Imagery of Abraham as “God’s friend” offers a path for exploring relationship with the divine, linking themes of Lekh Lekha (Genesis 12:1-17:27) and its prophetic reading (Isaiah 40:27-41:16) to later Jewish text and post-collapse struggle (touched on in last week’s post, Where Now?“).
Avraham Ohavi [My friend, lover, beloved]
The expression “Avraham ohavi” is found in Isaiah 41:8:
וְאַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַבְדִּי יַעֲקֹב אֲשֶׁר בְּחַרְתִּיךָ זֶרַע אַבְרָהָם אֹהֲבִי׃
But you, Israel, My servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
Seed of Abraham My friend
— Revised JPS via Sefaria; more translations/notes
This verse is part of the haftarah for Lekh Lekha. The same expression is also found in Sefer Yetzirah [Book of Creation, or Book of Formation] where “Abraham, God’s friend” is linked to covenant and seed, as in Isaiah, and also to mystical/meditative connection with the divine:
The radical assertion of Sefer Yetzirah is that the divine-human relationship created via the meditative/magical practices of the Book of Creation is worthy of the language of covenant.
…God loves Abraham because Abraham learns how to play with creative magic and contemplation the way God does.
It is Abraham’s engagement with the cosmic mystery that God admires and rewards. Just as Sefer Yetzirah redefines the Temple as the cosmos, it redefines covenant as the development of cosmic consciousness. This covenant extends, by implication, to the reader of teh text, who now has also conducted the ritual of letter combination and world-temple visualization. The conclusion of the book, by implication, grants covenant to the one who has just read and practiced it.
–Rabbi Jill Hammer, Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah (Ben Yehuda Press, 2020), p.261
Before Abraham turns up in the final verse, Sefer Yetzirah does not feature narrative characters. Water, breath, fire, Hebrew letters, Wisdom, and God-YHVH act or are acted upon. Aspects, or rulers of, space, time, and living bodies are identified — called in one section “Dragon,” “Wheel,” and “Heart,” which sound like possible character names — but action and object are not clearly delineated. In fact, R’ Hammer cites Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism, suggesting that all involved in Sefer Yetzirah are intra-actors.
So, what is Abraham — or any narrative character at all — doing at the close of Sefer Yetzirah?
R’ Hammer explores the choice of Abraham — rather than, e.g., Moses or Solomon — as “exemplar who ends the story.” She suggests that Abraham, as a spiritual forebear of Christians and Muslims as well as Jews, sets the book “beyond tribe”; in addition, Abraham’s biblical story centers individual, rather than collective or institutional, relationship to God (p.257). Moreover: “Abraham becomes the reader, the seeker, the adept who follows in God’s footsteps” and “opens the elemental channels, the paths of Wisdom. God’s friend becomes a creator, a worker of the life-force” (p.256, p.262).
Post-Collapse Relationship Building
“Facing Collapse Together” study group — with Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, Derekh Travers, and Dean Spade — offered lots of food for thought. I was particularly struck by R’ Jessica’s teaching about the Jewish calendar recognizing institutional collapse with Tisha B’Av and then moving into smaller, shakier relationships through the high holidays and Sukkot.
The study group led me to the “Calendar Notes for a Summer of Collapse” series of ponderings. R’ Jessica also offered a vision of “Spiral Time in Collapse,” concluding:
…every day, trying to live, choosing our stories for the sake of protecting and cherishing life, choosing each other, protecting and cherishing each other. To be in as honest and specific a story of the past, and living into as clear a vision of the future as we can, together.
— R’ Jessica Rosenberg, “Spiral Time in Collapse”
Dvar for Erev Rosh Hashana 5786, World to Come Twin Cities
Now, I am stumbling through what it means to read Torah in collapse, struggling to find what is fresh and nourishing in this still-new year, amid so much that is old, exhausted, and painful.
R’ Hammer’s approach to Abraham and Sefer Yetzirah offers heartening possibilities: Maybe we can read Torah this year in ways that build on our smaller, shakier relationships — within or apart from our collapsed/ing institutions; maybe we can emulate the creative energy of Abraham in Sefer Yetzirah, walking and co-creating with the divine without denying imperfection and brokenness around us; maybe we can lean into covenant born of friendship.
See also “Planting Trees, Stretching Glitter” about the eshel in parashat Vayera (Gen. 18:1-22:24) and the need to pause between big, dramatic moments in Torah/life.
Sefer Yetzirah 6:7
Some versions of Sefer Yetzirah close the final chapter before verse 7, ending with Abraham and covenant but not the friend imagery. (See earliest extant version at Sefaria and earliest recoverable text at Open Siddur.)
