וְאֶֽעֶשְׂךָ֙ לְג֣וֹי גָּד֔וֹל וַאֲבָ֣רֶכְךָ֔ וַאֲגַדְּלָ֖ה שְׁמֶ֑ךָ וֶהְיֵ֖ה בְּרָכָֽה׃
Je te ferai devenir une grande nation; je te bénirai, je rendrai ton nom glorieux, et tu seras un type de bénédiction.
Degel Machaneh Ephraim
And the Lord said to Avram, "Go for yourself, etc., to the land that I will show you": I heard about this from my master, my father, may his memory be blessed, who said in the name of his master, his father, the elder - his soul is in Eden - Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, that the unification of the reading of Shema is hinted here. The numerical equivalent of, "Go (Lech) is the [same as] the 50 letters of the unification with the sacrifice of one's life (the first two sentences of Shema contain 49 letters and the person's life counts as an additional letter). And [the sacrifice] is indicated by, "from your land, etc." But the matter needs to clarified and explained more, how the unification of the reading of Shema is hinted here: So behold the holy Zohar (Zohar Chadash, Sifra Tanina 85) wrote that the five flat stones with which King David, peace be upon him, fought with Goliath the Philistine are the five words of unification, "Hear Israel, [the] Lord [is our] God, [the] Lord"; and he placed them in one sling, meaning, "[is] One," see there. So behold, there are 248 words in the reading of Shema, and that is what is hinted here: "And the Lord said to Avram, 'Go,'" meaning the unification of the reading of Shema, which is the number of, "go," as mentioned above; "for yourself," meaning for the need of building your soul, you will see fit to sacrifice your life for the sanctification of God, may He be blessed and elevated, and you will merit the secret of the unification of the reading of Shema. And this is [the meaning of], "and I will make your name great" (Genesis 12:2); meaning that a hey will be added to his name and he will be called Avraham, which is the numerical equivalent of 248. Hence the 248 letters of the reading of Shema will be included in him and in his name, which is his soul. By way of sacrificing his life to God, may He be blessed, you will merit this - to be called by the name, Avraham, the aspect of the reading of Shema. And afterwards, you will merit "the land that I will show you," meaning the unification of prayer, which is [something that] 'no eye has seen besides You, God.' And so is it with anyone at anytime, if one enters into the shrine of love with great cleaving and sacrifices his life for the sanctification of His name, may He be blessed, he merits the unification of the reading of Shema, which encompasses all of the unification, since the numerical equivalent of love (ahavah) and one (echad) are the same. And afterwards he climbs to a cleaving higher than this and merits the unification of prayer, as his thought is purified in greater cleaving to God, may He be blessed, as it is was with Avraham. As the Torah is eternal, and it is for every person and for all times. And understand [this].
Kedushat Levi
Genesis 12,2. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and make your reputation great.” The Talmud (Pessachim 117) comments on this verse that “making Avraham great,” meant that when referring to G’d the Creator, people would describe G’d as “the G’d of Avraham.” The word ואברכך is a promise that the Israelites when praying will refer to G’d as “the G’d of Yitzchok,” whereas the words: ואגדלה שמך, “I will make your name great,” refer to the Israelites referring to G’d as the “G’d of Yaakov” in their prayers. I might have thought that when concluding the benediction they would also mention the names of all the patriarchs; in order to signal that this is not so, the Torah continues with והיה ברכה, “be a blessing!” (sing) i.e. that the signature of the benediction contains only the name of Avraham, i.e. מגן אברהם, “(Gd) the shield of Avraham.”
There are three attributes that G’d employs in His continuous relations with the creatures in His universe; they are אהבה, “love,” גבורה, “power,” and תפארת, “harmony, splendour.” When G’d relates to His creatures with the attribute of אהבה, “love,” all parts of the universe are filled with all manner of “good” (welcome) phenomena. When He has recourse to the attribute of גבורה, “power,” the result is that the creatures affected will feel the opposite of comfortable. When G’d employs the attribute of תפארת in relation to His creatures, the world will also feel an abundance of goodness, as it is G’d’s purpose and desire to be able to glorify in His choicest creation, man. When G’d is able to do this, He inundates the universe with love. We must not misunderstand the attribute of גבורה by regarding it as something negative. While the attribute of גבורה, when active, may appear to the people affected by it as something negative, unwelcome in the extreme, it is designed to enable G’d to again relate to all His creatures with love, once that attribute has accomplished its purpose.
