Axiology Vs. Axiomatic

As a young father, I would pose questions on the parashah to my children on Friday nights, prompting them to think more deeply about the words of the weekly Torah readings. I have never been a fan of relying solely on the sheets and notebooks that some teachers provide their students in lieu of encouraging them to think, research, and explore Torah on their own. Some of the question sheets are fine, since they stimulate the children to listen in class so they remember the answers, but personally, I prefer to pose those questions that stimulate reflection and contemplation rather than simply rattling off pre-written answers they were given. 

Year after year, as my children grew, I would ask them a specific question on Lech Lecha (which we just read this past Shabbos). Rashi writes that Hashem did not tell Avraham where he was heading in order to make the trip and the destination more precious and enticing, so he could earn a reward for each step he took in getting there. I would ask my children: If a mitzvah is enticing and appeals to us, that gives us a greater incentive to achieve it. Isn’t the awarding of schar mitzvah (the merits we accrue) greater when we follow Hashem’s orders with no personal incentive, yet do the mitzvah anyway? Making a commandment more appealing should have lowered the reward. We should gain merit according to the hardship and the challenge: “L’fum Tzara Agra”—when the going gets tough the tough get going, not when the going is exciting and alluring.

Each year, my children pondered this question. And I kept a catalogue of their responses. As they matured, their answers matured. They learned to reflect and analyze, and to create ideas that matched their respective levels of sophistication and understanding.

One of the answers that stayed with me was offered by my son when he was about six. He said that today, we now understand that the more effort we put into something that challenges us, the more meritorious we are (those are not his words, but how he explained it). He said that today we also understand that if something comes easy, we earn less merit for doing it since it is not so much of a challenge. However, he explained, Avraham was new at becoming a person of faith. He was gradually learning about Hashem and about His ways, which are the ways of Torah and mitzvos that comprise our system of religious belief. Hashem told him to get up and go. This was a challenge for Avraham. No one in his generation had ever been challenged this way through hearing Hashem speak, and he had not yet formed an understanding of what to do if you hear Hashem telling you to do something such as leave everything behind and just go. By Hashem giving Avraham some enticement to make it seem appealing, He was teaching Avraham to listen and follow. Even though Avraham had that enticement to go, he still deserved the reward and merit because he had learned to comply with a directive from Hashem. G-d told him to go, and he trusted that Heavenly Voice. He got up and went. He was the first one in his world to listen to Hashem’s instructions and comply.

This truth, this axiom, of listening to Hashem and following His commandments is now very clear to us. It is part of our fabric. We also now have that other axiom, that the greater the challenge the more the merit. But that second truth was not yet revealed to humanity. We learned it later. Our religious beliefs and our faith system are very structured and there are many principles that we have learned to accept and abide by. Yet, in those very early times when recognition of Hashem and obedience to Him was still a tenuous system waiting to be learned, and not yet written or taught to us, Avraham passed this test by listening and following, and, explained my little boy, the relative reward for less or more incentive was not really important. With or without enticement, the test was to see if he would listen and follow Hashem’s commandments. Avraham learned, and taught us, that our task is to listen and follow the Divine word. As the Navi Shmuel says, to listen is better than to bring an offering (15:22).

Here we are a few thousand years later. What seems clear is that we are meant to listen to Hashem, but He does not communicate directly with us, so “listening” means to put our faith in His Torah and in those who are exemplars of Torah. It may seem obvious now to us that the greater the challenge, the greater the reward. Yet what we derive from these early passages of the Torah is that we do not do things based on their being obvious. We do things because they are embedded in our religious faith system. Doing things because they are obvious to us means listening to our own minds. Doing things because they are Torah principles means listening to Hashem. n

Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at www.chailifeline.org/crisis.