ספר בראשית

Up until the time when Avram left Charan he had served G’d ‎by engaging the three attributes we just mentioned. Now that his ‎quest to be near to his Creator would be reinforced by his being ‎on holy soil, he would qualify for more comprehensive revelations ‎from G’d, enabling him to proceed from serving G’d out of ‎feelings of awe to serving Him out of feelings of love.We have ‎already explained why G’d promised Avram that He would make ‎his name great, that he would be a source of blessing to all with ‎whom he would come into contact and that his name would be ‎‎“great.” (pages 41-44) We ask ourselves, that if Avram had ‎followed G’d’s instructions to set out into a new and unknown ‎land without having first been given these assurances by G’d if he ‎would not have earned a great deal more merit than he did after ‎being “armed” with these promises?In fact, the reverse is the ‎case. When the Torah tells us that Avram set out in accordance ‎with the instructions he had received from G’d (Genesis 12,4) the ‎reason the Torah adds the words: “as G’d had commanded him,” is ‎to inform us that the only reason Avram emigrated from Charan ‎was because G’d had told him to. It did not occur to Avram that ‎the promises G’d had made to him would be fulfilled by his ‎obeying G’d. [Compare Or Hachayim on this verse, or my ‎translation of his commentary on page 123 Ed.] Accordingly, if ‎Avraham had not known that he would receive a reward for ‎undertaking this journey and all that it entailed, it would not ‎even have rated as one of his “ten trials,” so that his reward ‎would have been much less. Being able to serve the Lord after ‎having received promises from Him, without these promises ‎affecting the quality of his service, was a far greater ethical ‎achievement than serving the Lord altruistically, but not ‎knowing that such service carries the promise of a reward. G’d’s ‎challenging Avram to do just this was the essence of the trial.‎