Sunday, November 13, 2005

Was Avraham correct in going to Egypt?

In this past week's parsha (Lech Lecha) there is a famine in כנען and Avraham goes down to Egypt. Rashi comments that the famine was only in כנען and it was one of the ten tests that Hashem tested Avraham with and he passed. The Ramban however disagrees. The Ramban writes that Avraham made a mistake in going to down Egypt and then he made a further mistake in telling the Egyptians that Sara was his sister. The Ramban says that he should have had faith in hashem in both cases.

Again, we see a very different approach between Rashi and the Rammban to the Avos.

3 comments:

lamedzayin said...

The Netziv was very unhappy with this Ramban. He points out that the ra'av is mentioned twice in the pasuk, and that Avraham stayed as long as he could, until the famine became "kaved" and it was no longer at all possible.

lamedzayin said...

Ah, I see you mentioned in another recent post (about Hagar) that the Netziv doesn't like the Ramban's approach there either. There seems to be a genuine difference in mehalech here, not just a specific issue of pshat.

bluke said...

That was I was trying to point out with the last sentence as well. That Rashi and the ramban have a different mehalech regarding how to view the Avos.