Thursday, October 25, 2018

Destination: Mount Moriah



The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.”                                 Genesis 12:1
Netziv comments that the intention is not for Abram to reach the Land of Israel, “Since he already knew the Land’s qualities and yearned for her, as the verse has already stated: (Abram set out with his father Teraḥ ‘To go to the land of Canaan.’” [Genesis 11:31] Rather, the explanation of “The land I will show you” is that “Within that land, I will show you which direction to turn, as the verse states ‘To the land of Moriah.’” [Genesis 22:20]
Rabbi Menaḥem Kasher, in his work Torah Shleima, quotes the manuscript of Midrash Or haAfela, which states: “‘To the land I will show you’ refers to the land of Moriah.”
            Based upon the above, we understand that the purpose of Abram’s journey from his country, his relatives and his father’s house was specifically to reach Mount Moriah, and this was the Divine designation for this journey.
Indeed, eight verses after we read God’s call on Abram to go to the land which He will show him, the verse informs us that “Abram traveled, continually traveling southward.” Rashi comments: “All of Abram’s journeys were to the south of the Land of Israel, the direction of Jerusalem.”
It is not surprising that the Divine designation of our Father Abraham’s first journey is Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah includes the holiest spot in the world, the Foundation Stone, the site of the Holy of Holies and the place from which God commenced creation. [Mishna, Keilim 1:6; Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 54b] Maharal of Prague’s approach is that the sanctity of the Land derives from the fact that the Holy City, and in particular, the Temple Mount, the holiest place in the world, are located within her. Thus, in order to benefit from the Land’s sanctity, Abraham needed to reach its ultimate source: Mount Moriah.
            Thus, the destination of Abram’s journey was Mount Moriah.






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