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God Stoops to Abraham and Rises Only for the Poor

David shouted at heaven to stand up five separate times and got nothing back. Then God named the one thing that would get Him off the ground.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The King Laid Out a Feast for One Guest
  2. The Man From Far Away Sat in a Tent Door
  3. David Called Arise Five Times
  4. The Only Thing That Gets God Off the Ground
  5. A Rooster Shaking Ash Off Its Wings
  6. Jacob Sent Word Down the Road to Seir
God Stoops to Abraham and Rises Only for the Poor Click for full size

The King Laid Out a Feast for One Guest

A king prepared a banquet and sent word to a single guest. Come in. It is all set out for you.

Rabbi Nehemya said that was the garden. God did not simply put Adam down in Eden. God enticed him in, the way a host spreads everything a man could want and then waits by the door. Rabbi Yehuda heard the same verb and heard a coronation instead, the one Deuteronomy uses when Israel is told to set a king over itself. Adam was not parked in Eden. Adam was installed there.

Then Adam asked his own question, and the psalm hands him the words. You know my sitting and my rising, You understand my thought from far away. The sitting was the garden. The rising was the morning they put him out of it. And the thought from far away was the one he could not get past: by what merit did You decide to make me at all?

The answer came from a distance he could not see across. Isaiah speaks of a bird of prey summoned from the east, a man of counsel called out of a far country. Adam was made on the credit of a man who would not be born for twenty generations.

The Man From Far Away Sat in a Tent Door

That man was Abraham, and by the time this scene catches him he is old, it is the worst heat of the day, and he is sitting in the opening of his tent at Mamre.

He had a record behind him. A furnace in Ur that did not burn him. A famine he walked his whole household through. Four kings he chased down and beat with the men of his own camp. The psalm calls all of it a shield, and a right hand holding a man upright.

The same psalm ends on a stranger line. Your humility made me great. The humility is the arrangement in that doorway. Abraham sat. The Presence stood over him. God stoops to a man who does not get up, and waits there in the heat while he stays seated.

Every arrangement people knew ran the other way. A worshipper stands and his god sits. Here the old man stayed in the shade and the Presence took the standing.

David Called Arise Five Times

Generations later a king of Israel wanted that same posture and could not get it.

Rabbi Pinhas, in the name of Rabbi Reuven, counted the times David shouted for God to stand up. Arise, Lord, save me. Arise, Lord, in Your anger. Arise, Lord God, lift Your hand and do not forget. Arise, Lord, let no man be arrogant. Arise, Lord, go out and meet him. Five times, and each time the seat stayed occupied.

"David, my son," God told him. "Call for Me to get up as often as you like. I am not getting up."

Then He named the one condition.

The Only Thing That Gets God Off the Ground

Because of the robbery of the poor, because of the groaning of the needy, now I will arise.

Not for a king in danger. Not for an army massing at a border. The price is somebody else's hunger. God rises when the poor are stripped, and a man who wants heaven standing has to go look at who is being robbed in his own streets.

Rabbi Yona pushed that further than most people care to follow. As long as the poor are lying in the ashes, he said, God is lying in the ashes too. There is no throne being kept warm above the wreckage. There is a figure down in it.

A Rooster Shaking Ash Off Its Wings

Rabbi Aha found the picture for the day it ends. A rooster settles into the ash pile to sleep, and when it comes up it gives that hard shudder that throws grey in every direction. That, he said, is what the rising looks like.

Isaiah shouts the order at the city. Shake off the dust, get up, take your seat, Jerusalem. Zechariah shouts the other half at everyone else. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord. Silent for what reason? Because He has been roused out of His holy dwelling. Nothing about it is quiet, and none of it starts until the ash heap is empty.

Jacob Sent Word Down the Road to Seir

All of that argument hangs off one verse about a frightened man. Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau, into the land of Seir, the open country of Edom, and he told them exactly what to say. So says your servant Jacob.

He was buying safety in advance. He wanted heaven on its feet for him, and he wanted it settled before he had to stand in front of his brother.

What came back was flat. He was going on his way, God said. Then you sent to him, and called yourself his servant.

