Abraham our father was tested with ten trials and he passed them all, which shows how great Abraham’s love [for God] was” (Pirkei Avot 5:4).

The Torah introduces the Akeidah (the binding of Isaac) with the words, “it happened after these things that G-d tested Abraham…”. This is the only event which the Torah explicitly specifies as a test; hence it is left to different commentators to specify what the other nine tests were.

According to the Rambam (commentary ad. loc.), only those events which are written directly in the Torah are included, and enumerates them:
1. The command to leave his homeland and family (Genesis 12:1);
2. the famine in Israel which began as soon as he arrived (v.10);
3. the Egyptians’ mistreatment when they abducted his wife (v.14-15);
4. his war against the four kings (14:1-16);
5. having a child by Hagar after despairing of Sarah ever giving birth (16:1-4);
6. circumcising himself at ninety-nine years old (17:24);
7. the king of Gerar’s mistreatment when he abducted his wife (20:1-14);
8. expelling Hagar after building a family with her (21:9-14);
9. expelling Ishmael his son (ibid.);
10. the Akeidah.

Rashi disagrees, and following Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer Chapters 26-31, he includes certain events which are recorded only in the Midrashim:
1. Hiding in an underground cave for thirteen years in Ur of the Chaldees, when Nimrod the king sought to kill him (Midrash ha-Gadol, Genesis 11:28);
2. Nimrod cast him into a fiery furnace for not worshipping idols (Eiruvin 53a, Pesachim 118a, Bereishit Rabbah 38:13 et. al.);
3. the command to leave his homeland and family (Genesis 12:1);
4. the famine in Israel which began as soon as he arrived (v.10);
5. the Egyptians’ mistreatment when they took his wife (v.14-15);
6. the capture of his nephew Lot in the war of the four kings against the five, as a result of which he went to war to rescue him (14:1-16);
7. G-d’s foretelling that his descendents would be enslaved and oppressed (15:13-16)
8. circumcising himself and his son at ninety-nine years old (17:24);
9. expelling Ishmael and Hagar;
10. the Akeidah.

Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartinura’s listing of Abraham’s ten trials is similar to Rashi’s; however he omits the thirteen years spent hiding from Nimrod, and includes the Abimelech’s abduction of his wife (Genesis 20:1-14). Rabbi Yonah of Geronah is the only commentator who does not list the Akeidah as the final test. He enumerates Abraham’s ten trials as:
1. Nimrod cast him into a fiery furnace for not worshipping idols;
2. the command to leave his homeland and family;
3. the famine in Israel;
4. his wife’s abduction by Pharaoh in Egypt;
5. his war against the four kings;
6. his circumcision at age 99;
7. his wife’s abduction by Abimelech in Gerar;
8. expelling Hagar and Ishmael;
9. the Akeidah;
10. the death of Sarah, and having to buy her burial plot (Genesis 23).

G-d knew the results in advance. It was rather to elevate Abraham by giving him challenges to overcome, and to allow him to prove to himself what tremendous spiritual heights he could reach.
The purpose of these tests was not for G-d to discover what Abraham’s limitations were: of course He knew the results in advance. It was rather to elevate Abraham by giving him challenges to overcome, and to allow him to prove to himself what tremendous spiritual heights he could reach.

Each of the three Patriarchs had one overriding characteristic. Abraham was the man of chessed (loving-kindness), Isaac was the man of g’vurah (might), and Jacob was the man of tiferet (glory). Each of them was tested in situations where they had to overcome these basic instincts.

Abraham’s tests fell into two categories: since Abraham’s most fundamental instinct was chessed, one category was G-d testing him by subjecting him to situations where he had to overcome his yetzer ha-tov – his good inclination – to be a man of chessed so as to fulfil his mission. We are all familiar with situations where we have to overcome our yetzer ha-ra, our evil inclination; sometimes it can be a far harder challenge to overcome our yetzer ha-tov. This was what Abraham had to do by rebelling against the idolaters of Ur of the Chaldees – rejecting his friends and families, offending what was dear to them, alienating himself from society and society from himself.

Similarly when Abraham led his 318 students into war, knowing that he must inevitably kill the enemy and subject his students to potential death on the battlefield, he had to conquer his innate chessed, his unconditional love of his fellow-men.

The same applied when he expelled Hagar, his almost-wife, and their son Ishmael. Of course he loved them, of course he was conflicted about sending them away to fend for themselves. But when G-d Himself told him to obey his wife’s decision (Genesis 21:12-14), he did not hesitate.

The second category of test was to imperil the very survival of the ideology which he preached, and yet to maintain his unwavering faith in spite of apparent disaster.

When King Nimrod sought to kill him for his belief in the One true G-d, he was forced to flee and hide in an underground cave, alone and friendless.

The direct consequence was that when he was eventually caught, after thirteen years as a fugitive, he was given one last chance to recant: worship the idols or be flung into a fiery furnace. The young Abram faced a horrendous dilemma: if he was killed, then there would be no one left in the entire world to defend the truth. Yet Abram knew that by compromising his principles, even by pretending to agree to worship an idol, his entire mission would be perverted, his entire life would become worthless, and he would not be able to propagate the message of monotheism. His test was both supreme self-sacrifice, and not despairing of the ultimate victory of truth in the world.

