Vayera

In the Torah portion Vayera we learn how Abraham bargained with G-d, even going so far as to say, "Will the judge of all the world not do justly?" G-d had told Abraham that he was going to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham was aghast.  How could G-d destroy these cities? There might be some righteous people in them.  Abraham said, "Perhaps there are 50 righteous people in these cities."  G-d said He would not destroy the cities if there were 50 righteous people in them.  Abraham said, "What if there are 45 righteous people?" Then 40, 30, 20, and finally 10.  It sounds like Abraham is haggling with G-d in the marketplace.  How could Abraham do this?

The answer, of course, is that we are not merely servants of G-d.  We are also His partners and G-d has promised us that He will abide by the same rules of morality as He gave us.  We say that G-d does not have a body like us or even a mind like us.  Therefore, although our minds cannot comprehend how G-d can know everything and still give us free will, He can.  Our minds cannot comprehend such a thing, but G-d’s mind can.  The only way G-d and man intersect is in morality.  We are allowed to question G-d's morality even though we know that ultimately He is right.  Many times we cannot understand G-d's ways.  Ultimately G-d promises us that we will understand, but, yet, how could Abraham argue with G-d in this haggling way? The answer the rabbis give is because he says, "I am dust and ashes.  G-d, I know that I cannot understand everything, but You cannot expect me to believe everything on faith alone.  You have to show me at least partially that Your ways are just."  That is why G-d accedes to his request.  G-d knows there are not even 10 righteous people, but G-d wants us to rail against Him and to right for justice even against Him.

That, of course, is what Moshe Rabbeinu did when he pleaded for the Jewish people even after G-d said that He was going to destroy them and G-d saves the Jewish people because of Moshe’s intervention.  G-d wants us to actively participate in this process.  The rabbis explain that Abraham acknowledged the fact that he did not know everything and, therefore, he was not actually questioning G-d's morality in the larger prospective, but he was, after all, only dust and ashes.  "But, G-d, even from our limited perspective, You have to give us some indication that the world is run according to the principles of Justice.“
What does it mean, though, "dust and ashes"?  At the time that Abraham was talking to G-d he had no fit heir.  Therefore, he told G-d that he came from dust, from sand.  His ancestry was insignificant because they were all idol worshippers, and he was going to be made into ashes after he died because there was no one to succeed him.  "But even in that instance, G-d, let me feel that at least I have lived a life furthering Your principles, furthering justice."  That's what Lev of Berdeechev said when he said, "G-d, I do not ask You to explain to me why we suffer.  I only ask that You let me know that I am suffering for thee." Abraham, of course, did have an heir, Yitzchak, and we are his descendants.  We, so to speak, come from the ashes of Abraham and especially from the ashes of many Jewish communities.  We are the remnant of the Jewish people who have been scattered all over the globe.  It is our business to turn these ashes into the living cement or sand of the future.  Especially after the Holocaust, we should use all our efforts to make sure that the future of Jewish life is cemented forever.  The strength of sand is in its unity.  From sand you can make wonderful buildings, wonderful pieces of glass.  You can make enduring monuments.  Our enduring monuments, our rabbis teach us, are our children.

Let us invest in our children, especially our teenagers.  Let us make sure that out of the remnants of our people we create children who stand tall, who are able to weather all the storms, whose views of what they are and who they are and where they are going are so strong that they will be able to endure intellectual assaults as well as physical assaults.  May the expression that we are nothing more than dust or ashes be taken as a blessing. May we, based on the ashes, the remnants of the past, produce future generations who will build out of the sand of our traditions living Jewish communities and who will be a shining example to all the world.