David Ben Horin
David Ben HorinCourtesy

If you ever wonder what the world would be like if Kanye West, Hassan Nasrallah, and the head of your local University BDS movement had their way and existence was Judenrein, revisit the beginning of Torah.

There is no mystery to what the world would be like without Jews. Read the first Torah portion, Bereshith, and there you have it.

From the creation of Adam until birth of Avraham Avinu, 1948 years later, the world existed without Jews. Adam and his wife, Chava, receive one negative commandment and aren’t able to keep it.

That was the high point.

A generation later, the older brother kills the younger. A generation later, people begin to engage in idolatry.

Things just get worse over the next seven generations without Jews. It got so bad that God destroyed everyone in His world.

The opening parasha, the only one without Jews, ends in tragedy.

And Hashem saw that the evil of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil all the time. And Hashem regretted that He had made man upon the earth, and He became grieved in His heart. Bereshith 6:5-6

The next Parasha, the one where we introduce the first Jew towards the end, doesn’t get much better. The world is destroyed in a massive flood. No long after, descendants of those who survived express their gratitude to the Creator for saving their lives by building a tower for the purpose of rebelling against Him.

The First Jew

The birth of Avraham stops the descent. Instead of idolatry, sexual abomination, robbery, murder, and rebellion, human history takes an optimistic turn.

God commands Avraham to settle the Land of Israel and he does as he is commanded. Avraham is called a Hebrew, which means “Iver” or go against the tide. He is a man who regulates his lusts and desires because he acknowledges G-d.

He is grateful, and does not take life for granted. He is kind, sharing all that is his with strangers, encouraging them to join his path to Divine revelation.

The portion of Noah reminds us of a generation where nobody spread the word of God. Avraham works to ignite everyone on his way to praise Hashem.

He is the first man in the Torah to do exactly what Hashem wants from us: To be ethically upright, grateful beings, who place Him first. To leave this world better people than we started. To improve the world with our prayer, kindness, charity, improving character traits, and mitzvot. Avraham is proof that in doing what God asks, a Jew makes the world a better, safer, and more prosperous place.

Avraham's arrival marks the end of mankind’s descent. From the moment he realized that there is One God Who rules over all, the world was never the same. The absolute ruler of the earth, Nimrod, cast him in a fiery furnace. Avraham defied the laws of nature by surviving, teaching us how ours is a world of miracles to those who serve the Living God.

There were no more global tragedies. The focus of the Bible no longer surrounds the nations, but Avraham and his descendants who follow in God.

From the first moment the first Jew is mentioned in the entire Bible, there is no other focus outside of Avraham and his descendants.

Instead of one downward path of degenerating thru violence, greed, injustice, sexual immorality and corruption, the humanity had an alternative path. It was the path of knowledge that there is a higher reward, and higher road, and greater values, transcendental values that transcend one's immediate gratification, because there is an invisible yet tangible reality of eternal existence that one must concern himself with in his lifetime.

This "greater than I" idea is what makes all human progress possible. It justifies constant sacrifice for greater good, which in turn establishes everything that outlasts one's lifetime: law, order, knowledge, secure societies and achievement.

Avraham was the first to shine this knowledge to the world.

David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, a high-tech center, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, the local camel. David's Israeli startup, Center Stage Content, makes your business the star of the show with SEO optimized, ROI driven, easy to understand content.