Think Deep Live Deep

Part One: Eliezer MiDamasek, The One Who Draws And Gives To Drink

In this week’s parsha, Eliezer is sent on a mission by Avraham to find a wife for Yitzchak, and in the process, we see something we don’t see very often in the Torah: long and seemingly repetitive dialogue. It’s not just that we read, in detail, Avraham’s instructions to Eliezer (8 pesukim), Eliezer’s prayer to Hashem for help (3 pesukim), Eliezer’s conversation with Rivka (9 pesukim) and Eliezer’s prayer of thanks (2 pesukim). We read it all again, in the 16 pesukim it takes Eliezer to repeat the whole story to Lot.  What can we understand from this uncharacteristic repetition? The midrash (see Rashi on Bereisheit 24:42) comes to an astonishing conclusion: Hashem loves the ordinary conversation of the servants of our forefathers, perhaps more than the Torah of their children.

What was so special about Eliezer and his conversations? What are we meant to learn from him? Yoma (28b) tells us that Eliezer’s name, Demasek, was an acronym for the words “doleh u’mashkeh” which mean to draw forth and give to drink. Eliezer’s talent was his ability to draw out what was hidden within Avraham’s words and actions, and then teach those lessons and that spirituality to others. You might think it was easy to learn from one of the greatest men than ever lived. But it was not as easy as it seemed. Avraham lived in the deepest way possible, but his actions all appeared simple. R’ Michal of Zlotchow says that when the angels came to visit Avraham, they wanted to observe this man they knew to be a tzaddik, to see why his every action was so precious to Hashem. They expected to see an angel on earth. What they saw instead was what appeared to be a perfectly normal person. In astonishment, they asked Avraham, “Where is Sara your wife?” (Bereisheit 18:9). They thought that perhaps they would be able to understand by watching Sara. But Avraham answered, “She is in the tent.” She is just as tznuah as I am, and you will not learn anything by simply observing her.

Despite how normal and simple Avraham’s actions appeared on the outside, the truth was there was tremendous depth to his every movement. The Torah tells us that “Avraham was old, ba bayamim,” which literally means, he came into his old age with his days (Bereisheit 24:1). What does this mean? We generally think of time as something that is continually slipping away. Moments happen, and then they are gone. Sometimes they live on in our memory. The truth is more complicated. It is the moments that we do not invest with eternal purpose that slip away into nothingness. But every moment we do invest in, by using it to fulfill our purpose in this world, or using it to connect to Hashem, to our neshama, and to the people and situations in our life, is a moment which gains an eternal existence. Moments we invest in spiritually are moments we get to keep eternally. The greatness of Avraham was that he brought every moment of every day with him into his eternal life. Not one moment was missing. Every moment was used for eternal purpose, and so every moment lasted eternally.

How did he do this? To explain our pasuk, that Avraham was old and came with his days, the Midrash Tanchuma turns to Tehillim 104. There, David Hamelech turns to the nature of his own soul to understand the nature of Hashem. The midrash tells us that this is what David realized: when an earthly king puts his image onto a form, the image becomes constrained to the size and shape of the form, but  this is not the case for Hashem. When Hashem puts His image on a form, His image is still greater than all the constraints of the form. David Hamelech turned to his own soul and recognized,“Hashem eloki, gedalta me’od,” this spark of Hashem that is within me, even though it is constrained in my body, is very, very big. My soul is bigger than my body. My neshama reaches up to the greatest heights.

And from this feeling, David understood that all of creation is the same way. There is nothing simple in this world. Every piece of the world is animated by a Divine spark, and that spark remains always much greater than the physical reality into which is has been placed. Everything in our world has tremendous spiritual depth, which means that every person, and every moment of every person’s life, has the potential for tremendous spiritual depth.

Eliezer was able to see and understand the greatness that lay behind every one of Avraham’s seemingly simple actions. He not only understood it, he put it into action. All of Eliezer’s conversations and tefillot consisted of things he learned from Avraham. It is through his actions and his words, which are clearly spelled out in the Torah, that we can get a glimpse of the greatness of Avraham, whose actions and thoughts are much more hidden.

Part Two: The Mission

Eliezer’s mission was to draw out the holy neshama of Rivka from the tremendous tumah of the house of Lavan. This may appear to be somewhat removed from our everyday life, but the Sfat Emet (Parshat Shelach) explains that each of us is tasked with a similar mission. We, too, are sent into a place of tumah, in our case this physical world, and asked to draw out of it a holy neshama, in our case our own neshama. Learning the secret of success for Eliezer gives us important information on how to succeed in our own mission.

So how did Eliezer do it? The midrash explains Eliezer’s shita, his life philosophy. Eliezer was a descendant of Cana’an, and as such had been cursed by Noach. He was doomed to a life of servitude. And yet . . . there was a tradition that Noach had given that curse as a tikkun. That there was a purpose to it. And so, instead of trying to escape his situation, Eliezer came to terms with his unique place in the world. He understood that he did not have a choice not to serve. But he did have a choice of who he would serve. His choice was that he refused to serve any random warlord who happened to come by. He chose to serve Avraham.

Once Eliezer made that choice, he threw himself into the project whole heartedly. He made himself a shaliach, a messenger, who was completely identified with his mission. He defined himself as “Avraham’s servant.” And this created a new reality. Avraham’s wealth was in his hand—not just his physical wealth, but his spiritual wealth. He grew in his mission, and took on the characteristics of his sender, so that we see Lavan addressing him as “Blessed to Hashem” (24:31). Through his unswerving devotion to his mission, Eliezer changed his essence from cursed to blessed.

Like Eliezer, when we take a real look at our unique place in this post-Gan Eden world, we have to face the reality that our situation is not perfect. We are in galut, and the gemara (Sotah 49a) tells us that in galut, each day’s curse is greater than the last.  Iyov (5:7) tells us, “Man was born to work.” There is no real “get out of work” card. And the reality is that we all serve something in our lives. But like Eliezer, we have a very real choice. We can choose who we serve.

The Sfat Emet tells us that each of us in this world is on a mission from Hashem. If we are on a mission, that means that the wealth and the power of the One who sent us is available to us, at least in part, when we give ourselves wholeheartedly to the mission. When we are real about who we are, and what our purpose in this world is, we are able to connect to our sender, and that opens up tremendous resources and blessings from above, that accompany us throughout our mission in this world.