by Rabbi Stuart Dauerman

It is our habit to call ourselves “children of Abraham.” Not only Jews do this, Christians and Muslims do as well. And in the Christian and Messianic Jewish tradition, when we call ourselves children of Abraham, we usually focus on having the same kind of faith as Abraham.

1 Now ADONAI said to Avram, "Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
4 So Avram went, as ADONAI had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran. 5 Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother's son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran; then they set out for the land of Kena'an and entered the land of Kena'an.

In the shadow of the Reformation, we tend to take pride that we believe in faith, not works. We don’t all know exactly what that means, but we take pride in it nonetheless. My concern in this drash is that we tend to feel, if not say, that we believe in faith instead of actions. Most of us would protest that this is not true. But how about this? Do we not tend to believe in faith instead of obedience? I would say that on the level of comfortable assumptions, and my observation of how nice people like us operate, this is exactly what too many of us believe, too much of the time.

And if I’m right, then this preference for something we call “faith” over obedience indicts us for not having faith at all. Certainly not Abraham’s kind of faith.

Just look at today’s parasha and notice here, and in all the parshiot about Abraham, how Torah describes Abraham’s characteristic response to the commands of God. One thing’s for sure: he doesn’t just say, “I believe you God!.” No, something else happens, more often than not.

That something is clear from the very time Avram is presented in the Bible as the subject of a verb. We find this at the beginning of verse four: “vayelech Avram--So Abram went.” God has spoken, and the very next thing we read of Avram is that he does what God said.

This is the faith of Abraham—it is obedient action expressing trust. That’s what Abraham’s faith was, and is—nothing less, nothing more, and nothing else. And if we are going to call ourselves children of Abraham who share in Abraham’s faith then we too should be people who lives are characterized not by words of agreement with God, but rather deeds of agreement with God, what is also called obedience.

Abraham is the icon of faith because, more often than not, he displayed reflexive obedience. It’s like what happens when you go to the doctor’s office and he hits your knee cap with that little rubber hammer, and, if your body is not ready for the scrap yard, in immediate response to the stimulus of the hammer, your lower leg reflexively moves forward. And if we are truly children of Abraham by faith, we too will obey as a reflexive habit of life.

I don’t think it an accident that time and again, the Torah records Abraham’s obedience in immediate proximity to his hearing the word of the Lord. In the next chapter, chapter 13, we read that God tells him,

“Get up and walk through the length and breadth of the land, because I will give it to you." In the very next verse, the text says this: “Avram moved his tent and came to live by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hevron. There he built an altar to ADONAI” (Gen 13:16-17).

Here again, the word of the Lord comes, and Abraham obeys—this is what it means to be a person of faith. It means to hear the word of the Lord obediently and respectfully.

This reflexive obedience characterizes Abram/Abraham throughout Torah. It is strikingly evident in the account of the binding of Isaac, toward the end of Abraham’s life. In this account, we read,

“1 After these things, God tested Avraham. He said to him, "Avraham!" and he answered, ‘Here I am.’ 2 He said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitz'chak; and go to the land of Moriyah. There you are to offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will point out to you.’” The very next verse says this, “Vayashkem Avraham baboker--Avraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with Yitz'chak his son. He cut the wood for the burnt offering, departed and went toward the place God had told him about.”

Here, as a very old man, as before when he was just embarking on his journey of faith, we see Abraham obeying immediately, reflexively, characteristically.

The question arises concerning us: are we people such as Isaiah speaks of, “The kind of person on whom I look with favor is one with a poor and humble spirit, who trembles at my word.” And will this trembling be evident in immediate obedient action?

I like the way Reform Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf puts it:

By definition, you cannot freely choose to be commanded. . . If there is a God, there cannot be a fully autonomous human being. . . . How you know God’s will for you, and whether you’re able to do God’s will are difficult question, but they are secondary to the belief that, if you know, when you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only obedience or sin.

I would only add this to what Rabbi Wolf said so well: “When you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only the obedience of faith or sin.

If we have Abraham’s kind of faith, then we will obey. And if we don’t obey God as a habit of life, let’s not deceive ourselves: we don’t have the faith of Abraham.
We would do well to take to heart these words from the beginning of Hebrews 11:8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.” If we are children of Abraham, then we will obey too whenever and wherever we are convinced that God has spoken.