Abraham gets up early in the morning, saddles his donkey, and climbs Mount Moria to sacrifice his son Isaac. At the last moment, G-d sends an angel to stop him.
וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אַל־תִּשְׁלַ֤ח יָֽדְךָ֙ אֶל־הַנַּ֔עַר וְאַל־תַּ֥עַשׂ ל֖וֹ מְא֑וּמָה כִּ֣י | עַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֗עְתִּי כִּֽי־יְרֵ֤א אֱלֹקְים֙ אַ֔תָּה וְלֹ֥א חָשַׂ֛כְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ֥ אֶת־יְחִֽידְךָ֖ מִמֶּֽנִּי:
(The angel) said, “Do not raise your hand against the young man (to slaughter him)! Do nothing to him! For now (that you have passed this test), I know that you fear G-d—since you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me.”Breishis 22:12
On this verse, Rashi brings down a medrash that speaks out more of the story: At that point, Abraham asks a question to G-d. He says, at first, You told me that I would have descendants through Isaac. Then You told me to sacrifice Isaac. But now, at least, You’ve told me not to sacrifice him anymore.
Abraham is bothered by a pretty clear question. The strange thing here though, is that he waited until this point to ask it. We would have asked G-d that question the moment He said to kill Isaac. “This doesn’t make sense, You promised that I’d have grandkids through Isaac, and now You are telling me to kill him?” But Abraham was going to go through with it and only afterwards ask the question?
We can learn an important lesson from here. It’s important to always ask questions, to understand why we do things. But sometimes, we need to act first, and ask questions later. When a mitzvah comes your way, time is often of the essence. We have to jump on the opportunity with trust that G-d has the details worked out.
If we get overly concerned about always understanding everything 100% before we act, or needing to be inspired with a particular mitzvah before doing it, we may find ourselves missing out on many mitzvos. Missing out on connection to G-d that we know is good, even if we don’t always see how immediately at the time.
The same is true in other areas of our life. If a loved one asks something of us, our first reaction shouldn’t be to interrogate them as to the full rationale of the action. Our gut reaction should be to do whatever they need. Then afterwards we can have a discussion about the whys.
Questions are good, but we can’t let them paralyze us. Sometimes you just have to make the trust fall, and talk about it afterwards.
Good Shabbos,
Rabbi A and the JET Team
