30 | NOVEMBER 7 • 2024 

T

he most influential man who 
ever lived does not appear 
on any list I have seen of the 
hundred most influential men who 
ever lived. He ruled no empire, 
commanded no army, engaged in 
no spectacular acts 
of heroism on the 
battlefield, performed 
no miracles, proclaimed 
no prophecy, led no 
vast throng of followers 
and had no disciples 
other than his own 
child. Yet today more 
than half of the billions of people 
alive on the face of the planet 
identify themselves as his heirs.
His name, of course, is Abraham, 
held as the founder of faith by the 
three great monotheisms, Judaism, 
Christianity and Islam. He fits 
no conventional stereotype. He 
is not described as unique in his 
generation, as in the case of Noah. 
The Torah tells us no tales of his 
childhood, as it does in the case of 
Moses. We know next to nothing 
about his early life. When God calls 

on him, as He does at the beginning 
of this week’s parshah, to leave his 
land, his birthplace and his father’s 
house, we have no idea why he was 
singled out.
“Yet never was a promise more 
richly fulfilled than the words of God 
to him when He changed his name 
from Abram to Abraham: ‘For I have 
made you father of many nations.’” 
Gen. 17:5
There are today 56 Islamic nations, 
more than 80 Christian ones and the 
Jewish state. Truly, Abraham became 
the father of these many nations. But 
who and what was Abraham? Why 
was he chosen for this exemplary 
role?
There are three famous portraits 
of Abraham. The first is the Midrash 
we learned as children. Abraham, 
left alone with his father’s idols, 
breaks them with a hammer, which 
he leaves in the hand of the biggest 
of the idols. His father, Terah, comes 
in, sees the devastation, asks who has 
caused it, and the young Abraham 
replies, “Can you not see? The 
hammer is in the hands of the largest 

idol. It must have been him.” Terah 
replies, “But an idol is mere of wood 
and stone.” Abraham replies, “Then, 
father, how can you worship them?” 
This is Abraham the iconoclast, 
the breaker of images, the man who 
while still young rebelled against 
the pagan, polytheistic world of 
demigods and demons, superstition 
and magic.
The second is more haunting and 
is enigmatic. Abraham, says the 
Midrash, is like a man traveling on 
a journey when he sees a palace in 
flames: He wondered, “Is it possible 
that the palace lacks an owner?” The 
owner of the palace looked out and 
said, “I am the owner of the palace.” 
So Abraham, our father, said, “Is it 
possible that the world lacks a ruler?” 
God looked out and said to him, “I 
am the Ruler, the Sovereign of the 
universe.” Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 
38:13
This is an extraordinary passage. 
Abraham sees the order of nature, 
the elegant design of the universe. It’s 
like a palace. It must have been made 
by someone, for someone. But the 

palace is on fire. How can this be? 
Surely the owner should be putting 
out the flames. You don’t leave a 
palace empty and unguarded. Yet the 
owner of the palace calls out to him, 
as God called to Abraham, asking 
him to help fight the fire.
God needs us to fight the 
destructive instinct in the human 
heart. This is Abraham, the fighter 
against injustice, the man who sees 
the beauty of the natural universe 
being disfigured by the sufferings 
inflicted by man on man.
Finally comes a third image, this 
time by Moses Maimonides:
After he was weaned, while still 
an infant, Abraham’s mind began to 
reflect. Day and night, he thought 
and wondered, “How is it possible 
that this celestial sphere should 
continuously be guiding the world 
and have no one to guide it and 
cause it to turn, for it cannot be that 
it turns itself?” He had no teacher, 
no one to instruct him in anything. 
He was surrounded, in Ur of the 
Chaldees, by foolish idolaters. His 
father and mother and the entire 
population worshipped idols, and 
he worshipped with them. But his 
mind was constantly active and 
reflective, until he had attained 
the way of truth, found the correct 
line of thought and knew that 
there is one God, He that guides 
the celestial spheres and created 
everything, and that among all 
that exists, there is no God beside 
Him. Maimonides, Hilchot Avodat 
Kochavim 1:3
This is Abraham the philosopher, 
anticipating Aristotle, using 
metaphysical argument to prove the 
existence of God.

THREE IMAGES OF 
WHAT IT IS TO BE JEWISH
Three images of Abraham; three 
versions, perhaps, of what it is 
to be a Jew. The first sees Jews as 
iconoclasts, challenging the idols of 
the age. Even secular Jews who had 
cut themselves adrift from Judaism 
were among the most revolutionary 
modern thinkers, most famously 

On Being a 
 Jewish Parent

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

COTTONBRO STUDIO

