A Calling

 October 30, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     All professions have their special art. In our early education, we discover the kind of professions that attract us for our life's work. But this does not always determine what we will eventually do. People sometimes find, even after years of pursuing a profession, that they would be happier doing something else. They feel called to change their focus, and change their lives. A friend of mine trained to become a concert violinist, actually became a world-class violinist, and discovered that what he really enjoyed was introducing music and violin to children on Indian reservations and in high schools throughout North America. Like most concert violinists, he tours, but his challenges are very different from theirs. And, when a person uses his or her talent and art in such a singular way, we say that he or she has a "calling."

     In the portion called Lech-Lecha, the story begins when Abraham is full-grown. Almost the first information we hear is Abraham's "calling." "Get you up, and get you away! Go where I show you and I will make you a great nation." Whatever Abraham did before, he is now being called to leave it behind.

     This opens a wide field for speculation. What did Abraham do before? How did he learn about the One God? Did he literally hear God's voice, or is that a biblical metaphor for the way that he behaved? Was he part of a larger migration? Were other people in his time setting out on journeys to the West? Was he part of an ancient "gold rush" or "land rush?" Did the Mesopotamians encourage people to move West because they had a "Territorial Imperative" to spread from their rivers to the sea? We do not know any of this.

     The Rabbis pursued this vacuum with their usual zeal. They cooked up hundreds of tales, epigrams, and legends to explain what might have been. For Abraham -- who was so important to the history of Judaism -- they concocted practically a whole novella. If we piece together the many midrashim that attempt to explain Abraham's rejection of idolatry, we get something like this:

     Abraham's father, Terach, packed up his whole family and moved them from his backwater village, Ur of the Chaldees, to the prosperous city of Haran. He settled down there and used his skills to craft images of Mesopotamian gods and sell them in the market. He sold them in all sizes and all kinds. There were gold images and wooden images, huge images bound for town temples and tiny images meant for household idols. Some were so small as to be charms designed for chains around the neck or bracelets for the wrist.

     When each of his sons was old enough, Terach brought them into the business as salesmen. One day it was Abraham's turn to sell. His father Terah presented him with a basket of household gods and charms and showed him where to sit just outside the family store. Abraham was now a vendor in the busy marketplace of Haran.

     Before long, a man approached Abraham and said: "I'm looking for a god. Abraham asked, "What kind of god would you like to buy?" The man said, "Look at me." and he flexed his arms, showing his muscles. "I am a wrestler," he said, "a mighty man; I want to buy a god as mighty as I am."

     So Abraham took an image standing on a shelf higher than all the others and said: "Pay the money and take this one." The man asked, "Is this god as mighty as I am?" And Abraham replied, "You may be mighty, but your doubt is greater than your faith! Do you know nothing of the way of gods? Listen and learn: The god who sits above all others is always the mightiest god of all."

     The man paid Abraham and took the god, but just as he was leaving, Abraham called him back, asking, "How old are you?" The man answered: "Seventy years." And Abraham said, "Woe be to a man who is seventy and still prostrates himself before an idol which my father crafted only yesterday!" The wrestler's face reddened with anger. He flung that god back into Abraham's basket and demanded his money back, and he turned on his heels and left.

     A few moments later, a widow, with an empty shopping bag, approached Abraham, saying, "I am a poor woman -- can you please sell me a god as poor as I am." Abraham did not lose a beat. He took a wooden idol from the lowest shelf and said, "Here is a humble god, one who sits on a shelf below all the other gods; but he will not budge from here unless you pay for him." The widow counted out a few coins and took the god from Abraham's hand. But, just as she was leaving, Abraham called her back, asking, "How old are you?" She replied, "You can plainly see that I am quite old." And Abraham said, "You should be ashamed of yourself! To think that a mature woman, a woman of many years, should bow low to a god my father crafted only two days ago!" The widow was highly insulted. She immediately dropped the god back into Abraham's basket, demanded her money from Abraham, and went her way.

     At the end of the day, Abraham handed his basket back to his father. He had not made a single sale. His brothers said: "This Abraham clearly is not destined to sell gods. Why don't you send him to become a priest?" Abraham asked, "What kind of work does a priest do?" They answered, "A priest waits upon the gods, offers sacrifices to them, and serves them food and drink." So Terach took Abraham to the local temple and offered his services as an apprentice priest.

     Following orders, Abraham set food and drink before the idols in the temple and spoke to them in a loud voice, saying, "Come and eat, come and drink, so that you may be able to bestow your blessings upon human beings." But not one of the idols took anything at all to eat or to drink. Then Abraham, who had never heard of the Bible or the Book of Psalms, recited the verse from the Psalms (115:5-7) that says, "They have mouths but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; they have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not." The priests drove Abraham from the temple and sent him back to his father.

     Terach was at a loss as to what to do for his son. He said, "Just look after the shop while I go to buy some more clay and wood." But as soon as his father left him alone, a woman came along carrying a bowl of fine flour and said, "Take this as my offering to the gods." When she left, Abraham seized a stick, smashed all the idols except the very largest, and placed the stick in the hand of the large idol.

     When his father returned, he was astounded and angry. "Who did this to the gods?" Abraham answered, "Father, I would not hide anything from you. A woman came along with a bowl of fine flour and said: ‘Here, offer it up to them.' When I offered it, one god said, "I will eat first," and another said, "No, I will eat first." Then the biggest god rose up and smashed all the others. His father eyed Abraham in wonder and said, "Are you making fun of me? You and I both know that these idols cannot argue, they cannot eat, they cannot strike out, they cannot do anything!" Abraham calmly answered, "True, they cannot. Let your ears hear what your mouth is saying!"

     I imagine that was the moment that Abraham heard God's voice inside him, saying those momentous words, "You had better get yourself out of your father's land right now and find a new place, a place where you can be free to believe in the One God who rules heaven and earth." Abraham was never cut out to be a salesman of many gods, but he was supremely ready to become a salesman of the One God. And we call that, "a calling." And let us say: Amen.