"Blessed with Everything"
Of Students and Children, Software and Hardware
Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household, who had charge of all that he owned…(Genesis 24:1)
Eliezer, servant of Abraham, was an Elder and sat in yeshiva, as it is stated: “And Abraham said to his servant, the elder of his household, who ruled over all he had” (Genesis 24:2). Rabbi Elazar said: The verse means that he had mastery over the Torah of his master, having gained proficiency in all of the Torah of Abraham. That is the meaning of the verse: “He is Damascus [Dammesek] Eliezer” (Genesis 15:2). Rabbi Elazar said: The word Dammesek is a contraction of he who draws [doleh] and gives drink [mashke] to others from his master’s Torah. (Yoma 28b)
“Eliezer resembled Abraham in appearance and character. And like Abraham, he ruled all of which is his,” i.e., he had attained mastery over his own inclination. (Genesis Rabbah)
Abraham’s name—Av-ram—means “father of many.” And his blessing from God reinforces our sense of his global reach. All the nations of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham. Abraham is father of Isaac and Ishmael. His line passes through both Sarah and Hagar the Egyptian. In this week’s parasha, Chayei Sarah, we see him negotiating with Ephron the Hittite and granting responsibility to his servant, Eliezer of Damascus. Abraham is a man of the world. Thus, when the Torah says God blessed Abraham with “everything” or in “all things” (bakol) we can appreciate that Abraham—in contrast to other Biblical personalities who are more particularistic—is engaged with everything. Nothing is outside his scope.
And yet his very blessing—being a person so worldly and so connected to the Zeitgeist—is not without a cost. Not only does Isaac marry late, but he does not go out to find his own spouse. Abraham, rather than charging Isaac with marital advice, mediates the relationship with a servant. Had Abraham been blessed with less than everything, with only something, he might have continued to maintain a close relationship with Isaac. Abraham’s magnanimous spirit leads him to forge relationships far and wide, but not without estranging his ownmost kin. Abraham is blessed with the “all” of the public figure, but his home life is complex.
The figure of Eliezer points to the ambivalent legacy of Abraham the teacher. On the one hand, Eliezer is a kind of adopted son figure for Abraham. The Talmud underscores that Eliezer resembles Abraham in both figure and deed. Eliezer’s presence raises an implicit question, though—where is Isaac? Much as Hagar is a surrogate for Sarah, Eliezer is a kind of substitute Isaac. Abraham’s quest is filled with substitutions. Hagar for Sarah, his “sister” Sarah for his wife Sarah, the ram for Isaac, Abraham for Abram. These swaps point to the Derridean truth that meaning is a function of difference; a word can be defined by its synonyms, its uses, its substitutions. Thus, Isaac = Eliezer, precisely because Isaac is not Eliezer. They are synonyms. To teach a machine language simply show it enough uses of words in sentences and it will pattern match the rest. Abraham is the father of “all”—thus, any semiotic marker will do, any grain of sand or star of the sky will do—for every part expresses the whole. But this abstract view of meaning risks voiding the weight of being chosen. It risks diminishing Isaac and Eliezer. Abraham’s expansiveness means more mediation; Abraham’s scale means more dilution; Abraham’s celebrity means less intimacy.
On the flip side, though, Eliezer is one of the first meritocratic personalities. He is a servant who transcends his class and rising approximately to the level of Abraham’s spiritual son and student-successor. Does Eliezer sign on to serve Abraham because he is moved by his character and wisdom? Or is he merely a housekeeper whose proximity to a great man grants him an incomparable privilege? While Isaac is sacrificed because of his proximity to Abraham, Eliezer is just the right balance of near and far to enjoy the benefits of Abraham’s presence without its burdens.
According to the Midrash, Eliezer’s mission on behalf of Abraham—to find Isaac a wife—is a conflict of interest. Isaac’s success means Eliezer will ultimately take a back seat in the annals of history. We worship the God of Abraham and Isaac, not the God of Abraham and Eliezer. Eliezer’s own daughter might have married Isaac had he not undertaken the mission to find Rebecca. Eliezer’s servitude is a true mesirut nefesh—he puts the mission above himself. This is the teaching of Abraham and the blessing of one who is blessed with “everything”: the ability to embrace a bigger picture even at one’s own expense (and the expense of one’s nearest and dearest).
Eliezer embraces his position as student-servant of Abraham, continuing the spiritual lineage of service over self-interest. Had Abraham been more self-interested and less service-oriented, he might not have needed help getting Isaac a wife, but he would also be short of students. Eliezer would be an NPC. Thus, in the triad between Abraham, Isaac, and Eliezer we find the tension between student as adoptive child and child as adoptive student. The tension is brought into accord — rather than intensified to the point of sibling rivalry — only because Eliezer is not blood. Cain kills Abel out of envy, but also out of proximity. Eliezer is not close enough to Isaac for the two to tangle. Of course, we find student rivalry throughout the ages and in the Talmud, but Genesis focuses on sibling rivalry as a rivalry for succession. In the character of Eliezer we have a way out. 1) Eliezer does not aspire to be “more” than a servant, and thus frees himself from envy 2) Eliezer enjoys the benefits of being an apprentice rather than a child, suggesting the rabbinic teaching that teachers can exert even greater influence than parents.
A final reading of '“God blessed Abraham with ‘everything’” is that God enabled Abraham to succeed in spite of his apparent challenges and complicated relationships. Although Abraham worried that Isaac would not marry, God ensured that it worked out—by means of Eliezer. The blessing doesn’t always look the way we expect, but it’s there. Abraham might have had a simpler life without Hagar, Ishmael, and Eliezer—and without all the souls (i.e. students) he made with Sarah in Haran—but this was not his destiny. Isaac seeks a simpler life and is not blessed with “everything.” But he digs his father’s wells nonetheless.
In the foils of Isaac and Eliezer we see that there is hope for both the child to become as student and the student to become a child. Their collaboration brings home the two dimensions of Jewish lineage that make it challenging to decipher: Judaism as a family, as an ethnicity (Isaac) and Judaism as a teaching and an assignment (Eliezer). The one demands self-interest, the other self-effacement. Judaism as pure family would turn religion into none other than the Mafia. Judaism as pure teaching would turn it into an abstraction. Abraham is blessed with everything: Judaism as code (Eliezer) and Judaism as hardware (Isaac). In sending Eliezer on a mission to ensure that Isaac marries, Abraham demonstrates his commitment not just to student, but to family. There can be no survival of Judaism without the survival of the Jewish people. Abraham proves that in the end “Blessed with everything” needn’t conflict with particularism. Rather, it both requires it and sustains it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins