:56] And this is very important for us to know. That's why we Jews have Avram as our forefather who started our nation. And that's why the Torah does not introduce Avram, does not tell us about all of his merits, even though he had many. Because the Torah wants to underscore that. Our relationship with God starts because God chose, shows us our relationship is on his terms. Generally, whenever you want to have a true relationship with somebody, you have to have it on their terms. I can talk to you in your language. If you want to buy a present to your wife, it has to be a present that she appreciates. You might hate it. You might think she should like something else.
[00:05:41] But if she likes certain type of flowers, you might think that they're ugly.
[00:05:46] But if she likes these flowers, these are the flowers you are going to give her for your anniversary. Why?
[00:05:51] Because you have to relate to people on their terms. Same thing with us and God. Many times God tells us things that we need to do and we don't think it means anything. We don't understand why it is we think we should better do something else. Well, it's the same thing as you buying flowers for your wife. You buy flowers that she wants, we do for God things that he wants. We have to have relationship on his terms, not on our terms.
