Originally our ancestors were idol worshippers: Earlier we explained the Talmudicdictum: in telling the story of the Exodus we should begin withgenut, disgrace, and end with shevach,with praise. Rav says that we do this by beginning with, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt,” and ending, “And He took us out from there…” while Samuel claims that we fulfill this dictum by beginning, “At first our ancestors were idol worshippers,” and continuing, “God has brought us near to serve Him.” We explained Rav’s opinion above; now we must explain Samuel’s opinion. Some questions arise: first what disgrace is there in the fact that Terach worshipped idols since this occurred before the giving of the Torah at Sinai? And second, Rashi explains that the praiseworthy conclusion to this statement is when we say: “Who redeems us and redeemed our ancestors.” This statement needs some explanation! To understand Samuel, we must begin with the following statement from the Midrash: When God said to Moses, “I shall visit the sins of the ancestors on their children,”⁶⁸ Moses said: ‘Wicked parents sometimes give birth to righteous children; why should good children have to bear the sin of their wicked parents? For instance: Terach was a maker of idols and yet his son, Abraham, was righteous! Should righteous children be flogged for their wicked parents? God said to Moses: By your life I will fulfill your words: “Parents shall not be put to death for children nor children for their parents.”⁶⁹ see: missing source? This statement is troubling. We have two statements in the Torah which contradict one another: one that says that children are punished for their parents’ sins and the other that says they are not punished for the sins of their parents. The Talmud tries to reconcile these statements by saying one is speaking about a situation where children remain wicked like their parents and the other when children do not follow in their wicked parents’ footsteps – then a child is not punished for his parents’ sins. And yet we do see situations in which good children suffer for their wicked parents’ deeds. There is another reason for this. A well known Midrash⁷⁰ 1:24 - Rabbi Meir said: When the Jews stood before Sinai to receive the Torah, God said to them: "I swear, I will not give you the Torah unless you provide worthy guarantors who will assure that you will observe its laws." The Jews responded, "Master of the world, our forefathers will be our guarantors!" "Your guarantors themselves require guarantors!" was God's reply. "Master of the world," the Jews exclaimed, "our prophets will guarantee our observance of the Torah." "I have grievances against them, too.’The shepherds have rebelled against Me' (Jeremiah 2:8)," God replied. "Bring proper guarantors and only then will I give you the Torah." As a last resort, the Jews declared, "our children will serve as our guarantors!" "They truly are worthy guarantors," God replied. "Because of them I will give the Torah." tells us that before God would give the Torah to the people of Israel, God insisted on some type of guarantee in lieu of the Torah. After several offers, Israel chose to make their children their pledge for the Torah. When good children suffer because of their parents’ wrong doings, it is not that they are being punished in lieu of their parents but because they were given as a pledge for the Torah. But this idea is also problematic. How can parents obligate their children when they are minors and are not free to choose or reject the offer? Isn’t Jewish law that a person cannot obligate someone else without him being present or in the case of a minor without his explicit consent when he has reached the age of obligation? And yet we see in the book of Deuteronomy that Moses says that the covenant of Israel was made not only for those who were present at Sinai but those who were not present. And yet to be Israel’s guarantor for the Torah is not considered an obligation but a privilege, and in Jewish law we have a principle: zachin l’adam she’lo bifanav:“One can accept a privilege for someone even if he is not present” (or is not of age to accept it himself).” We are allowed to accept something for a another person that will benefit the other person even if they did not expressly give us permission to do so. For instance, one can immerse a non-Jewish minor for the purpose of conversion even though he is not yet old enough to accept this on his own. Similarly, even though the pledging of Israel’s children for the purpose of receiving the Torah entailed obligations (and even punishments) it was considered a privilege and not an obligation. Returning to our original question regarding the contradictory verses in the Torah: the statement that, ‘children are punished for the sins of their parents’ troubled Moses. It refers to the period before the giving of the Torah. That is why the Haggadah begins “At first (that is, before the giving of the Torah) our ancestors were idolaters.” That is why Abraham’s descendents had to suffer in Egypt in payment for the sins of their idolatrous ancestors. After the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the operating principle changed: children were no longer punished for the sins of the parents. Sometimes, however, children are still subject to the behaviors and consequences of their parents’ actions. But this is not punishment but a matter of being our parents’ guarantors. TheHaggadah tells us not to be surprised that we went down to Egypt and had to spend time ridding ourselves of our idolatrous parents’ sins. After the giving of the Torahwe no longer were subject to our parents’ wrong doing, but we still had an obligation that went along with the privilege of accepting the Torah and worshipping God. We can now understand why Samuel’s telling begins with “At first our ancestors were