Musar su Genesi 12:6

Abraham planted an אשל, (another word for orchard); he entered and emerged spiritually whole. Abraham traversed the whole land of Canaan (Genesis 12,6) descended into the land of Egypt, a country filled with all sorts of impurities. He was saved from being affected by any of them, and the Torah reports him as having ascended again from Egypt "southward" (Genesis 13,1). [The term "southward" is geographically incorrect as the land of Canaan is situated north of Egypt. Ed.] All of Abraham's ascents were "southward," in line with the statement of our sages that he who wishes to acquire true wisdom should turn "southward." (Baba Batra 25b). Rabbi Akiva, too, entered the orchard spiritually whole and emerged whole.

First we must know what Nachmanides has written on the subject of the Torah's reports about our patriarchs' experiences. On 12,6"Abraham traversed the land," Nachmanides writes as follows: Let me tell you a general principle that applies to all the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, something that our sages expressed very concisely when they said מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, that "the experiences of the patriarchs foreshadowed the experiences of the Jewish people later on." This is the principal reason the Torah spends so much time on telling us of the journeys, the digging of wells and similar details in the lives of the patriarchs. Those who ponder these details think at first glance that these stories are superfluous and do not serve a useful purpose. Actually, all these events foreshadow events in the future. When these events occur to a prophet in the future they will be understood as something that had been decreed by G–d a long time ago during the lives of the Patriarchs as ordained to happen to their descendants. Whereas during the lives of the Patriarchs these were merely potential happenings in the history of the descendants, they became reality in their respective eras by means of the prophets. This is why the prophets performed certain deeds such as Jeremiah (51,63) ordering Baruch to tie his book to a stone and upon having finished reading it to throw it into the river Euphrates. He added that that act symbolized the descent of the Jewish people into the Babylonian exile. A similar reason prompted Elisha in Kings II 13, 17 when he told King Joash to take a bow and shoot arrows, an arrow of victory for the Lord, an arrow of victory over Aram. Subsequently, Elisha told the king to strike the ground with the arrows. The king did so, but only three times. Elisha was very angry and told him that if he had struck the ground five or six times this would have resulted in the king annihilating Aram in battle totally, but now, Israel would prove victorious over Aram in three wars only. G–d made Abraham experience certain things in the land of Israel in order that these experiences might serve as the forerunners of the later experiences of the Jewish people. [Rabbi Chavell in his commentary on Nachmanides points out that it was not Baruch but the ministers who had been commanded to throw the book into the river. Ed.]