5784/2023
After burying Sarah, Avraham sends off his trusted servant Eliezer to
find a wife for Yitzchak to partner with him to be the matriarch of the
Jewish people. One would think Avraham would have a long list of
criteria for the woman who gets to fill such an important role in
Jewish history. Shockingly, though, Avraham gave one simple request:
לא תקח אשה לבני מבנות הכנעני אשר אנכי יושב בקרבו: כי אל ארצי ואל מולדתי תלך”
ליצחק לבני אשה ולקחת,” “Don’t take a wife for my son from the Canaanite
women which I am living amongst, rather go to my homeland and take
a wife from there.” (BeReishit 24:4).
Asks the Kli Yakar, why was Avraham so adamant that his
daughter-in-law be from Charan rather than from Eretz Canaan? After
all, both are from families who worship Avodah Zarah!
Rav Asher Weiss offers that while both the Canaanite and Charan
women were brought up in idolatrous homes, Avraham understood
that the Canaanite women also inherited many of their parent’s
detestable habits and were lacking in fundamental values. The women
from Charan, however, were mature and principled individuals who
merely worshiped Avodah Zarah because they were taught to from
infancy. Avraham, of all people, understood the difference between a good
person in a bad situation and a purely wicked person. Rashi in
Parashat Lech Lecha says Avraham and Sarah converted several
pagans from their homeland of Charan before entering Eretz Yisrael.
Avraham believed in the potential of someone fully committed to
doing teshuva to the extent he was ready to marry off his son to a
former polytheist woman and entrust her with bearing the future of
his nation.
Rav Rosensweig explains that what we are currently witnessing in
Eretz Yisrael is the diminishment of Tzelem Elokim. The atrocities
committed by Hamas show that they are an organization of
intrinsically evil people who must be destroyed. They don’t value
human life whatsoever, whether it be Israeli civilian lives, or even the
lives of the Palestinian people which they ruin. May Hashem grant the
IDF success in their mission to destroy Hamas and bring back the
hostages quickly and safely.