Vayeira: When You Shouldn't Answer a Question

Hi, this is Evan Allasque with the Parsha in 5, where in 5 minutes we try to give you a little insight into the Parsha. There are two stories in Lech Lecha Ba'eira that require a little bit of compare and contrast. Uh Abraham goes down to Egypt and they ask about Sarah and he says she's my sister. And Paro of course captures her planning to use her for his own purposes and he gets struck with plagues. And uh he figures out from this that it must be that she's a married woman. Yeah? And he calls in Abraham and says, "Why did you tell me she was your sister? Why did you lie to me? Look at this. Now we all got punished and we got these terrible plagues. Now take your wife and go." And Abraham leaves from Egypt and he goes back to Eretz Yisrael. Notice what he says in response to Paro's accusations. Nothing. In this week's Parsha, we have the scenario play out again. He comes to Eretz Gerar and they ask who is Sarah and he says she's my sister and Avimelech takes her. Now the story changes a bit. Because Hakadosh Baruchu comes to Avimelech in a dream and says, "You are going to die because you took this woman. She's a married woman." And Avimelech says, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, what do you want from me? I asked Abraham, he said it's his sister. I asked the shepherds and the people of his entourage and they all said he was his sister. So I don't know what you want from me." He says, "Give him back." Everybody in Beit Avimelech had struck with a plague. And uh I will cure you because he's a navi and he knows that you did not defile his wife. He will daven for you and you'll all get better. Fine. So, he calls in Avraham and he says, "Why did you do something like this? Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? I almost sinned. Look, all of us got punished. Why would you do something like that?" And just like by Paro, Avraham says nothing. And then there's a pause. And Avi Melech says, "What did you see in us that you felt you could not tell us the truth?" And Avraham says, "Cuz I saw that there's no fear of God in this place. A stranger comes to town. You don't say, 'Do you have a place to stay? Do you have food to eat?' You say, 'Who's the girl?'" So, I figured out this was an immoral place. Now I have to be afraid that if I tell you she's my wife, you'll kill me and take my wife. So, Avi Melech says, "I give you back your wife. You all can remain here unmolested. Nothing bad will happen to you. And I'll give you money to make up for the disgrace that I caused you. And everyone will know that the king would not have paid this money unless, you know, he he knew that you were right." So, what was the contrast? The contrast is, as I've said many times, the easiest people to talk to are people who really don't care what you have to say. Makes your life very easy. There are a lot of people who tell you they want to talk to you. And you have to figure out what that means when they say, "I want to talk to you." Because it could either mean I want to talk with you or it could mean I want to talk at you. And very often, a person says, "I want to talk to you." They mean they want to talk at you. And they want to tell you what they think, and they want to tell you what they feel, and they don't really care what you have to say. When I was younger, I was sure that people want to hear what I have to say. And the older I get, the more I realize people are very happy to tell you what they think, and they're not particularly interested in hearing what you think. So, sometimes they'll even fool you, and they'll ask you a whole question, and they'll say, "So, what do you think?" My first response is, "I don't know, what do you think?" And they're more than happy to tell me what they think, and they don't feel any obligation to follow up and say, "By the way, what do you think?" Cuz they never really cared what I thought. They wanted to tell me what they think. So, what when Pal comes in and makes his whole speech, "You're a bad guy. What you did was wrong, etc." Avram doesn't say anything. Cuz he knows he doesn't care. So, too, with Avimelech. When Avimelech says to him, "Why did you do this? This wasn't right. You did a bad thing." Avram doesn't respond. And then, when Avimelech changes his tone and says, "What did you see in us that you did this? I'm working with the assumption that you're a good guy. There must have been a reason you did what you did." Then, Avram says, "Oh, I'm more than happy to explain it to you." But once I see that you don't care what I think, why should I waste my time talking to you? I've had this many times where somebody says to me, "Nobody can prove there's a god. Go ahead." I'm like, "Nope, I believe you." Nothing I say will change your mind. Your mind is made up. You already know there's no god. You didn't say, "Can you prove that there's a god?" or explain it to me. You started with a statement, "Nobody can prove there's a god." So, why would I waste my time offering you evidence when in the end you'll say, "You see, I was right. Nobody can prove there's a God." So, let's save ourselves all a lot of time. And let's just accept the fact that nobody's going to convince you. And those are the easiest people in the world to deal with. People who don't care what you think. But when a person asks you an honest question, and that's why I always say when you answer a question, you have to figure out when a person asks a question, is it a question or a statement? If it's a statement, there's no point in answering it. When these people left Volozhin, and they became not religious. And Reb Chaim Volozhin said, "Why?" And he said, "Because we had questions." He said, "Did you get the questions when you were in Yeshiva or after you left?" Said, "After you left." Then they're not questions, they're answers. And I can't answer an answer. You already decided what you wanted to do, and the questions just supported where you wanted to go. So, you have to figure out whether a person is sincere or not. And if we try Hashem, we will always be the people who ask the right questions if we hope to be able to get the answers. Chavus.