GEN1152 People looked up to as role models must act as role models. Piety in relation to God must be accompanied by exemplary behavior in relation to one’s fellow humans. When people associate religiosity with integrity, decency, humanity, and compassion, God’s name is sanctified. When they come to associated it with contempt for others and for the law, the result is a desecration of God’s name. [A] radical idea, central to Jewish self-definition, [is] that God has risked His reputation in the world, His “name,” by choosing to associate it with a single and singular people. God is the God of all humanity. But God has chosen Israel to be His “witnesses,” his ambassadors, to the world. When we fail in this role, it is as if God’s standing in the eyes of the world has been damaged. For almost 2,000 years the Jewish people was without a home, a land, civil rights, security, and the ability to shape its destiny and fate. It was cast in the role of what Max Weber called “a pariah people.” By definition, a pariah cannot be a positive role model. That is when Kiddush Hashem took on its tragic dimension as the willingness to die for one’s faith. That is no longer the case. Today, for the first time in history, Jews have both sovereignty and independence in Israel, and freedom and equality elsewhere. Kiddush HaShem must therefore be restored to its positive sense of exemplary decency in the moral life. That is what led the Hittites to call Abraham “a prince of God in our midst” [this verse].   It is what leads Israel to be admired when it engages in international rescue and relief. The concepts of kiddush and chillul Hashem forge an indissoluble connection between the holy and the good. Lose that and we betray our mission as “a holy nation.” The conviction that being a Jew involves the pursuit of justice and the practice of compassion is what led our ancestors to stay loyal despite all the pressures to abandon it. It would be the ultimate tragedy if we lost that connection now, at the very moment that we are able to face the world on equal terms. Long ago, we were called to show the world that religion and morality go hand-in-hand. Never was that more needed than in an age riven by religiously motivated violence in some countries, rampant secularity and others. To be a Jew is to be dedicated to the proposition that loving God means loving His image, humankind. There is no greater challenge, nor, in the 21st Century, is there a more urgent one.   SACKS 198-9

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GEN1153 People who have an exaggerated perception of their own superiority, based on wealth, power, or fame, will not deign to acknowledge a service rendered by person who they considered beneath their lofty status. Whatever is done for them is viewed as an active obeisance to which their position entitles them. Biblical accounts of exemplary behavior are intended to be viewed as models of ethical conduct. The virtue of appreciation has not been overlooked. The scenario of Abraham’s purchase of a burial plot is one example. Ephron the Hittite offer to make a gift of the desired plot. Abraham was aware that the offer it was a hollow display of showmanship. Nevertheless, he indicated proper appreciation and “bowed down before the people of the land” [This verse]. King David’s deathbed instructions to Solomon included a lesson in appreciation.  “Show kindness unto the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be of those that eat at thy table; for they drew nigh to me when I fled from Absalom thy brother” I Kings 2:7 BLOCH 29

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GEN1154 R. Elazar said: “The wicked say much, and do not do even a little.   How do we know this? From Efron.   In the beginning it is written: “four hundred silver shekels,” and in the end: “four hundred silver shekels current with the merchant,” Efron refusing to take anything but centenaria of far greater value than standard shekels Bava Metzia 87a TEMIMAH-GEN 106

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GEN1156 The Torah relates that our patriarch Abraham “Was blessed by God with everything” Genesis 24:1. His great wealth thus allowed him to perform, without financial worry, what later became a time-honored Jewish act. He bought his first parcel of land in Canaan, not as a legal ploy or as a long-term investment, but to bury his wife Sarah. Bargaining with the landowner Ephron to purchase the cave of Machpelah, Abraham accepted the very first, very high price Ephron quoted. Because he had the money, Abraham knowingly overpaid and secured is not only a burial ground but good relations with his neighbors [this verse]. Abraham was the first to perform a classic Jewish mitzvah. A long line of wealthy Jewish donors connets Abraham to the contemporary industrialist, Aaron Feuerstein. Fire nearly destroyed Malden Mills, his complex of textile factory plants located not far from Boston. Rather than retiring on the insurance money, he immediately began to rebuild his factories. He also paid the salaries and health care premiums of his 3000-personal workforce for three months, until most of his employees where once again working full time. Feuerstein saved their families from great hardship; he also saved and actually strengthened the economies of the cities of Lawrence and Methuen, Massachusetts. Only a mean-spirited individual would argue that Feuerstein, an Orthodox Jew in his seventies, did these acts to benefit his corporate balance sheet. Having been raised in the tradition of gemilut hasadim, the duty of acting with lovingkindness, he could fulfill that mitzvah because he had the means. BOROJMV 112-3

