Why does G-d Test Us? Sermon Parshat Vayera 2014

I would like to open with a scene from a movie that I cannot get out of my mind. I don't remember the movie or the actor. The main actor is retiring from his firm after many years of hard work. There is a beautiful retirement party where wonderful speeches are delivered about how valuable the retiree was to the firm. The retiree has also spent a lot of time with his successor giving over all of his files so that his successor will know what to do in different situations that can come up. The next morning the retiree wakes up and realizes that he forgot something at his office. He gets in his car, drives to the office, drives around the back to the parking lot. When he passes the garbage dump, he sees all of his files put out in the garbage.
So sad on so many levels.
One of the reasons that this scene is so sad is because we desperately want to believe that we are unique, special and even irreplaceable. Yet at the end of a long career, the retiree realized that he was completely replaceable. A new person would come in with his own ideas and after a few weeks, the old guy would be forgotten. From time to time, I go back to that scene and it saddens me. If you think about almost every aspect of our lives, we are so replaceable. Even if we work hard on something and do a good job, the reality is that many others could do the same if we were not there. So sad….
But this week, I discovered a beautiful insight from our parshah that I think offers a much more positive perspective.
Let us begin with some questions. We have been learning all about Avraham's life the last two weeks. If you were asked to sum up Avraham's life in one sentence, what would you say? Well the mishna in Avot says this:

עשרה נסיונות נתנסה אברהם ועמד בכלם להודיע חבתו של אברהם אבינו…

Avraham was tested 10 times and he withstood every test to demonstrate his love for G-d. 

The mishna summarizes Avraham's life by basically saying that he was a test-passer. Two questions. First, is this the greatest thing we can say about Avraham? What about all of his chesed? What about הנפש אשר עשו בחרן. Avraham was the first to discover monotheism and then he spread it to so many others. What about the fact that according to the midrash, Avraham and Sarah kept the entire Torah even before it was given. We have a hard enough time keeping it now that we have the text, yet Avraham and Sarah kept all of the torah before it existed in this world. Not bad! 

Yet, when we summarize Avraham's life, we talk about the tests and trials. Why?

Question #2 is a theological or philosophical one. Why does G-d test us? When you think about most tests, there are two parties; the tester and the testee. The tester (say, a teacher) tests his or her students to find out if they know the material. If you take a driving test, the tester (the state) tests the driver to find out if he or she has the knowledge and skill to not kill anyone with the car. But why then would G-d ever have to test Avraham or anyone. Didn't G-d know before the trial of the Binding of Isaac that Avraham would do it. Why all the drama if G-d knew in advance. Why does G-d have to test us. Doesn't G-d know whether or not we will pass the test?

So we have two questions on the table. #1 - Why are tests so important? #2 - Why would an all knowing G-d have to test?

Well the Ramban (Nachmanides) is bothered by the second question. He therefore claims that הנסיון מצד המנוסה- Tests (at least divine tests) are for the Testee and not for the tester….להוציא הכח אל הפועל - to actualize our potential. In other words, G-d tests us not to to find out if we will do the right thing. G-d already knows. G-d tests us so that we can take all of our latent potential that we worked hard at by performing mitzvoth and good deeds and through the test, the difficult situation, we actualize our latent potential and become even better and stronger people. 

This is a very powerful idea but I want to take it even deeper by sharing a teaching of the Meor Eynayim, Reb Nochum of Chernobyl (18th century Chassidic Master). 

Every once in a while, I will read a text (often a chassidic text) and it will hit in such a deep way that it forces me to rethink everything I do. This text was one of those. Listen closely (with an open heart).

כל יהודי יש לו שליחות מלמעלה שלמענה ירד לעולם…

"Every Jew (I would say every person) has a unique special mission that for it, he or she descended to this world"

Let me pause here. You ever ask yourself, "why am I here?" Why was I created? The answer (according to Reb Nochum of Chernobyl) is that I was created to complete my special mission which nobody else can do. It is completely unique to me. 

There is only one problem. I don't know what my mission is. We are not born with a little instructions book telling us what our mission is. So how do we know what our mission is?

Reb Nochum of Chernobyl continues. 

וכל יהודי יש לו עשרה נסיונות כפי ערך שלו

We all have 10 tests throughout our lives just like Avraham. We all have our Lech Lecha moment when we have to pick up and go, we all have our moment of arriving at that place where we promised that it would be better and then what happens, ויהי רעב בארץ - there was a famine and they had to go down to Egypt. Instead of getting better, it got worse. 

We all have our Hagars and Yishmaels with family struggles and tests and trials. And just like Sarah was barren, we all have difficult tests around health and medical issues. And finally, we all have our Akedah. We all have something (or somethings) in life that are so valuable and then we realize that for our spiritual/emotional/family growth and wellbeing, we must sacrifice that thing. 

We all have 10 tests throughout our life. And Reb Nochum tells us that while it is true that we are never explicitly told what our mission is but to the extent that we withstand those tests, to the extent that we muster all of our strength and find people and community that can help us pass our tests, to that extent we will fulfill our mission. And that mission is something which is completely unique to us. Nobody else could accomplish it. This is why when the mishna summarizes Avraham's life in one sentence, it tells us that he passed those tests. Because all of the other things were wonderful but the way that he fulfilled his unique divine mission was by stepping up to the very challenging tests. 

So I return to the scene from the movie. Our retiree realized that he was completely replaceable. So sad. 

But we must remember that even though it is true that professionally, socially and in almost every area of life we are replaceable, there is one area that we are unique and completely irreplaceable. That is our spiritual mission for which we descended to this world. Only we can accomplish it. Only we can fulfill that mission and we do it through realizing those 10 moments in life and stepping up to the challenge. 

Let me conclude with a story. Rabbi Mendel Futerfas was a chabad chasid from Russia. During the soviet regime, he continued to teach torah to children. He was caught and sent to the Siberian Gulag for  14 years. Even though it was freezing and the work was back-breaking, Mendel always walked around with a smile on his face. Mendel had a fellow inmate, a non-jew, who had been a prominent banker before his arrest. One day, the banker asked Mendel, "How can you walk around this awful place with a smile. it is so dreadful here."

Mendel said the following to the banker. "I understand why you are so depressed. Your identity had been completely crushed. Before you came, you were a prominent banker. You loved your work, your wealth and the prestige. Now that you are here, you are an inmate in the Gulag. Your identity has been shattered. But for me, I have the same identity here as I had before my arrest. Before my arrest I was a teacher of Torah and now, perhaps to a different audience, I try to teach Torah. Before my arrest I tried to spread the love of G-d and now I do the same. Before my arrest, I tried to fulfill my divine mission by stepping up to my challenges and now I do the same. So even though it is freezing, the work is so hard and I miss my family, I still walk around with a smile. I am fulfilling my unique mission which only I can fulfill in this world."

We all have a divine mission. That mission is unique to us. Nobody else can do it. I am spiritually irreplaceable and completely indispensable. Lets learn the lesson from Avraham and Sarah. Lets grab those moments and with everything we have step up to our challenges in life. 

Shabbat Shalom.