ספר בראשית

Genesis 17,22., “G’d ascended from above Avraham.” In order to ‎understand the significance of what is written here we must go ‎back to Bereshit Rabbah 42 where Avraham is described as ‎consulting with his friends Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre, on his ‎having been commanded to circumcise himself. Two of his friends ‎advised against it, whereas Mamre reminded him that the G’d ‎Who had saved his life several times, would most certainly not ‎demand something of him that was not in his interest. Mamre ‎was rewarded for this by G’d. The point our author sees in our ‎verse is that Avraham was given an opportunity to refuse ‎carrying out this commandment, so that if he withstood the ‎temptation to do so he could receive an even greater reward for ‎having resisted the urgings of the evil urge, dressed up as “pious ‎advice.” G’d’s “ascending from ’above’ Avraham,” means that G’d ‎distanced Himself from Avraham for a while in order to give the ‎evil urge, Satan in the guise of two of his friends, an opportunity ‎to tempt him not to obey this commandment.‎