Avos 5:3

בס׳ד

אבות ה:ג

Ten are the tests imposed upon Avraham Avinu (may he be blessed), And he withstood them all. This teaches us how beloved was Avraham Avinu (may he be blessed).

עֲשָׂרָה נִסְיוֹנוֹת נִתְנַסָּה אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם וְעָמַד בְּכֻלָּם, לְהוֹדִיעַ כַּמָּה חִבָּתוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם:

        There is a lot of dispute about exactly which tests the mishnah has in mind.  Each version of Avos d’Rabbi Noson, for example, offers a slightly different list of tests (A, 33; B, 36).  Rashi and Rambam also have different opinions, with such giants as Rabbi Ovadiah of Bertinura and the Vilna Gaon following Rashi. The main issue, it seems, is whether to count those tests which are known only from midrash, such as the way Avraham Avinu was tested in Ur Kasdim as Nimrod threw him into a fiery furnace (Bavli Pesahim 118a and, further, Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer.

        If we follow Rambam’s method of listing only the tests mentioned in the Written Torah, they include the following events:

1. 1.   The command to leave Haran (Bereshis 12:1)
2. 2.   The famine in Eretz Yisroel (12:10)
3. 3.   Sarah’s sojourn in Pharoah’s court (12:15)
4. 4.   The battle of the four kings (14:15)
5. 5.   The marriage to Hagar (16:2)
6. 6.   His self-circumcision (17:10)
7. 7.   Sarah’s sojourn in Avimelekh’s court (20:2)
8. 8.   The punishment of Hagar (21:10)
9. 9.   The exile of Yishmael (21:11)
10. 10. The binding of Yitzhak (22:1)

        But even here there is a problem, for Rabbi Ovadiah includes one test known from the Written Torah that Rambam omits: Abraham’s terror at being shown a vision of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt (Bereshis 15:13).

        We will probably have to agree to live with a little fuzziness about exactly which tests the mishnah has in mind.  But there’s yet another problem to face.  In what sense can we believe that Avraham Avinu “withstood” the tests of sending Sarah into the palaces of Pharoah and of Avimelekh?  He feared for his life and sent his wife as a peace offering?  Rashi and others explain that Avraham Avinu, despite his sufferings, “never questioned Divine justice”.  Perhaps so - but in this case it seems Sarah suffered quite a bit more than did her husband.

        Listen to what Ramban has to say about this in his comment to Bereshis 21:10: “Be absolutely clear that Avraham Avinu committed an enormous inadvertent sin in imposing this stumbling block of iniquity upon his righteous wife out of fear for his own life.  He should have trusted HaShem to save him. his wife, and all they had, for God has the power to save!…And because of this sin, the punishment of exile to Egypt was imposed upon his descendants…”. Ramban doesn’t seem to think that Avraham Avinu passed this test with particular distinction.

        Maybe a solution to this puzzle comes in the conclusion of the mishnah: the tests show that Avraham Avinu was loved by HaShem in a unique way.  Might we say that this unique love was a Divine response to a particular quality of Avraham Avinu?  That is, Avraham may have abandoned trust in HaShem in a moment of weakness.  He may have done some despicable things, not once but even twice.  But he never lost faith either in his own ability to do teshuvah, or in HaShem’s ability to respond with love and reconciliation.  He was flawed.  He had moments of great trust, but also moments of doubt and despair in which he acted foolishly and even immorally.  But he also knew he could, in all his brokenness, stand before HaShem and confess his fault and be restored to wholeness.  That’s the test that each of us faces every day.  Not to be perfect, but to continue to approach HaShem in all our imperfection.  Maybe this is why Avraham Avinu passed even those tests he failed!

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