This is what we are told in Job 8,7 (by Bildad) והיה ראשיתך מצער ואחריתך ישגה מאד, “though your beginning may be small (painful), in the end you will grow very great.” The overriding function of the attribute of גבורה is to carry out retribution in the world so that G’d will afterwards be able to pour out all His goodness on His creatures. Historically, the person who had realized this better than anyone else, was Nachum, nick-named, איש גם זו, who whenever something happened to him that was unpleasant, painful, etc., immediately reacted by saying: גם זו לטובה, “this too will eventually be revealed as having been a positive, constructive event.” (Taanit 21).).
It is generally known that Avraham symbolizes the attribute of love, whereas Yitzchok symbolizes the attribute of power, and Yaakov symbolizes a merging of these two attributes, resulting in what we call תפארת, harmony. When the Talmud in Pessachim 117 first thought that it would be appropriate to sign the first benediction of the amidah prayer by referring to G’d as the G’d of Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov, it concluded that the reason the sages who formulated this prayer did not do so, was because they wanted to stress that ultimately, what G’d is all about is the attribute of love, the attribute personified best in the personality of Avraham. [The Maharshah on that section of the Talmud points out that the letters in the word והיה are the same as the letters in the tetragram, i.e. the name of G’d symbolizing the attribute of Mercy. Ed.] The other two attributes’ function is auxiliary, i.e. to help G’d be able to fully display His attribute of love.
There are three attributes that G’d employs in His continuous relations with the creatures in His universe; they are אהבה, “love,” גבורה, “power,” and תפארת, “harmony, splendour.” When G’d relates to His creatures with the attribute of אהבה, “love,” all parts of the universe are filled with all manner of “good” (welcome) phenomena. When He has recourse to the attribute of גבורה, “power,” the result is that the creatures affected will feel the opposite of comfortable. When G’d employs the attribute of תפארת in relation to His creatures, the world will also feel an abundance of goodness, as it is G’d’s purpose and desire to be able to glorify in His choicest creation, man. When G’d is able to do this, He inundates the universe with love. We must not misunderstand the attribute of גבורה by regarding it as something negative. While the attribute of גבורה, when active, may appear to the people affected by it as something negative, unwelcome in the extreme, it is designed to enable G’d to again relate to all His creatures with love, once that attribute has accomplished its purpose.
This is what we are told in Job 8,7 (by Bildad) והיה ראשיתך מצער ואחריתך ישגה מאד, “though your beginning may be small (painful), in the end you will grow very great.” The overriding function of the attribute of גבורה is to carry out retribution in the world so that G’d will afterwards be able to pour out all His goodness on His creatures. Historically, the person who had realized this better than anyone else, was Nachum, nick-named, איש גם זו, who whenever something happened to him that was unpleasant, painful, etc., immediately reacted by saying: גם זו לטובה, “this too will eventually be revealed as having been a positive, constructive event.” (Taanit 21).).
It is generally known that Avraham symbolizes the attribute of love, whereas Yitzchok symbolizes the attribute of power, and Yaakov symbolizes a merging of these two attributes, resulting in what we call תפארת, harmony. When the Talmud in Pessachim 117 first thought that it would be appropriate to sign the first benediction of the amidah prayer by referring to G’d as the G’d of Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov, it concluded that the reason the sages who formulated this prayer did not do so, was because they wanted to stress that ultimately, what G’d is all about is the attribute of love, the attribute personified best in the personality of Avraham. [The Maharshah on that section of the Talmud points out that the letters in the word והיה are the same as the letters in the tetragram, i.e. the name of G’d symbolizing the attribute of Mercy. Ed.] The other two attributes’ function is auxiliary, i.e. to help G’d be able to fully display His attribute of love.
Kedushat Levi
Genesis 12,2. “and be a blessing!” The letter י-ה in the word והיה is an allusion to G’d, whereas he letters ה-ו are an allusion to the Jewish people. As long as Avraham had not existed, there had not been a human being who tried to “awaken” G’d’s largesse to be dispensed in the lower regions of the universe. G’d’s largesse, when it was dispensed for the good of mankind, owed this exclusively to the Creator’s goodwill. As soon as Avraham became active on earth, there were deeds on earth that “awakened” G’d to dispense His largesse as a result of acts performed by His creatures. In other words, prior to Avraham, G’d’s name could be spelled in the order of י-ה-ו-ה, whereas this order had now been reversed and His name could be spelled as ו-ה-י-ה. This is what the author of Bereshit Rabbah 39,11 had in mind when he said that the meaning of the word והיה is equivalent to the meaning of the word שמחה, joy, i.e. there had not been any joy on earth prior to the appearance of Avraham on earth. The reversal of the sequence of the letters ו-ה hints at this largesse having its origin in the lower, rather than the celestial regions. [I have not found a reference to שמחה joy, in our versions of this Midrash. Ed.]