idolaters,” and why it ends with the statement thanking God for redeeming us and our ancestors. A slave might not be free but he does not have to observe the sexual taboos and boundaries set by the law. One could argue, therefore, that a parent is really obligating his children by making them observe the laws of the Torah⁷¹ However, the Midrash tells us that one of the reasons Israel was worthy of being redeemed is that they already observed many of these limitations – so this was not a new set of obligations. When we thank God, in the Haggadah,“who redeemed us and our ancestors,” we are making reference to this fact and proof that it was a privilege and not an obligation for Israel to now accept theTorah. Returning to the earlier questions: Since Terach lived before the giving of the Torah, why should he be punished for not believing in God? The Midrashtells us that Abraham was 48 before he came to believe in God and that Terach did not convert until even later in his old age. Abraham was punished, therefore, for waiting so long to accept the existence of God. This might explain also why Job was punished: Job was none other than Uz, the grandson of Terach. He carried the guilt of his grandfather who waited so long to see the truth of God’s existence. But why did Job have to pay for the guilt of his grandfather? According to the Kabbalists, Job held the transmigrated soul of Terach – so, in fact, through Job was Terach atoning for his sins!! Job, then, was not paying for his fathers’ or his grandfather’s sins but for his own sins which transmigrated with him into future generations. Abraham was fearful that he might have to atone for the sins of his father after having the vision of the pieces. He needed to be reassured that while he would have to atone for his own sins, he would not have to atone for the sins of his father Abraham was actually very fearful that he thought that he would have to bear the suffering for his father’s reluctance to convert; God reassured him that Job had already been born and that he would bear this suffering instead of him. But Abraham’s descendents were still destined to suffer in Egypt for the sins of their ancestor, Abraham, for one of two reasons: either because he waited until he was forty eight to affirm his belief in God and as a result the Israelites in Egypt also continued to worship idols; or second, because he expressed a lack of faith in God’s promise when he said, “O Lord how am I to know that I am to possess it?”⁷² God response to this statement was: “Know well that your ancestors shall be strangers in the land not theirs…”⁷³ Both of these explanations for the sojourn in Egypt are problematic. It doesn’t seem right that the people of Israel should suffer because Abraham questioned whether God would fulfill His promise. The Israelites, in fact, showed great faith in God when Moses returned to Egypt to tell them that God would redeem them. If we presume that God only visits the sins of the fathers on his children when they fail to repent, doesn’t the Torah say of Israel: “And the people believed when they heard that the Lord had taken note…?”⁷⁴ On the other hand, if one argues that the reason for Israel’s sojourn in Egypt was Abraham’s failure to convert until he was forty eight, this too does not seem right. Then the purpose of the Exile was to purify the Israelites of the idolatry that they were still carrying in Egypt. Yet we know that the Israelites continued to worship idols until the redemption from Egypt! We can now understand why the Haggadah continues with the statement, “Originally our ancestors worshipped idols.” This statement suggests that the reason for the descent into Egypt was Abraham and Terach. Abraham and Terach were idolaters and they were slow to affirm their faith in one God. As a result, we must bear the consequences of their actions and it was necessary for us to be purified of idolatry through the suffering in Egypt. Lest one say, ‘why should they suffer; didn’t they convert to monotheism,’ the Haggadah emphasizes the word ‘originally,’ to tell us that this is for their actions prior to their conversion. The text calls Terach ‘the father of Abram and the father of Nachor’ as a way of telling us that while we must bear the consequences of Abraham idolatry, Job (or Uz, as he is called) bore the consequences of Terach’s idolatry and late conversion to monotheism. Finally we can return to the original question: in what way does this statement reflect our shameful origins? Because Abraham took so long to convert, we had to bear the consequences of his delay. In this way our story begins with genut, with shame. We also see that Israel suffered in Egypt not only because their forefather took so long to convert, but because our ancestors too continued to worship idols. Since they continued in the sinful ways of their ancestors, they were subject to the verse, “He visits the sins of the fathers on their children.” We can also understand the conclusion of this passage in which we bless God for redeeming us and redeeming our forefathers.” ⁷⁵ Israel helped to repair the sins of Abraham as well as their own sins through their time as slaves in Egypt. And Joshua said…God led them through all of the land of Canaan (Joshua 24:2-4): This verse illustrates God’s great love for Abraham and his descendents. Normally one cannot acquire property by simply wandering through the territory. But God loved Abraham so much he allowed him to acquire the land of Canaan by simply ‘walking’ through the land. We see this in the verse, “Rise up and walk about the land, through its length and its breadth for I give it to you.” Similarly in the verse quoted in the Haggadah, Joshua tells the people that God led them through the land – thereby taking possession of the land. Only Jerusalem was in the territory bequeathed to Shem; the rest of the land of