“And Avraham answered and said, ‘Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord, who am but dust and ashes.’” (Bereishis 18:27)

RASHI: I Am BUT DUST AND ASHES — I would long ago have been reduced to dust by the kings and to ashes by Nimrod had it not been that Your mercies stood by me (Genesis Rabbah 49:11).

Rashi shares Avraham’s perspective with us, which many gedolim have also done. Avraham assesses himself and says that he doesn’t deserve Hashem’s acceptance of his prayer as he already should have been reduced to dust and ashes. What was the purpose of Avraham saying this?

Yaakov Avinu was promised that he would be successful, yet he was afraid that perhaps he sinned and lost the guarantee of Hashem’s blessing. Similarly, Avraham was afraid in last week’s parsha that he used up all of his merits. People assume that good things will continue as they are, however that is called “taking things for granted”. Appreciating what one has and “not taking things for granted” is something that must be learned and relearned constantly.

There are many people who assume that as Hashem has saved us time and time again, the fact that “we will be saved” is a given – the only question is exactly how He will save us again this time. When we say “Vehi She’amda” on the night of the Seder, we are praising Hashem for that which he has done in the past. It is also a statement about our understanding that the Jewish nation in totality will not be destroyed. At the same time, we understand that there is no guarantee about any particular situation or individual segment of Klal Yisrael. We see in the Torah that Hashem was willing to destroy nearly all of Klal Yisrael and restart from just Moshe alone. Even though this new people would not be created through the gentiles, nevertheless we see that there are no guarantees.

I would like to point out the absurdity of this mindset. People expect their workers, their spouse, or their friends to do things on time, and often they take it for granted, to the point that they don’t even say “thank you”! Yet, when their associate doesn’t do something as it was supposed to be done, they are annoyed. I have often told people, “It is your own fault. If you would have thanked the person all along, they probably would have even been willing to overextend themselves to please you. But when you don’t recognize their past efforts, they become lethargic, apathetic, and start to look for excuses to avoid doing extra work.” One of the benefits of not taking things for granted is that one will grow in his mida of hakaras hatov.

There is another gain to be had as well. A man once came to me with a question regarding his business. After hearing him out, I said to him that it sounded to me that he could solve his cashflow problem and expand his business with a bank loan. He said back to me, that in his present situation (always short money at the end of the month) he is forced to daven like a poor and desperate person, and he doesn’t want to lose that.

Urgency produces awareness. When Avraham Avinu accepted that he had no right to ask for anything from Hashem, his plea was more genuine, and therefore possibly produced greater results. This idea is echoed in Shulchan Aruch as we are told to look for a chazan who is not in a good financial position so that his pleas to Hashem should be earnest and bring about a positive response to our prayers.

According to statistics, the enemy nations surrounding Klal Yisrael should have already turned us into dust and ashes many times over. If we learn from Avraham’s awareness and pray for a matnas chinam (a handout) through understanding that we don’t necessarily deserve anything, we can merit to have our prayers accepted by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and He will save us once again.