The famine which struck the Land of Israel for Egypt immediately after his arrival, and which forced him to leave the Land, was terribly demoralising. Once again, the very survival of his mission, his ability to spread the message of monotheism, was called into doubt. How could he preach to anyone about an omnipotent G-d Who created Heaven and earth, if He could not even provide one family with food? Yet Abraham managed to maintain his faith in spite of all.

The Akeidah (as we have seen, the final test according to most commentators) combined both elements. Every normal father would find it all but impossible to sacrifice his own son; how much more so Abraham, for whom his son Isaac was not only his sole progeny, but also the only person in the world who could continue to spread belief in the One true G-d. Abraham had to have infinite faith in G-d, both to overcome his most primordial instincts of fatherly love and to continue to believe that in spite of his impending action, knowledge of G-d would yet survive in the world.

(Incidentally, this was also a test for Isaac: as noted above, Isaac was the man of g’vurah, might. He could easily have resisted his father’s binding him – after all, he was no stripling of a lad: he was already 37 years old. In the akeidah, Isaac had to overcome his own innate characteristic of g’vurah.)

And then, there is another episode in Parashat Vayeira which appears to be a test for Abraham, yet which no commentator includes in the list of ten: G-d’s telling him about the imminent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

A simple reading of the text suggests very strongly that this was a test for Abraham: the Torah introduces the episode with the words, “HaShem said: Shall I conceal from Abraham what I am doing, when Abraham is to become a great and mighty nation, in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed?!” (Genesis 18:17). The inference is that G-d is testing Abraham’s response to His planned destruction of the metropolis.

And Abraham’s response suggests the same. Note his trepidation as he starts to challenge G-d: “Will You even cause the righteous to perish with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous ones inside the city – will you even so cause the place to perish rather than save it for the sake of those fifty righteous?... Will the Judge of all the world not do justice?!” (vs. 23-25).

When G-d agrees, Abraham lowers the ante: “Behold now: I have begun to speak to my Lord – I, who am but dust and ash. Maybe there will be five lacking from the fifty righteous – will You destroy the city because of those five?” (vs. 27-28).

Abraham continues: “Now let my Lord please not be angry…” (v. 30); “Now let my Lord please not be angry, and I will speak just this one more time…” (v. 32). These are the words of a man who fears the potential consequences of what he is about to say – after all, he is challenging G-d Himself, almost accusing Him of injustice! – yet who stands up for justice in spite of his fear. If this was not a test, then what was it?!

Yet according to no opinion at all was this one of Abraham’s ten tests.

I suggest that this is because both elements of test – overcoming his basic nature and jeopardising his divine mission – are missing from Abraham’s pleading with G-d to spare Sodom. In challenging G-d not to destroy the metropolis, Abraham was being true to his nature: the man of chessed was naturally distraught at the thought of so many killed, and so he instinctively jumped in to try to save them. In this particular episode, Abraham had no need to conquer his instincts.

The Midrash Tanhuma (Vayeira 5) says: “Why did G-d reveal [the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah] to Abraham? – Because he had been puzzled about the generation of the Flood, thinking that it was impossible that there were not twenty tzaddikim, or at least ten tzaddikim, among them, on whose merit G-d could rely [to save the world]. Therefore, G-d said, I will reveal this to him, so that he will not be able to say: Perhaps there were tzaddikim in Sodom as well”. Evidently, pleading for salvation for all people was deep in Abraham’s psyche, and had been long before the episode of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Maybe this is the implication of the new name which G-d gave him: until he was ninety-nine years old, he had been Abram – avi Aram, the father of Aram, the nation wherein he grew, which he influenced, and wherein he was looked up to as a father. But when G-d bestowed his new name upon him, He gave him the name which epitomised his love for all people, created in G-d’s image: Abraham – Avraham, for he was av hamon goyim, the father of a multitude of nations (Genesis 17:4-5). As the Talmud puts it, “originally he was the father of Aram, and eventually became the father of the entire world” (Brachot 13a, Yerushalmi Bikkurim 1:4).

And this has direct, practical halakhic ramifications: “When G-d said to Abraham, ‘I have made you the father of a multitude of nations’, he was telling him: Previously you were father to Aram; now you are father to the entire world. And therefore every convert to Judaism can say, ‘…which HaShem has sworn to our fathers…’, because Abraham is father to all in the world, because he taught them faith and religion” (Rambam, Commentary to Mishnah Bikkurim 1:4).

And a more recent halakhic authority ruled that when a convert to Judaism says Birkat ha-Mazzon (the Grace after Meals), “he includes the phrase ‘…You have bequeathed a desirable, good, and spacious Land to our fathers’ [in the second Blessing], because it is written of Abraham, ‘I have made you the father of a multitude of nations’, which is explained to mean: Previously he was father to Aram, from now onwards to all the nations” (Kitzur Shulhan Aruch 45:23).