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GEN1155 See [[GEN1044]] Genesis 18:27 ashes SINAI3 201

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GEN1157 Five possessions has the Holy, Blessed One … [The heaven and earth; Abraham; the people Israel; the Sanctuary] … Pirkei Avot VI:10 At first sight there is a difficulty: Surely the whole universe is the possession of the Almighty, not merely these five entities.   The Psalmist declaims, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it—the world and those who dwell in it”; … moreover, we read, “the Lord will rejoice in His works” – all His works, since, as Scripture tells, “God saw all that He had made, and, behold it was very good.” Psalms 24:1, 104:24, 31, Genesis 1:31.  In what sense, then, are the five entities in our text the peculiar possession of the Holy One in His world, which He has singled out to “acquire” and make especially his own? Don Isaac Abarbanel finds the answer in the Hebrew for “possession,” kinyan; in this term he sees three connotations:   (1) In its sense of purchasing, buying, kinyan signifies something an individual acquires through what he himself does. Thus, after Abraham gave its owner the agreed price for a field, tht he might bury Sarah there, Scripture tells that the field was rendered “to Abraham for a possession” (miknah, same root as kinyan); later, it is described as the field “that Abraham bought (kanah).” Genesis 23:18, Genesis 49:30. Similarly, many acts of purchase described in the Talmud take effect when the owner does a symbolic physical act: e.g. he gives money (as Abraham aid), lifts up the object he is buying, or leads away an animal that he is acquiring; or the seller gives him a part of his purchase to hold, etc. See e.g. Mishnah, Kiddushin i 4; Talmud 22b and 26a; Baba Metzi’a 9a; 47 a-b. (2) It donotes an abiding, permanent relationship between the acquisition and the one who makes it his.   It does not become his possession lightly, haphazardly, or temporarily. It becomes his thoroughly and permanently. (3) Finally, kinyan connotes something beloved and cherished by the one who makes it his. Originally this is part of the word’s usual meaning of purchase: for as the Sages insightfully observe, anything bought will have a charm, a grace in the eyes of its news owner. By extension, though, it can denote any possession that is particularly valuable and cherished, that is owner feels grateful for having. With the three facets of meaning in mind, we can see why the text calls five entities alone the kinyanim of the Holy One. SINAI3 391-2

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GEN1158 With the notable exception of Kind David, Jewish history has no famous conquerors. Conquering space has never been a Jewish pastime.   But utilizing time well is a crucial tenet of Judaism.   Our famous men are great Sages who were celebrated for using their time wisely, devoting it to the service of God and humanity, and acquiring knowledge and wisdom.   Similarly, the Bible records that Abraham “was elderly, filled with days”[this verse]. Most people’s lives are measured in years, But Abraham’s was measured in days, since he impregnated every moment with meaning and purpose.  He never squandered a day.  To go to a holy place, one must undertake a long and arduous journey, leaving behind family and home.  But to enter into a holy time, man need only remain passive, in his natural surroundings, until the sacred moment overtakes him. … The lesson for each of us in our daily lives is to remember the preciousness of the moment.   BOTEACH 156

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GEN1160 See [[GEN1156]] Genesis 23:16 paid BOROJMV 112-3

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GEN1159 Hoary age is a crown of glory … Pirkei Avot VI:8   R. Abbahu taught: It was asked of Solomon, “Who is slated for life in the world-to-come?” Said he, “whoever has honor before him in his old age” – in keeping with the last verse in our text.   Thus it is clearly a fine thing for the righteous to achieve old age with honor. And the Sages teach: Wherever you find elders, the Omnipresent Sovereign bestows honor on them. Talmud Baba Bathra 10b; Midrash Sifre, Numbers §92 As to hoary old age, Scripture tells, “Abraham was old, well advanced in age” [this verse] and earlier, the Almighty promised him, “you shall be buried at a good hoary age.” Genesis 15:15. SINAI3 377

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GEN1161 The Torah protects a man from all manner of evil in his youth, and provides him with a goodly end and expectation in his old age, as it is written: “And Abraham became old, and the Lord blessed Abraham with everything” Kiddushin 22a TEMIMAH-GEN 107

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