Date: October 27th 2022

At the end of parshas Noach the Torah records the lineage of the ten generation from Shem ben Noach until Avraham. Brief mention is made of the untimely death of Avraham’s brother Haran - “And Haran died during the lifetime of his father Terach” (11:27). Quoting the Medrash, Rashi explains that the Torah is alluding to the circumstances of Harans death in order to teach us that it was a result of his father Terach’s actions that Haran died.
Avraham lived in a time of widespread idol worship, yet through his own investigation he recognized that the world had a single Creator G-d. Instead of separating himself from the world around him and serving his Creator in solitude, Avraham dedicated his life to denouncing the worship of idols and teaching the wayward people of his time about the One true G-d. At one point, he famously destroyed his father’s idols and Terach went and complained of the incident to King Nimrod. Avraham was condemned to death by fire, he was to be the first Jewish martyr. The Medrash teaches that Avraham’s brother Haran was a follower of his brother’s monotheistic creed. When he observed the conflict unfolding he said to himself, “If Avraham is victorious I am for him, if Nimrod is victorious I am for him.” After Avraham was thrown into the fire and miraculously saved Haran was offered the choice of joining Avraham and sharing his fate or embracing the idol worship of Nimrod. He thew his lot i
n with Avraham and he too was cast into the flames. However, unlike Avraham, Haran perished in the fire.
The commentary of the Maskil L’Dovid on Rashi explains that Haran did not merit to be saved because he was “poseach al shtei se’ifim” he was open on two chapters. When faced with the challenge of faith, he decided to take a wait and see approach and was not willing to unequivocally throw in his lot with Avraham.
At first glance, the explanation of the Maskil L’Dovid is difficult to understand. As a devotee of Avraham Haran was aware of the intellectual arguments and appreciated the underlying truth behind his theology. While it is true that before Avraham was saved Haran was willing to cross over to the other side, once he saw the salvation occur, he was so firmly in Avraham’s camp that he was willing to take the risk of being thrown into a fiery furnace for his stance. Why was the fact that he vacillated before Avraham’s miraculous victory a flaw in his commitment once he made the clear choice after the fact?
It seems that in the case of Haran, deep down within his unconscious mind there was a fundamental flaw in his faith because his commitment was subordinated to his self-interest. Although he was on the level of accepting possible martyrdom, he was only willing to go through with it if he sensed that it would work out for him in the end. In a sense, Haran never really fully embraced the ideological doctrine of Avraham and he possibly would have deserted his faith if it became expedient to do so. It is worthy of mention that Haran himself must surely have been convinced of the purity of his own commitment. We see this because if that were not the case he would not have believed that he would have been saved along with Avraham if his faith was only superficial.
The decisions people make in their lives and the positions that they take on major issues is a complex process made up of many factors. We see from this Chazal the extent to which a person can be outwardly committed to his ideals, and perhaps in his own mind consider himself fully and purely committed while deep down have ulterior motives that are foundational to his position.


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