I know I just posted about the promise between Hashem and Avraham, but now I want to look at it in a different way, and that is the importance of promises. From a young age many Jewish children are taught that instead of “I promise” they have to say “bli neder”. Why is this?
The basis for the answer can be found in the story of Avraham. Hashem promised Avraham greatness, wealth, children, source of bracha, and land. He then goes about helping Avraham through his problems and adventures so that He can fulfill that promise. Now this is well and good, but why does Hashem then keep reassuring Avraham that He will fulfill the promise? Couldn’t he just remove any and all doubt from Avraham’s mind?
I think that the reason Hashem continually has to remind Avraham is to show us, the future generations, a lesson. He is trying to show us just how important promises are. By making a promise with Avraham and continually following up on it, He is showing us how carefully we should treat our own promises. We are all made betzelem Elokim, which means that in everything we do we should try to emulate Hashem. In other words, we need to try to take our promises as seriously as Hashem did.
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