Canaan belonged to the descendents of Ham. By allowing Abraham and his descendents to walk through the land, they took possession of it. One might ask: what benefit was there in this for Abraham since he did not really take possession of the land of Canaan? That is why the verse in the Haggadah says, “I took your father from the other side of the river and led him through all the land of Canaan and multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac⁷⁶.” Even though Abraham did not yet merit to take possession of the land, God gave him offspring so that there would be future generations to possess the land for him. …and I multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac: How is it that Abraham was capable of inheriting the land of Canaan? The Midrash teaches us that when Abraham checked the stars,⁷⁷ he realized that he would not have children. (Children depend on the astrological signs and not human merit; this is an idea that might have been comforting for those who were unable to have children. It suggests that childlessness is not a punishment but a simple fact of destiny.) The Moharsha writes that even those things that are determined by astrological signs are overturned by the merit of the many.⁷⁸ The greatness of Abraham is that his merit is similar to that of the many; even though the astrological signs suggested that he would never have children, he was able to overcome his own astrological destiny. In a discussion Talmud Rosh Hashanah, we learn that even though Sarah was an individual, she was considered to be like a multitude because she was destined to give birth to a great nation. In discussing which verses could be included in the Zichronot, the verses of remembrance in the Rosh Hashanahservice, the sages teach that verses which deal of visitation such as “God visited Sarah,”⁷⁹ could be included in the Zichronotservice. This was the case even though we normally don’t include verses that talk about remembering or visitation when they are speaking about an individual. This is because of Sarah’s unique status as the mother of great nations. Since Sarah was compared to ‘many,’ so too Abraham was considered to be like the many. This is also suggested in the verse above. If the many were to come from Isaac then the verse should have said “I gave him Isaac and I multiplied his (Isaac’s) seed.” The verse in Joshua says: “I multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac” suggesting that Abraham was considered to be like the many. Abraham had only one worthy child; God, in fact, did not ‘multiply his seed.’ This expression would not seem to fit Abraham. What we learn here is that Abraham was meritorious because of the many that would eventually be born from his line through Sarah and it was the future generations that gave him the merit to overcome the astrological signs that suggested he wasn’t worthy of having children.⁸⁰ And I gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau: Why does the verse mention Esau? This is a way of proving the genealogy of Isaac. Isaac and Rebecca gave birth to a righteous son (Jacob) and a wicked son (Esau). The righteous son was born to them because Isaac was a righteous man and the son of a righteous man. The wicked child was born to them because even though Rebecca was righteous, she was the daughter of a wicked father. The other nations had looked at the astrological signs and they saw that Abraham was not supposed to have children. When Sarah became pregnant they presumed that she was impregnated while she was in the house of Avimelech. By mentioning that Isaac and Rebecca gave birth to a righteous and a wicked child it became clear that Abraham was the grandfather of one and Rebecca’s father was the grandfather of the other. Had Avimelech been the father of Isaac then Isaac would have given birth to two wicked sons and not just one. The verse goes on to say: “I gave Esau Mount Seir as a possession but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.” This was further proof of Abraham’s lineage. Jacob and his family went down to Egypt in order fulfill the debt of his grandfather: “Your offspring shall be strangers in a land not their own and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.” If Jacob was not the descendent of Abraham he would not have had to go down to Egypt with his family and become enslaved. Similarly, God promised to give Abraham’s descendents ten nations. Seven were given to the children of Israel, one was given to Esau’s descendents, and two were given to Lot’s descendents. Even though Esau was unworthy of inheriting a land, he had to do so in order to fulfill the promise God had made to Abraham.

footnotes: ⁶⁸ Exodus 20: 5 ⁶⁹ Deuteronomy 2416 For the original source of this Midrash ⁷⁰ Shir Hashirm Rabbah ⁷¹ You can’t have sex with whoever you want! ⁷² Genesis 15:8 ⁷³ Genesis 1513 ⁷⁴ Exodus 4:31 ⁷⁵ Genesis 13:17 ⁷⁶ Joshua 14:3 ⁷⁷ The whole subject of astrology and the influence of the astrological bodies on human destiny is one that has been discussed at length in Medieval thought. We also know from archeological finds from the classical period that there is much evidence of astrology in the archeology of synagogues from the late Roman and Byzantine period. It is not at all surprising to find that the Rabbis suggested that Abraham consulted the stars. ⁷⁸ In other words nothing is determined by forces beyond our control. If the many merit it, they can overcome those things that are determined by the stars! ⁷⁹ Genesis 22:1 ⁸⁰ The reasoning here seems to be a little backward – if it was written in the stars that Abraham would not have children, how could his future generations make him worthy of overcoming the deterministic fate written in the astrological signs. Could it be that Sarah was destined to be the mother of a great nation even though the stars did not favor Abraham?