תרח

Terah is the father who set out on the road to the Land but stopped halfway, and whose story is the story of the passage from the world of idols to the world of faith. A maker and seller of idols in Ur of the Chaldees, the father of Abraham, and according to the famous Midrash, his young son shattered his idols and mocked his faith.

Yet the Torah tells something surprising about him: 'and Terah took Abram his son... and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and settled there' (Genesis 11:31). Terah himself set out for the land of Canaan, perhaps following his son, but settled in Haran and did not complete the journey. He began the move that Abraham would complete.

Tradition even hints that Terah repented at the end of his days. He is not only 'the idolater' but a father who had a part, even a partial one, in the road that led to Abraham. 'And you shall come to your fathers in peace' (Genesis 15:15), was said to Abraham, and the Sages expounded that Terah too merited his place.

What do we learn from him? That a person can begin a great journey even if he will not merit to complete it, and that every step toward the truth counts. Terah teaches that even one raised in a world of error can set out on the road to the truth, and that tradition does not disqualify a father who did not reach the end, but recognizes his part in opening the journey.