Here are two versions which include verse 7:
כשהבין אברהם אבינו וצר וצרף …נגלה עליו ” עשאו אוהבו
And when Abraham our father understood
transformed and transmuted…
God appeared to him
and made him God’s friend
—Sefer Yetzirah 6:7, Rabbi Jill Hammer translation
כשבא אברהם אבינו ע”ה הביט וראה והבין
… נגלה עליו אדון הכל יתברך…
וקראו אברהם אוהבי
When the patriarch Abraham comprehended the great truism, revolved it in his mind…the Lord of the Universe appeared to him…and called him his friend
—Sefer Yetzirah 6:7, Gra Version, Kalisch (1877) translation
And when Abraham, our father, may he rest in peace, looked, saw, understood…Immediately there was revealed to him the Master of all, may His name be blessed forever…
and He called him ‘Abraham, My beloved’
—Sefer Yetzirah, 6:7, Gra Version, Kaplan (1997) translation
R’ Hammer uses the third-person “ohavo” in Hebrew, while the Gra version uses the first-person “ohavi.” Hammer and Kalisch use English third-person: “God’s friend”/”his friend.” Kaplan makes the reference to Isaiah explicit, using quotation marks and the first person: “My beloved.” (Kalisch and Kaplan translations at Sefaria; Hammer, Return to the Place, p.256).
Additional background on accessing this unusual Jewish text, in its various versions and translations; see also Return to the Place website for more on R’ Hammer’s commentary and translation.
Translations
Sefaria’s English translations offer no variety; other options, to suggest some different flavors, include Mia amato (Esperanto), qui m’aimait or mon ami (French), meines Freundes (German), and haver (Yiddish). BibleHub (Christian site) presents 38 translations into English, mostly relying on “my friend”:
- 28 opt for “Abraham, my friend”
- 2 use “my friend Abraham”
- 2 use “Abraham, My lover” (1898 Young’s Literal and Literal Standard Version)
- 1 version (1995) chooses “Abraham, my dear friend”
- 3 use “beloved / beloued” (Coverdale 1535, Bishop 1568, Julia E Smith 1876)
- 1 uses “whom I have loved” (Brenton’s 1844 translation of Greek Septuagint*)
- 1 uses “friend, whom I have strengthened” (1933 Lamsa translation from Aramaic**, incorporating the expression “strengthened” [וּמַתְקֵיף לֵיהּ / וַיְחַזְּקֵהוּ] from verse 7)
*Greek: σπέρμα Ἀβραὰμ ὃν ἠγάπησα. See JPS commentary below.
** Aramaic uses “r’chimi” [זַרְעֵהּ דְאַבְרָהָם רְחִימִי]; Jastrow dictionary says r’chem = “beloved, friend, lovable.” The final phrase seems to incorporate an expression from verse 7 — “strengthened with nails” [וּמַתְקֵיף לֵיהּ בְמַסְמְרִין / וַיְחַזְּקֵהוּ בְמַסְמְרִים] — which Rashi explains refers to how nails reference Shem, a blacksmith who made nails and bars for the Ark: “Shem strengthened Abraham to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, and not to move.”
“Seed of Abraham My Friend. Hebrew ‘ohavi; literally, “Who loves Me.” Ibn Ezra stressed the active force of the verb and distinguished it sharply from the passive sense (“who is loved by Me”); cf. Avot de-Rabbi Natan, B, 43). A reversal or softening of this theological point occurs in the Septuagint, where a relative clause is used (“whom I have loved”). 2 Chronicles 20:7 speaks of the land given to the “descendants of Abraham,” God’s “friend.” These variations reflect ongoing theological considerations and applications. The tradition of God’s love for Abraham occurs in the Septuagint a Isa 51:2, but not in the Masoretic tradition. God’s love for Israel occurs in Isa 43:4.” — The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot, 2002. Michael Fishbane. Commentary on verse 41:8, p.21
Sotah 31a:7
The Gemara asks: And with regard to Abraham himself, from where do we derive that he acted out of a sense of love? As it is written: “The offspring of Abraham who loved Me” (Isaiah 41:8).
Tractate Kallah Rabbati 8:1
ברייתא
ר׳ מאיר אומר כל העוסק בתורה לשמה זוכה לדברים הרבה ולא עוד אלא שכל העולם כלו כדאי הוא לו. נקרא ריע [אהוב] אוהב את המקום אוהב אה הבריות.
BARAITHA. R. Meir said: Whoever occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake merits many things; nay more, the whole world is beholden to him. He is called friend, *Cf. Isa. 41, 8, where it is used of Abraham. beloved, *Cf. Prov. 8, 17, I love them that love me. a lover of the All-present and a lover of his fellow-creatures, one who gladdens *Cf. Judg. 9, 13, [wine] which cheereth God and man. The Torah is compared by the Rabbis to wine. the All-present and his fellow-creatures.
"A Song Every Day" 