Parshas Lech Lecha - A Challenge for Generations | Rabbi Eliyohu Meir Schmeltzer

At the beginning of Parshas Lech Lecha, the Aibishter appears to Avraham Avinu and tells him, Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. This is listed as one of the ten Nisyonos that Avraham Avinu was challenged with, that made Avraham who he was. The question is asked, Why is this considered such a large Nisayon? Avraham Avinu had no children, he may not have been a rich man yet, and he was not known to the people yet. And the Aibishter promises him fame, wealth, children, just change your location. Is that such a big Nisayon? Who wouldn't want to do that if he could be rewarded with fame, riches and children, heritage, ancestry, lineage, future? One of the answers given is the following, by R’ Shmuel Berenbaum זכר צדיק לברכה. Imagine the following story. R’ Moshe Feinstein, who was probably gifted with Ruach Hakodesh, for all we know, and the Aibishter appears to R’ Moshe Feinstein, the Tzaddik Hador, the Masmid Hador, the Posek Hador, the Gadol Hador, and says: Listen, R’ Moshe. Till now you've been sitting in the Beis Medrash, paskening Shailas, leading Klal Yisroel through your vast knowledge of Torah. I want you to go out and purchase a conglomerate of nursing homes and become fabulously wealthy and fabulously famous. And you know what your Avodas Hashem is going to be? I want you to dole out Tzedaka. You're going to be known to Klal Yisroel, you're going to have lines outside your door, you're going to have two Gaboim, two Gaboei Tzedaka, and you're going to become the biggest Baal Tzedaka, and with that, you're going to be Oved Hashem. R’ Moshe Feinstein hears this message. Could you imagine the struggle it would be to go out there and divest himself of everything he's done before? Leave the Beis Medrash, leave the Rosh Yeshiva position, leave the Posek Hador position, and become a wealthy, famous man and in that way, worship the Aibishter? That would be the biggest challenge. Avraham Avinu was a זקן יושב בישיבה. He had ‘souls they had acquired in Charan’. He's making people. He's changing lives of thousands of people through the study of Torah. For I have known him because he commands his sons and his household after him, that they should keep the way of Hashem. And the Aibishter tells him, I want your Avodas Hashem to take on a whole new picture. You're going to become a famous, rich man and in that way, that's how you're going to serve the Aibishter. The challenge is so vast. That was the Nisayon. You're going to adopt a new Mahalach of Avodas Hashem. R’ Yisroel Salanter writes, For someone to change his lifestyle, to change one Minhag, a Midah, changing a Midah, is so much more difficult than finishing the entire Shas. But Avraham Avinu did it. And R’ Chaim Volozhiner writes that the Koach for a Yid to change his lifestyle, to take on a Minhag, to confront a new challenge, was gifted in his spiritual DNA from Avraham Avinu. We have been given that Koach to make changes, to take on a Kabbalah, a Kabbalah to be careful in Vayimaen, the Kabbalah to be careful where we look and how we behave in the streets. We all have within our DNA that Koach, gifted to us from Avraham Avinu. Let's go take on that challenge and overcome that challenge, just as Avraham Avinu had bequeathed to us, B’ezer Hashem Yisborah Shemo.