Musar zu Bereschit 12:11

And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, stated (Avot 5:19), "Whoever possesses these three things, he is of the disciples of Abraham, our father [...] A good eye, a humble spirit and a moderate appetite." And the meaning of a humble spirit is that he does not follow his physical desire even with permissible things. [This is] like we find that Abraham stated (Genesis 12:11) "Behold I know what a beautiful woman you are" - as he had not stared at her until that day, to contemplate the character of her beauty. And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, stated (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 2:3) about that which is written (II Samuel 20:3), "and they remained in seclusion until the day they died, in living widowhood" - that each day David would command that their heads be beautified and that perfumes be given to them to adorn them in order to provoke his desire and to [then] subdue it, when he would conquer his impulse for them, in order to atone for himself about the matter of Bathsheba.

From the line הנה נא ידעתי כי אשה יפת מראה את, "Here I know (now) that you are a very attractive looking woman," we learn that Abraham was so chaste that up to that point he had remained unaware of Sarah's physical attractiveness. This quality of chastity is most inspiring.

G–d answered Satan at that time, that Abraham already had offered such a sacrifice at the time he circumcised himself and again when he circumcised Isaac, seeing that circumcision rates as a major sacrifice. When he did this he fulfilled the commandment of Leviticus 1,2: אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן, "when someone offers a sacrifice it should be part of you," i.e. part of your very self. We have an allusion to this in Genesis 12,11 ויהי כאשר הקריב לבא מצרימה, when the use of the word הקריב instead of קרב, indicates that he brought himself closer to G–d (see our commentary page 80). G–d compensated the Jewish people for Abraham's devotion at the appropriate time. We know that circumcision itself rates as a major sacrifice from the boast of Ishmael to Isaac that whereas he, Ishmael, had submitted voluntarily to that painful procedure at the age of thirteen, Isaac as an eight day old baby had not suffered, nor had he accumulated a merit for consenting to that act. Isaac responded that if G–d were to ask him to sacrifice his entire body he would be prepared to do so (compare Sanhedrin 89). According to this last version the words אחר הדברים האלה in 22,1 refer to this conversation between Ishmael and Isaac. We will demonstrate that both approaches are true and reflect valid Torah viewpoints.

On that subject, the Zohar (Sullam edition Lech-Lecha page 44) comments on 12,11: ויהי כאשר הקריב אברם לבא מצרימה, "It was when Abram came close to arriving in Egypt," that the word the Torah should have used for approaching is קרב. Why then did the Torah use the word הקריב? The answer is that the Torah used an expression it uses about Pharaoh in Exodus 14, 10 when the latter was in hot pursuit of the Israelites. Pharaoh caused Israel to become ready to repent when they realised the immediate danger Pharaoh's pursuit posed for them. This is the meaning of the causative form הקריב. In Abraham's case too, his experiences in Egypt brought him closer to G–d, seeing that all his calculations about protecting himself and Sarah had not prevented her from being taken to the King's palace to become his concubine. Abraham took a closer look at the inadequacies of the Egyptian culture and separated himself from that culture.