Берешит 12:7 Комментарий: Rashi, Ramban, Kli Yakar & Kitzur Ba'al HaTurim

ויבן שם מזבח AND HE BUILDED THERE AN ALTAR — in thanksgiving for the good tidings that he would have children, and for the good tidings that they would possess the land of Israel.

The sense of the expression, And there he built an altar unto the Eternal, who appeared unto him,⁵⁷Verse 7 here. is that he gave praise to the Glorious Name⁵⁸Deuteronomy 28:58. and offered unto Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving for His having appeared to him. Until now G-d had not appeared to him neither in a mar’eh nor in a machzeh.⁵⁹Mar’eh and Machzeh are terms for different degrees of prophetic vision. See Ramban further, 15:1. See also Moreh Nebuchim, II, 41-5, for full discussion of these terms and other prophetic experiences. Rather, the command, Get thee out of thy country, was said to him in a nocturnal dream or through Ruach Hakodesh.⁶⁰Literally, “The Holy Spirit.” See ibid., Chapter 45, beginning: “second degree of prophecy.” It is possible that the expression, Who appeared unto him, alludes to the mystery of the sacrifice. The one enlightened [in the mysteries of the Torah] will understand.

“And the Lord appeared to Abram.” The reason why God did not appear to him immediately when He said Go forth from your land was because at that time he was still outside the Land of Israel, like Ibn Ezra’s opinion, and outside the Land of Israel, His Divine Presence does not reveal itself, as evidenced from [the story of] Jonah (Mekhilta Bo 12:4). Therefore, the name of God was not revealed to him in a vision; rather he only heard the voice of words, and consequently he did not build an altar there, only [later] to the Lord who appeared to him. But while He had not yet appeared to him, he did not want to build an altar in a place where the Divine Presence does not dwell. And this is what was said regarding Moses (Exodus 4:1): for they will say, “The Lord has not appeared to you,” because it is not His way to appear outside the Land of Israel, and through this they would deny [Moses] saying, “You didn’t even hear a voice.”