As a high school rebbe, I often find comfort in the following midrash:

On one occasion, Rabbi Akiva looked up from his lesson to discover his students dozing.  (If even Rabbi Akiva couldn’t always keep his students engaged, who I am to think I can?)

Rabbi Akiva employed a curious solution.  “In what merit did Queen Esther rule over 127 provinces?”  he asked.  “Because her ancestor Sara lived for 127 years.”  This seems to have roused his talmidim from their stupor and returned them to their study (Bereishis Rabbah 58:3).

I’ve tried Rabbi Akiva’s solution a few times.  I’m sure it will surprise no one that his method produced far less success for me than it did for him.  And although it may be easy to attribute my failure to yeridas haDoros, the decline of the generations, perhaps a more relevant lesson can be found elsewhere in the parsha.

So much of the parsha is devoted to Eliezer’s repetition of his instructions from Avrohom, concerning which the sages offer their famous comment that HaShem finds the conversation of the patriarchs’ servants more pleasing than the teachings of their children.  For his sincere service to his master, Eliezer earned the appellation eved Avrohom (servant of Abraham), only one step removed from the highest possible praise, eved HaShem.

It seems inconsistent, therefore, that the Torah alludes to an ulterior motive at the very outset of Eliezer’s recapitulation.  When he recounts the history of his search to Rivka’s family, Eliezer explains how Avrohom assured him of HaShem’s guidance when Eliezer expressed his fear that, “Perhaps the woman will not follow me.”  Rashi observes that the word perhaps, ulai, is written so that it may also be read, eilai — to me, suggesting that Eliezer had hoped to wed his own daughter to Yitzchok.  If so, how can we understand the sages’ praise of Eliezer as a selfless eved?

To make matters more difficult, why does the Torah allude to Eliezer’s self-interest here, now that he is repeating the story, rather than earlier in the parsha, when he actually stated his question to Avrohom?

In fact, the second question answers the first.  The Kotzker Rebbe explains that when Eliezer originally expressed his question to Avrohom, he genuinely believed that he was asking in the best interests of Yitzchok.  Eliezer had convinced himself that he truly sought Avrohom’s guidance should he fail in his mission to find Yitzchok a suitable wife.

It was only when he recounted the episode to Rivka’s family that Eliezer realized his real motives.  Only from a vantage point of objective distance could Eliezer finally see that his well-intentioned request had truly been prompted by personal bias.

And so we find no inconsistency in the sages’ portrayal of Eliezer.  He was indeed a true eved.  But even a true eved is not immune to the seductive influence of self-interest, and even a true eved may be unable to recognize personal bias at the moment when it afflicts him.  The same Eliezer for whom the way was miraculously shortened, for whom the waters rose to identify Rivka as Yitzchok’s match, for whom the curse of Ham transformed into a blessing, this same Eliezer who so loyally served Avrohom could not identify in himself the self-deception that sought to undermine Avrohom’s plans to find Yitzchok’s bashert.

So too, perhaps, the students of Rabbi Akiva. Rav Mendel Weinbach explains that Rabbi Akiva intended to impress upon his talmidim a sense of responsibility not only to themselves but also to future generations.  What would have happened had Sara not devoted every moment of her 127 years to her service of HaShem?  Without her merit, Esther would not have become queen.  And had Esther not become queen, she would not have been positioned in the house of King Achashverosh to save the Jewish people.

Rabbi Akiva admonished his students by impressing upon them that, even if each might be willing to forgo his own portion in the World to Come, future generations might need the merit of their learning just as Esther had needed Sara’s merit so that she could save the Jewish people.  You may be prepared to sacrifice a measure of your own reward, Rabbi Akiva suggested, but are you prepared to sacrifice your children and grandchildren as well?

Indeed, Rabbi Akiva’s rebuke to his talmidim reminds us how easily we make excuses for our own lack of mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice) and how cheaply we are prepared to sell the priceless benefits of our portion in the World to Come.  The momentary attraction of slackening in our divine service, of taking the line of least resistance even at the expense of our own heavenly reward, seems so reasonable that we our own rationalization for what it is – the most subtle tactic of the yeitzer hara.

Like Eliezer, however, the students of Rabbi Akiva could be shaken out of their lethargy, both literally and figuratively.  The words of their rebbe penetrated their momentary carelessness and roused them to return to their study of the Divine Word.  How inspiring that those students allowed themselves to be so easily inspired!

But we are not merely careless.  We are committed to our carelessness, determined to sink into the drowsiness of indifference and ignore our rebbes’ reproof, whether that reproof comes from the rabbi or the rosh yeshiva, or even from the Torah itself.  We offer a whole litany of excuses why we don’t need reexamine our ways, indulging the routine of habit just like, the Mesillas Yesharim tells us, a blind man walking in darkness. 