Esau had been headed somewhere else. The messengers turned him around.

Midrash RabbahAdamAbrahamDivine Presence
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Bereshit Rabbah 15:4Bereshit Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

Bereshit Rabbah turns to What God Intended for Adam Before the Fall.

The book of Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, offers a fascinating glimpse. Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 15 explores the verse "He placed there [vayasem sham] [the man]." It's a seemingly simple phrase, but the Rabbis find layers of meaning within it.

Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Neḥemya offer contrasting interpretations. Rabbi Yehuda suggests that vayasem sham means God "elevated" Adam. He draws a parallel to the verse in (Deuteronomy 17:15), "You shall set [som tasim] a king over you." Just as a king is elevated to a position of power and authority, so too was Adam elevated in the Garden. He was given dominion, placed in a position of honor.

Rabbi Neḥemya sees something different. He interprets vayasem sham to mean that God "enticed" Adam, drawing him in with the Garden’s allure. a paradise of unparalleled beauty, abundance, and comfort. Who wouldn't be enticed?

The midrash (rabbinic story) goes on to compare God’s invitation to Adam to a king who prepares a lavish feast and invites a guest. It’s an image of incredible generosity and hospitality. God invited Adam to partake in the "feast" that had been prepared for him in the Garden.

And here's where it gets really interesting. This invitation, this incredible gift, was given, according to Bereshit Rabbah, due to the merit of Abraham. Wait, Abraham hadn't even been born yet! How could his merit influence Adam’s experience?

Well, the midrash connects this to (Psalm 139:2): "You know my sitting and my rising; You understand my thoughts from afar." Here, the Psalm is applied to Adam. "My sitting" refers to his time in the Garden of Eden, and "my rising" to his expulsion from it. But the crucial part is "You understand my thoughts from afar."

The midrash asks: By what merit did God decide to create Adam in the first place? The answer: it was by the merit of the one who would come from afar – Abraham. As it says in (Isaiah 46:11), "I summon a bird of prey from the east, the man of My counsel from a distant land." This, the Rabbis say, is a reference to Abraham, whom God summoned from the east (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews).

So, according to this interpretation, Adam’s very creation, his placement in the Garden, was intertwined with the future actions and righteousness of Abraham. It suggests a profound interconnectedness between generations, a divine plan stretching across time.

What does this all mean? Perhaps it suggests that even in the beginning, God foresaw the need for redemption, for the kind of unwavering faith and commitment that Abraham would embody. Maybe it highlights the idea that our actions, even those seemingly insignificant, can have ripple effects across time, influencing the lives of those who come after us. It's a reminder that we are all part of a larger story, a story that began in a garden and continues to unfold with each generation.

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Bereshit Rabbah 48:1Bereshit Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

Like a flash of light and a booming voice. But maybe, just maybe, it's something a little more… intimate. The source turns to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, specifically section 48.

We begin with the familiar verse: "The Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1). Abraham, sitting, minding his own business, in the blazing heat. But Bereshit Rabbah doesn't just accept the verse at face value. It asks: What's really going on here?

The Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, connect this moment to a verse in Psalms (18:36): "You have given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand has supported me; Your humility has made me great." They see Abraham as the embodiment of this verse. "You have given me the shield of Your salvation" – this, they say, refers directly to Abraham. Remember God's promise to Abram in (Genesis 15:1)? "Fear not, Abram, I am a shield for you." He was promised Divine protection.

"Your right hand has supported me" – well, that's seen as all the times God helped Abraham through tough situations: the fiery furnace (a story from folklore, not explicitly in Genesis, but very much part of Abraham's legend), the famine, and his battles against the kings. Think of it: trials and tribulations, each overcome with divine assistance.

But here's where it gets really interesting. "Your humility has rendered me great." With what humility, the Rabbis ask, did God make Abraham great? And the answer is… He was sitting, and the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, was standing over him. image for a moment. God, in a sense, humbling Himself before Abraham. Reversing the expected roles of power and reverence.

The all-powerful, all-knowing God, appearing to a mortal man in such a way that emphasizes God's own… humility. That’s what is written: “The Lord appeared to him.” The appearance wasn’t just a visual manifestation, but an act of Divine grace, a demonstration of a relationship built on mutual respect and, yes, even humility.

