By Rabbi Shloimie Lindenbaum
בט נא השמימה וספר הכוכבים אם תוכל לספור…כה יהיה זרעך (פרק טו פסוק ה)
Hashem tells Avraham to look up at the stars and attempt to count them. He then tells him, just as you cannot count the stars, so will be your children, unable to be counted. R’ Chaim Kanievsky asks that from the Gemara in Sanhedrin (39a) it is clear that the stars can technically be counted, but because they are constantly moving, one cannot practically count them. If so, how is it a blessing that Avraham’s children will be the same? The inability to count the stars has nothing to do with their abundance? R’ Chaim answers that just as the stars are not fixed in one place, and because they are moving, they look more numerous than they are, so too the Jewish people are constantly “moving”. We are always doing good deeds, especially acts of kindness and giving to other people. When we do for others and live for more than ourselves we count as more than one person. Someone who lives with an attitude of doing for the public good cannot merely be counted as one person- they count as many people, all those people that they enabled to grow. This is the promise that Hashem made to Avraham, his children will be like the stars, they will be constantly moving, growing in good deeds and acts of kindness, which will make them count as many more than their census numbers.
אני קל שקי התהלך לפני והיה תמים (פרק יז פסוק א)
When presenting Avraham with the mitzvah of מילה, circumcision, Hashem introduces Himself with the name ש-ד-י, which the Medrash explains as “the One Who said “enough” to the world”. What is the meaning of this and what does it have to do with the mitzvah of מילה? The Beis Halevi explains that when Hashem created the world, He gave it an ability to develop by itself- to an extent. For example, He allows a wheat kernel to grow, first as straw, then to develop into new kernels with flour. As time goes on, the kernel develops more and more into something usable. But He placed a limit on this, the kernel will never continue developing into a loaf of bread. That was the attribute of Hashem saying “enough”. He placed a limit on natural development and required a point at which there must be human effort and intervention to develop further. This was the introduction to the mitzvah of מילה, Hashem created the human body, but specifically stopped its development early, before the מילה, to allow and require human intervention to attain perfection.
