Are you protected?
Protected from what? From insult, perhaps? From jealousy and competition? Are you protected from “what will people say”?
Wait, let me explain.
There is external protection and there is internal protection.
External protection is when a person is shielded by a force outside of himself – from harm and insult. A father who makes sure other children don’t hurt his son emotionally; a husband who picks up the phone and calls the neighbour who insulted his wife; a rabbi who protects a member of his community by telling others to behave properly. Against jealousy and competition, it would be an external force that prevents the competition from taking place at all. Against “what will they say”, someone will be found to silence the one who is talking.
Internal protection is a person who has humility and “bitul” – self-nullification – to the point that something within him becomes whole, serene, secure and quiet. When he is insulted or competed with, even when people speak about him, it hurts him – but it does not run him. It strikes him, but it cannot wound him. His jealousy turns from the kind that takes a person out of the world into “the envy of scribes, which increases wisdom”.
It is not easy and not simple, but it is very much possible – and apparently only by going through a few things in life.
Abraham was in the fiery furnace. In last week’s parshah, Lech Lecha, Rashi brings the Midrash that tells how Nimrod threw Abraham into the fiery furnace when he heard from Haran that Abraham had smashed his beliefs and idols. Abraham of course survived and came out without a burn.
But not only that. He did not merely survive – Abraham came out of the fiery furnace a different person.
Abraham went through a process of refining and smelting, cleansing and purification.
There are things that burn in fire, and there are things that fire refines. Raw gold or silver: the fire smelts it, separates the dross from it, and in doing so refines and purifies it. A smith is one who, with the help of a furnace of fire, takes the raw material through a process of refining and purification.
On G-d’s words to Abraham, “I am your shield”, the Midrash brings the verse that appears twice in Tanach: “The G-d whose way is perfect; the word of Hashem is refined; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him” – and expounds: “The G-d whose way is perfect” – this is Abraham, as it says “and you found his heart faithful before You”. “The word of Hashem is refined” – that the Holy One, blessed be He, refined him in the fiery furnace. “He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him” – “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.”
To my understanding, the protection Abraham received in the fiery furnace is the cleansing of the ego and of self-importance, and of all the other traits of the soul that get hurt, get pressed and panic whenever there is someone else around who slightly threatens a person’s own importance. If you will, let us call it the separation of the dross of the soul.
I saw on the Sefaria website that the English translation chosen for the words “that the Holy One refined him in the fiery furnace” is: Hashem refined him in the fiery furnace.
English is not my mother tongue, but the word refined immediately reminded me of the refining systems I know from an oil plant that I visit for kosher supervision – and that was the moment I understood the “refined” of the Midrash. Abraham went through refinement and purification, because when a person passes through a fiery furnace of any kind, the first thing that happens is that he becomes more honest with himself: less self-importance, less pride, and more bitul and humility. And then – perhaps only then – he merits true internal protection.
Say from now on: Fear not, Abram, for I have passed you through the fiery furnace, and in that I am your shield.
Good Shabbat,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski