Abraham

Having read several books where Abraham is mentioned, featured or talked about set me thinking:

How come that Abraham, after 4000 years, is still here with us when all others ended in obscurity? He was never a deity or a person one prays to or for, nor is he religiously revered, and there is very little about him in the Bible itself.

So what is it that has kept him alive? What type of a man was he that warrants this very unusual honour?

I tried to build a picture of him, to understand his accomplishments, to figure out what did he give to the world, which made him unforgettable.

There is a lovely legend about Abraham, from the days when he was still called Avram (Abram),

Avram’s father, Terach, made and sold clay gods. One day he asked his son to look after the shop while he was gone. On his return, he got the shock of his life,

Avram, he shouted, Why are all those idols broken?

They had a fight and the big one won, replied Avram.

Don’t be stupid. They are just clay figurines, said Terach

And Avram replied,

Yes. They are; so how come they are gods?

And so, monotheism was born.

I know that, I said to myself, Abraham was the father of monotheism.

But what does it mean?

It means that by him leaving the world he lived in, he created a one all embracing entity for his family to follow exclusively.

It means that from then on his descendents no longer touch clay figurines and call them gods. They no longer allocate different powers to different things. Instead, they pray to that single entity they call God.

A God that makes contracts and rules to be obeyed by both sides, under which he has the right to give when obeyed, and to deny when breached.

A God no one can see, neither touch - a philosophical understanding that embraces the whole of Creation – A God that is abstract.

This is all good and fine, but again, I asked myself,

What does it really mean?

It means that from that day on his decedents, and all others who cared to follow, realized that they are no longer a part of a world in which their future, deeds, or path in life are predetermined. They understood that they are able to think and act for themselves, because they made a contract, an agreement; a personal commitment they need to abide by. They learned to think ‘outside the then existing box’ so to speak.

But what change did it bring to people’s daily lives? What did it entail?

What it changed was, that by making their own decision they have taken their own future into their own hands. And, by making their own decisions, they have also taken responsibility over their actions, individually. The onus has now shifted to each of them according to their individual deeds –

From that minute on they have become accountable for every move they took, under a contract to that unseen all-embracing God.

With the birth of his son, Yitzchak (Isaac), Abraham takes a step foreword. He now looks into the health of his people by combating, to a large extend, the rampant venereal diseases of his time through compulsory circumcision.

Having done that, he directs his attention to end the very prevalent practice of human sacrifice. It is with the dramatic story of ‘the sacrifice of Isaac’ that he changes religious offering from humans to animal, and human offerings are no longer acceptable.

We in the western world take all these things for granted.But the foundation of the world we live in come from Abraham, that had the courage to follow his own believes and understanding; and as Paul Johnson in his best seller book ‘A history of the Jews’ asks, ‘what would have happened to the human race if Abraham had not been a man of great sagacity, or if he had stayed in Ur and kept his higher notion to himself…’

Renate

http://www.promisedland-renate.com