Through what did Alexander Macedon become Alexander the Great? What makes people “Great”?
The simple and known answer is that Alexander is called Great as a result of his great conquests around the world that are known to us to this day. To this day, the very title ‘Tsar’ is rooted in the name of Julius Cesar himself, victor of the region of Gaul. The Pharaohs built the pyramids and were recorded in the pages of history. The world remembers the conquerors, the discovers, and the builders of the greatest monuments. These people alone merit the title of greatness.
Conversely, what is the ticket of entry to the Pantheon of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs? In order to enter this esteemed list, there is no need for conquering half the world, or in the building of mighty skyscrapers that pierce the heavens. Instead, there is a requirement for a different achievement altogether.
In Avraham’s case, we find a series of simple, everyday personal actions. When Avraham builds an altar, as with his altar in Nablus, it is not big, but rather personal. In this way, he leaves behind him a legacy of lessons and appropriate behaviors such as the hosting of guests and standing before Gd in prayer. He experiences various challenges and demonstrates greatness of soul and does not feel it imperative to leave a physical mark for the future generations. And yet, despite this, many from around the world refer to Avraham as none other than Avraham our forefather.
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Rabbi Acha says: even the mundane conversations of the servants in the house of the forefathers are greater than the Torah of their children. For the story of Eliezer is two or three pages, repeating detail after detail, and the knowledge that a crawling animal’s skin is impure just as its flesh is fundamental to Torah yet only learned from the extraneous language of the verses. (Bereishit Rabba Parasha 60)
The above Midrash points do quite a surprising gap: why is it that the law regarding the impurity of a crawling animal, which is relevant to everyday life, is not even mentioned in the Torah explicitly, while Eliezer’s story is detailed at great lengths?
It seems to me that the Torah is coming to teach us about the essence of what the house of Avraham represented. Despite the length of the story, it is important to note that in sending Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchak, the virtues and features he must look for are not mentioned at all! And not because those factors are not important, but rather because they are simply assumed – Avraham does not need to explain this to Eliezer. The servant sees everything, being misled by no secrets. He sees the face of Avraham when Sarah abuses Hagar and later on speaks wildly about Yishmael and forcefully exiles them from their home. He sees his master’s happiness, the lightening in his eyes when he sees guests approaching on the horizon. He understands all the ins and outs of the house of Avraham. If it had been the case that Avraham would have had to explain to Eliezer explicitly whom it is that is worthy of his son Isaac, our perception of him as a servant would no longer match the Torah’s description of him being the “loyal, trustworthy caretaker of his house” (“נאמן ביתו”). Eliezer, נאמן הבית, sees all that is done in his master’s house and understands, internalizes, and knows exactly what to look for.
Avraham Avinu is the father of half of humanity not through great construction or vastly spreading conquests, but rather through his expression of simple, and almost banal, human agency and potential.
We can take the story of the burial of Sarah as another example. The expectation we have entering the scene is for a short, crisp story. Instead, the Torah describes the events with intensified emotion. Avraham wants to bury his late, beloved wife with the proper respect by buying the rights to her grave site, and not through a free gift. The difference between a free gift and a plot bought at full price is the exact difference between simply dealing with the body of the deceased versus preserving Sarah’s memory in her family’s lineage and heritage, as a memory that remains ever present within the walls of her home. The story is not a historical and ideological description of the buying of Chevron, but rather a heart-touching one describing the individual purchase of Sarah’s grave. It is the end of a love story, the end of Avraham and Sarah’s deep intimacy.
Although Avraham did not invent the concept of kindness, and even though his acts of kindness are not exceptionally heroic, he nonetheless represents constant and consistent kindness. Kindness that is continual, intersecting each action of daily life. And such is true also of his decedents. For in the Jewish tradition, one is labeled a ‘great one’ on account of the continual accumulation of small, kind-felt acts.
Such is true also of Yitzchak. Yitzchak is not a man of great acts, and even the wells he digs are the same wells already discovered in the days of Avraham his father. His goal is to protect and preserve the traditions of the past. This consistent sequence of small acts creates a beautiful tapestry. Acts that, at face value, have no dramatic impact, but rather humanness. These are the acts of a man, Yitzchak, clinging to the acts and history of his father until the end, therefore making them all the more impressive and impactful.
The ticket of entry into our national pantheon is not an irreplaceable figure, but rather an expresser of the simplicity of humanity and consistency. Our great figures are great because they live out an incredible accumulation of many small, simple acts.
