Devar/5770/Noach
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עברית
English
And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran (Gen 11:26)
Terah the father of Abram appears at the end of a long list of previous generations. It is interesting that he is listed as having fathered only at an advanced age: for his own father Nahor fathered him when he was twenty-nine. And Serug, Nahor's father at thirty; and Reu, Serug's father at thirty-two, and so forth up until Shem, who was one hundred when he fathered Arpachshad two years after the Flood. Why did Terah keep from procreation until such an advanced age?
I still haven't found an answer to this matter among the Torah commentators, so I will try to develop an answer with God's help. It is known from the Midrash Rabbah Bereshit that Terah was an idol worshipper, and that he owned a store where he sold the idols used in that worship. It seems to me, perhaps, that he was so involved in the vanity of the world of idolatry that he didn't invest even a minimal amount of time in family life. He really believed in idolatry -- so much so, that he didn't involve himself in anything else.
The same midrash tells us that Terah received the reward of the "World to Come" -- and this is puzzling, as we know that an idolater cannot receive such a reward. Rather, this comes to tell us that he repented his evil deeds after Abram his son demonstrated to him the falseness of idolatry, and that there is no truth in idolatry, rather only in worship of God. Perhaps it comes to inform us that even a person who worshiped idols his entire life and was immersed in it as much as Terah -- even such a person has the option to return in repentance to God, may He be blessed.
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