What does this tell us? Perhaps that true greatness isn't about power or domination, but about the willingness to meet others, even those "below" us, on their level. Maybe that’s what it means for God to “appear” – not a thunderbolt, but a quiet act of profound humility. A lesson for us all, really.

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Bereshit Rabbah 75:1Bereshit Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

King David certainly did. In Psalms, he repeatedly begs God to rise up and intervene. But what does it really mean for God to "arise"? And when will that moment finally come?

Our story begins with Jacob. Remember him? He’s about to meet his brother, Esau, after a long separation, and things are… complicated, to say the least. (Genesis 32:4) tells us, "Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, to the land of Se’ir, the field of Edom.”

That seemingly simple act of sending messengers? It sparks a fascinating discussion in Bereshit Rabbah, a classical collection of Rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 75 dives deep into the verse and connects it to a powerful plea from King David in (Psalm 17:13): “Arise, Lord, confront him and subdue him. Rescue me from the wicked with Your sword.”

Rabbi Pinḥas, quoting Rabbi Reuven, uses this verse to launch into a broader reflection on when God actually answers our calls to "arise." Rabbi Pinḥas points out that David uses this phrase – "Arise, Lord!" – no fewer than five times in the Book of Psalms. He cries out: “Arise, Lord; save me, my God” (Psalms 3:8); “Arise, Lord, in Your anger” (Psalms 7:7); “Arise, Lord God, raise Your hand. Do not forget” (Psalms 10:12); “Arise, Lord; let man not be arrogant” (Psalms 9:20); and finally, the one we started with, “Arise, Lord, confront him” (Psalms 17:13).

So, why the silence sometimes? According to this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) – this interpretive story – God basically tells David, "David, my son, even if you call for Me to rise many times, I will not rise. When will I rise? It is when the poor are robbed and the indigent are groaning. It’s not just about our personal struggles; it's about systemic injustice. The verse that follows, (Psalm 12:6), reinforces this: “Because of the robbery of the poor and the groans of the indigent, [now I will arise].”

Rabbi Yona takes this idea even further. He suggests that God, in a sense, is also "wallowing in the ashes" until the day comes when Jerusalem can "shake the dust from you, arise and sit" (Isaiah 52:2). Then, (Zechariah 2:17) tells us, "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is roused from His abode of sanctity.” Rabbi Aḥa compares it to a rooster shaking itself free from the ashes.

But what about the specific plea to "confront" the wicked? Rabbi Aḥa interprets "kadma panav" – "confront him" – as a call to give the wicked their reward early, in this world, before they have a chance to repent. It’s like saying, "Deal with them now, before they can sweet-talk their way out of it!" He wants God to "tip the scales to condemn him [hakhri’ehu] and break him," just like in (Psalms 20:9), where it says, “They dropped to their knees [kare’u] and fell…”

And who is this "wicked" that David – and by extension, Jacob – is so worried about? Well, the Rabbis offer a couple of possibilities. It could be Esau himself, who, as (Genesis 27:40) says, "By your sword you shall live." Or, alternatively, it could be Rome, seen as descendants of Esau and a force of oppression in the world. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, quoting Rabbi Levi, says this wicked one is destined to fall by God’s sword, as prophesied in (Isaiah 34:5): “For My sword is sated in Heaven; behold, it will descend upon Edom.”

Here’s the kicker, though. The midrash ends with a surprising twist. God essentially says to Jacob, "He was going on his way, and then you are sending to him and saying: ‘So said your servant, Jacob’ (Genesis 32:5)." The implication? Had Jacob not reached out to Esau, Esau might have just continued on his way, minding his own business!

So, what does all this mean? Sometimes, our very attempts to protect ourselves can inadvertently provoke the very conflict we’re trying to avoid. It also reminds us that the call for divine intervention isn't just about personal salvation. It’s deeply intertwined with the plight of the vulnerable and the pursuit of justice. And maybe, just maybe, sometimes the answer to our prayers lies not in waiting for God to "arise," but in our own willingness to get up and do something ourselves.

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