On the Meaning of Friendship - a sermon on Lech Lecha

Right at the opening of this week’s reading God calls Abraham.

Get the sense that God has been looking for someone to be in a relationship with. Sense that been looking for a while.

God’s tried turning to Adam and Eve, and then Noah, sense that hasn’t worked, quite.

Now with Abraham it feels different, sense that it works.

What is the thing that God is looking for, and finds in the call to Abraham, that didn’t find, or didn’t work previously?

Wonder if God has the same problem many parents in the room might recognise?

God wants human beings to do exactly what God wants entirely through the act of free choice.

Feels familiar to me, as a father. I want my children who will do exactly what I think they should do, without me telling them twenty seven times, bribe them with treats or threatening to withdraw television. If that’s what God is after then I’m feeling delighted to be in such good company.

Or maybe it is a little more complicated than that. Maybe what I am really after isn’t exactly children to do precisely what I think they should be doing. Maybe it’s something more complex and, actually, much more interesting. And maybe, by thinking a little more deeply about what God is looking for in Abraham I can learn more about what this search is really about.

In the mind of the Rabbis long before there were humans on this earth God would hang out with Angels - and the wonderful thing about Angels, if you are God, is that Angels do whatever they are told. And so there’s God, surrounded by Angels who will do whatever God wishes. And it’s not quite enough. God wants more.

Naaseh Adam, says God, Let’s make a human, and - the Rabbis imagine - the Angels throw up their wings in horror. How can you do that, humans will lie, and cheat - what about us, aren’t we perfect enough for you? Apparently not - here we are.

Look at what happens a moment later. The first human is lonely, so God creates an Ezer Knegdo - a help against. That’s the relationship between Adam and Eve, the model for all paradisiacal love - help against. The model isn’t someone who simply does everything we wish - like some sci-fi avatar created only to embody our every wish. That isn’t the model. The model is someone who pushes back.

Or have a look at what goes on in any Yeshivah - any house of Jewish study. Yeshivot are full of Chavruta pairs - pairs of students arguing with and against one another trying to work out what a particular text does or does not mean. Truth comes from the encounter with others, it emerges out of argument. There’s a great story in the Talmud of a great Rabbi, Rabbi Yochanan, whose long-time Chavruta dies and the Rabbis find another person for him to study with. But the new Chavruta only finds ways to agree with the great Rabbi. And Rabbi Yochanan isn’t impressed. He wants a Chavruta with a bit of fight in ’em, someone to bounce ideas around with.

That word Chavruta - it’s as close as it could be to the Hebrew word for friend - Chaver, Chaverah. Friendship, real friendship, emerges from precisely this sort of vigorous exchange. Real friendship isn’t about a person telling you what they think and you just say, ‘Oh yes, you are so right.’ A person who only tells you how wonderful you are isn’t really a friend. They don’t help you grow. They don’t help you understand anything you don’t understand already. In fact maybe that’s the very point of friendship, the very point of a partner - an Ezer Knegdo, maybe that’s the very point of having children - the very point of life itself - to understand things that we don’t already know.

Maybe that’s exactly what God is looking for in Abraham.

It’s not the first time in the Torah that God has called on someone to do something. Just last week we read the story of God calling on Noah. God announces God is going to destroy the world, and calls on Noah to gather the animals and build an ark. And Noah gathers the animals and builds the ark. Sounds fine. But there is a wonderful criticism levelled against Noah by the great Chasidic master, the Kotzker Rebbe. The Kotzke accuses Noah of being a Tzaddik in pelts - a righteous person in a fur coat. There are, the Kotzker taught, two kinds of people who find themselves in a cold room, full of people. One puts on a fur coat - that’s the Tzaddik in pelts - the other lights a fire. Noah’s failure, in last week’s reading, was not lighting a fire for anyone else. He should have challenged the people, urged them to improve their ways. He could have challenged God not to destroy an entire world - imagine the destruction.

Abraham, of course, is the paradigm of the Tzaddik who doesn’t just pull on a fur coat when things get a little cold. We’ll read this story next week. God tells Abraham God is going to destroy Sodom and Gemorrah and Abraham pushes back. ‘Shall not the God of justice act justly?’ I debates, provokes, teases God into relenting. Perhaps he didn’t save the cities, but he tried. A true friend. A Chavruta, a partner - an Ezder Kenegdo. And ultimately the partner God is looking for.

The relationship between God and the descendants of Abraham is still going.

And the attitude is still going strong too.

Just one example, from much later in the Jewish journey. King David. The story in Second Samuel is that David is overseeing the ark of the God on its return to the Jerusalem and the ark slips on the wagon carrying it and is about to fall on the ground. Uzzah jumps forward to stop the ark falling, and God - affronted by someone touching the ark - smites Uzzah and kills him.

וַיִּֽחַר־אַ֚ף יְ-הֹוָה֙ בְּעֻזָּ֔ה וַיַּכֵּ֥הוּ שָׁ֛ם

And God was angry with Uzzah and smote him there

And how does David, the beloved of God, the one God chose to be King respond?

וַיִּ֣חַר לְדָוִ֔ד עַל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר פָּרַ֧ץ יְ-הֹוָ֛ה פֶּ֖רֶץ בְּעֻזָּ֑ה 

And David was angry with God’s striking, striking Uzzah!

And David refuses to take the ark back into Jerusalem until God calms down and stops smiting people for trying to help.

That’s Ezer Kenegdo, that Chavruta, that’s the thing God was looking for that God found in Abraham - but missed in Noah.

There’s a wonderful rabbinic teaching where the Rabbis pick up on the fact that God tells Abraham ‘walk before me’ - it’s as if, they say, God has asked Abraham to light the way for God - as if God needs Abraham to light up a path for God to find the way. I know - we don’t usually talk about God in these human terms - but this is the language of the Torah and the greatest of our sages. And it’s true. All of us need other people to light the path for us, to allow us to see things we cannot see, to allow us to experience that which we cannot experience if we surround ourselves with those who simply do precisely what we ask of them. Even God.

And this brings me back to my attempts to get my children to do their homework, or tidy their plates up after dinner, or all the rest of it. At a certain level I just want to be to be obeyed. I want everything I want done by everyone I come across, instantly and all the time. But that’s not really, deeply, the case. Really, deeply, I know I need to be challenged, disagreed with, objected to, criticised and ... and this is the really important piece - improved. And I can only be improved by reaching out to those who oppose me.

Sorry parents among you.

And I whisper this to the teens and the nearly teens, and even the younger kids who are here.

It might sound a lot, as if your parents only want you to do what they tell you to do, precisely as they tell you to do it. But that isn’t really the case.

What I want, what they want, is really someone to push against us. Stand up for what they feel is right, even if it’s different to what I say I want.

We are all looking for Chavruta, we are all looking for an Ezer Kenegdo. We are all looking for an Abraham.

Because as attractive as it sounds to live a life surrounded by everyone doing exactly what we want, instantly. It’s not what we need. It’s not even really what we will - quietly - admit that we need.

Shabbat Shalom