נמרוד

Nimrod is the first mighty man who turned power into rebellion, the figure against whom Abraham defined his way. 'He was a mighty hunter before God' (Genesis 10:9), and the Sages expounded it in reproach: a mighty one who hunted people with his mouth and incited them against their Creator. He built Babylon and Assyria, and the beginning of his kingdom was the Tower of Babel.

Tradition tells that Nimrod ruled over all the earth and demanded to be worshipped as a god, and that it was he who cast Abraham into the fiery furnace for refusing to serve idolatry. If the generation of Enosh erred in innocence, Nimrod is conscious evil: one who knows the truth and rebels against it out of a lust for power.

His name, 'Nimrod,' is expounded from the word 'mered' (rebellion): he rebelled against his Creator and incited the world. He is the inverse model of Abraham, two powerful men of the same generation: one who used his power to enslave and deify himself, and one who used his spirit to free and to recognize the one Creator.

What do we learn from him, from the contrast? That power without humility becomes rebellion, and that the question is not how much power a person has but toward what he directs it. Nimrod teaches, precisely by being the opposite of Abraham, that true greatness is not in dominating others but in a person's subjecting himself before a truth greater than himself.