Why Was Avraham Angry That the Fire Didn’t Burn Him?

Why Did Avraham Have to Be Born to the Greatest Rasha?

How Did Avraham Discover Who Leads the World?

These are the holy words of The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a:

Avraham Avinu jumped into the fire and became very angry, because the fire did not burn him—and it is forbidden to get angry. He said, “There is something wrong with this fire.” Avraham came out completely broken: “Why didn’t the fire burn me? What did I sin? What crime did I commit? Why am I not worthy for the fire to burn me? I want the fire to burn me so I can die with mesirus nefesh for Kiddush Hashem—at least something.”

They said to Avraham, “Maybe Haran did some kind of sorcery,” because Haran was the attendant of the god of fire; he was a very important priest of idolatry. They said, “Maybe Haran cast a spell and that’s why Avraham wasn’t burned.” So they said, “Let’s test it and throw Haran into the fire.”

Avraham Avinu entered the awesome furnace (the fire). He wanted to be burned for Kiddush Hashem. He said, “After I smashed the idols, I want to be burned for Kiddush Hashem.”

“You shall burn their graven images in fire” (Devarim 7:25). Avraham had to go through this, because he came from Terach (the Arizal wrote: “Terach was reincarnated as Iyov, and Terach’s wife—Amaslai bas Karnavo—was reincarnated as Iyov’s wife”). And Iyov is a gilgul of Terach, who was the greatest rasha in the world.

The Satan said: “I’m not willing for Avraham to come down into the world.”

Hashem said: “I also (so to speak) place a veto, and I say that Avraham will come down into the world.”

The Satan said: “Then I resign. I’ve been working already for 2,500 years,” because Avraham—when it was the year 2000 from Creation—was 52 years old. The Satan said, “And now they’re destroying all my work, because Shuvu Banim destroys all the work of the Satan—they ruin it for him—so he wants to resign.”

Hashem said: “Avraham must come down into the world—but choose the most wicked person for him to be born to.” Terach greatly increased wickedness; he was among the greatest manufacturers of idolatry, and such a rasha had not existed since the creation of the world (Terach even lived with his wife Amaslai while she was a niddah).

The holy Arizal explains why specifically Terach—the greatest rasha—would raise Avraham Avinu—because at that very time King Nimrod saw a dream in which one star swallowed seventy stars. He asked his advisers, “What is the meaning of the dream?”

They told Nimrod: “Soon a son will be born to Terach, and he will swallow the whole world; he will swallow all the stars—he will swallow you as well.” (There was a great prosecution by the Satan against Avraham’s birth; therefore he had to be born in an impure place.)

Nimrod said: “I won’t allow this to happen.” He took Amaslai bas Karnavo, Terach’s wife, and with her he took her maidservant—because she came with her maidservant. Both were pregnant; they conceived on the same day. Nimrod said, “I will wait here until she gives birth, and when she gives birth I will throw the baby into the fire.”

On the day Amaslai gave birth to Avraham, she switched him with the maidservant’s son. So they threw the maidservant’s child into the fire, while Avraham remained alive.

Amaslai hid with Avraham for three years inside a cave. There, Hashem brought forth for Avraham “honey from a rock and oil from a flinty stone.” Honey, milk, and oil came out for Avraham from the stones, from the rocks, and for three years Avraham nursed from the rock. After three years Avraham left the cave and saw the sun, and he bowed to the sun.

After sunset, when it became night, Avraham saw the moon. He said, “Good—maybe the moon defeated the sun,” and he bowed to it. In the morning he saw the sun again and asked, “What is going on here? Is there a war between the sun and the moon? Sometimes this one prevails, sometimes that one prevails.”

Avraham asked: “Who is the leader of the whole world here?”

A bas kol came out and said: “I am the Leader of the world! I am Hashem, the Leader of the world!!”

Then Avraham began working as the one who watched over the idols. Nimrod asked Avraham, “You told the customers that the idol created the world—and you smashed the idol?”

Avraham made a mockery of everything. Nimrod said, “Is that so? Then I will throw him into the fire!” And he threw him into the fire.

Suddenly Nimrod saw a path that the angel Gavriel made for Avraham inside the fire. As Avraham came out of the fire, Nimrod bowed to him. Nimrod said about Avraham, “I discovered another idol—I discovered a new idol.” Instead of saying that forbidden relationships are prohibited, that there must be holiness, that there must be modesty—no. Nimrod says, “I discovered a new idol.”

Hashem says to Avram, “Go for yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house”—run away from here; they turned you into an idol. But when Avraham came out of the fiery furnace, Terach did teshuvah. The Zohar says in Parshas Behar 111 that even Terach and Amaslai bas Karnavo, Avraham’s mother, did teshuvah.

Amaslai threw out all her immodest clothing. She used to wear pants, and now she burned the pants—she burned everything—and began to wear a long dress down to the ankles.

Even the mother and the entire generation returned in teshuvah; all the girls burned their immodest clothing. Because Rashi says that in Charan there was not a single kosher woman.