Avram Distressed Under the Stars

15:4-8 Avram is a bit distressed

He is reflecting on his life.

A sudden interruption in his thoughts – God talks to him.

Taken outside – a change of place under the stars.
A place that can calm his despairing soul

There is a different type of communication with God that he has not had before.

Poems: Walt Whitman: WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer
Edward Hirsch: In Spite of Everything the Stars
Like a stunned piano, like a bucket
of fresh milk flung into the air
or a dozen fists of confetti
thrown hard at a bride
stepping down from the altar,
the stars surprise the sky.
Think of dazed stones
floating overhead, or an ocean
of starfish hung up to dry. Yes,
like a conductor's expectant arm
about to lift toward the chorus,
or a juggler's plates defying gravity,
or a hundred fastballs fired at once
and freezing in midair, the stars
startle the sky over the city...

Interpretations
Rashi- not astrology – but destiny changes with his name
Eli Munk – no power from stars – nothing irrevokable
Saperstein – can make life worthwhile despite bad that might happen

Book: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

On Descendents & Destiny
Zuta – about eternity – no nation will conquer the Jews.
Change perspective - “all is foreseen yet free will is given”
The opposite of destiny is freedom

Rambam - Believe with perfect faith

Syntax ambiguity – not positive who is the subject in the sentence – Avram or God?
Leon Kass – says it is avram because the Bible usually doesn’t change the subject mid sentence.
Brad Artsen – compares Biblical faith with Modern faith. While Avram had doubts he still had faith. Today faith is the absence of doubt.

Book: Why Faith Matters: , by David J. Wolpe
Faith is built on searching as well as finding.