Outlook

I’m writing less than twenty-four hours prior to my son Elisha’s chasunah. (Deadlines wait for no man.) For the parents of the young couple a major simchah is an occasion to both look backwards and to look forward. But for the young couple there is only the future.

Though the Jewish People have the richest past of any people our focus is uniquely to the future. The Ramban famously asks at the beginning of Parshas Lech Lecha why the story of Avraham effectively begins with the command to go to the “Land … that I will show you” with no mention of his prior path in finding his way to Hashem.

In other respects too Avraham is presented as a human being without a past. The Gemara asks “Where is Avraham hinted to in the Torah?” And the answer is found in the verse “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth in their creation [b’hibaram] …” The letters b’hibaram are the same as Avraham. In other words Avraham was in some sense a creation m’ayin (from nothing) just like the heavens and the earth.

At the end of Parshas Noach we read of Terach’s death prior to the command to Avraham to leave his father’s house. Terach actually lived for many years after the command to Avraham but the Torah records the events in this sequence to indicate that Avraham’s filial relationship to Terach was severed prior to embarking on his mission.