We all have moments, however, when a window of opportunity opens, when our resistance to self-awareness drops, if only for a moment, and we can look back and take stock of ourselves.  And, as those fleeting moments become fewer and fewer, they become ever more precious.

If we are honest with ourselves then, in the light of objectivity, we all know what’s at stake.  No matter how difficult it is to be consistent models of kindness, of character, of diligence, of kiddush HaShem before our children’s eyes, we appreciate the potential cost and risk.  If we make excuses for our laxity, if we exempt ourselves from our service, then we will have failed not some distant generation, as Rabbi Akiva warned his talmidim.  Rather, we will be failing the next generation, our own children whom we brought into the world and with whose spiritual development HaShem has entrusted us.

The 127 years of Sara’s life, years equal in beauty and righteousness, did not end with Sara’s death.  The blessings of Sara’s tent continued in the next generation through the merit of Rivka, and Sara’s own merit transcended a thousand years to the generation of Esther.  The benefits of her effort and her service are beyond measure, and they teach us that ours can be, too, if we strive to live as she did.

Although the Almighty designed the world as a place for every man to earn his eternal reward through the proper application of his own free will, G-d is only willing to tolerate man’s wickedness up to a point before He intervenes.  And so, when the moral corruption of the city of Sodom surpassed the bounds of tolerability, G-d decreed the city’s destruction in a violent overthrow of fire and brimstone.

Before acting, however, the Almighty engages in a curious discussion with His heavenly hosts.  “Shall I conceal from Abraham what I intend to do?”  G-d asks.  “For Avrohom will become a great and mighty nation, and through him all the nations of the world will be blessed.  Indeed, I have made Myself known to him, so that he will command his children and his household after him, that they will guard the way of HaShem, doing charity and justice, in order that HaShem will bring upon Avrohom everything He has promised” (Bereishis 18:17-19).

The beginning and the end of G-d’s reflection seem to have no connection.  What does Avrohom’s future as a great nation have to do with the need to inform him of G-d’s iminent actions?  Furthermore, G-d’s description of Avrohom’s righteousness seems to imply that Avrohom’s instruction of his household is motivated by his own desire to receive the reward G-d had promised him.  If so, what merit is there in that?

Let me offer an answer to the second question first.  And, in the style of Jewish discourse, let me answer the question with a question:

What is it that we can give to G-d?  Since His is infinite and eternal, without either need or want, He certainly does not need our service or our obediance.  He gains nothing through our compliance with His will.  Rather, the Almighty desires that we keep His laws as the means of earning our eternal reward.  If so, the one thing we can give to G-d is the opportunity to give us the reward He wants us to have by earning it through the observance of His commandments. 

This is the true motivation of our patriarch Avrohom:  to keep G-d’s laws not to receive G-d’s reward for his own benefit, but as an act of giving, thereby providing the Almighty with the only thing He truly desires — the oppotunity to bestow the greatest possible blessing upon the world and all mankind. 

Moreover, Avrohom was not satisfied to keep the commandments himself, nor even to shape the values of the world around him.  Rather, Avrohom’s ultimate mission was to instill the values of G-dliness in his children by teaching them to guard the way of HaShem, doing charity and justice, so that an awareness of the Divine Will would never again be lost to the world as it was after the days of Adam and Noah.

How does this explain why HaShem could not conceal His plans from Avrohom?  In general, we understand that G-d conceals His presence to allow us free will in choosing good over evil.  In such a world, wickedness may sometimes thrive and flourish, compelling man to seek out G-d’s justice.  But when destruction rains down from the sky, when G-d Himself wreaks vengeance that makes no distinction between the wicked and righteous, how then can mankind believe in the absolute justice of the Almighty?

For Avrohom to succeed in teaching G-d’s justice, he himself must fully understand G-d’s justice.  And if the destruction of Sodom will appear to be less than just, then G-d must reveal His plan to Avrohom so that Avrohom can discern the justice inherent in the act.

Possessed of an unassailable understanding of Divine Justice, Avrohom could succeesfully transmit the G-dly virtues of charity and justice to his descendants, making it possible for them to grow into a great nation through which all the nations of the world would be blessed.  In this way, the purpose of creation would be achieved as all mankind would have the opportunity to earn the reward that G-d wants all human beings to receive.

King Solomon says:  The one who hates gifts will live.  He does not instruct us to refuse gifts, but to hate them.  For indeed, if no one accepted gifts, than no one would be able to give.  Rather, by seeing gifts not as gifts but as opportunities to allow others to give, we will always be givers instead of takers, living and modeling the virtues of charity and kindness, and spreading G-d’s blessing throughout the world.