Why Abraham
Why Abraham

God first communicated with Abraham and commanded him to leave his family and move to an unknown land. One could ask: What was special about Abraham?  Why did God choose to reveal himself to Abraham?  We know less about Abraham than we knew about Noah.  All that we know about Abraham are some aspects of his family and background.  We know nothing about Abraham’s character or nature as opposed to Noah who is described with great praise.

The Rabbis were sensitive to this problem and thus created an opposite scenario.  Rather than God who suddenly appears to Abraham as he did to Noah, it was really Abraham who slowly and persistently sought out God.  Maimonides describes and amplifies this process in his, “Mishneh Torah.”

But when it came to the Foundation of the World (God), there was no person who recognized Him and who knew Him, except individuals, like Chanoch, Metushelach, Noach, Shem and Ever.  And this is how the world proceeded until the Pillar of the World was born and he was our father Abraham. Once this giant (Abraham) was weaned, he began to wonder in his mind, and even though he was very young, he thought day and night and wondered how it was possible for this world to function always without one to direct it.  (Hilchot Avoda Zara, Chapt. 1, Law 3.)

Abraham is thus transformed by the Rabbis into a philosopher of metaphysics.  He became the first advocate of the concept of Intelligent Design.  Using only his reason, without access to any revelation, he arrives at the conclusion that the complex nature of the universe can only be explained as the conscious handiwork of an intelligent Creator.  He thus arrives at the knowledge of God through his own intellect.  It was his mind which separated Abraham from the rest of mankind.

We should not underestimate what a radical notion it was in an age of idolatry to accept the principle of one guiding force.  Normal human experience demonstrates the exact opposite.  People experience both good and evil in their lives.  It would be natural to attribute the good to one deity and the evil to the other and to approach one deity with a feeling of love and the other with a feeling of fear.  Yet Abraham understood that God is responsible for both the good and the evil in the world.  The question of why a good God allows evil in the world is a problem that we still struggle with to this day. It takes an extraordinary mind to overcome personal experience and approach this subject purely with a sense of intellect.

Normal human experience also tells us that the one constant in this world is the element of change.  Everything that is part of the natural world is subject to change.  Abraham had to overcome his sensory experience and arrive at an understanding of God who was an uncreated being beyond the element of change.       

Finally, the belief in one God affected mankind’s understanding of how the universe functions.  If every act is disparate and subject to its own deity, then there is no need to reconcile contradictions and recognize a scheme for a unified world. Once it is understood that everything is controlled by the same God, a new inquiry must be made to reconcile contradictions.  Thus, Abraham’s radical notion had implications not merely for religion, but for science.

It appears that God chose to reveal himself to Abraham because of the unique nature of his mind and character.  The nature of this revelation is significantly different from the revelation revealed to Noah.  It was Noah’s moral behavior which caused God to choose him.  But the major factor in choosing Abraham was that he searched for God.  Perhaps the lesson of why God chose Abraham is that we should not wait for God to choose us. Rather, we should seek out God.