The unexpected test

The fifth chapter of Avot (at 5:4) recites that Abraham was tested by God with ten tests (all of which the Patriarch passed) in order to make a show of how dearly Abraham regarded Him. Much has inevitably been written on this topic. Questions such as (i) which are the ten tests, (ii) why any number from one to nine wouldn't have done just as well and (iii) which was the greatest test continue to be debated.

This post focuses on one small issue: the consideration that a person being tested may know perfectly well that he is being tested, but might still not know what the test actually is. The following episode, drawn from the lower strata of the world of finance, illustrates the point well.

Back in the 1980s a friend of mine was a trainee bank manager with the National Westminster Bank in London. Part of the way through the training programme, all the trainees were given a test. They were ushered into a room full of desks, on each of which was a test paper that was several pages in length, together with an answer book. The test paper opened with the following rubric: “Please read this paper carefully. Do not attempt to answer any of the questions before you have finished reading this paper”.

My friend obediently read through the questions without writing anything, even though he knew most of the answers and didn't need to think too deeply about them. He could so easily have completed those questions as he went along. At the very end of the test paper, he was surprised to read the following rubric: “Do not write any of the answers to the questions on this paper”.

It transpired that the real purpose of the test was not to see what the trainee bank managers knew but to reveal whether they were capable of carrying out the simple instruction of not writing anything until they had finished reading the test paper. My friend was the only person who passed that test.

The salutary lesson of this exercise—we may know that we are being tested but still not recognize what we are being tested on—is even more applicable when it is God and not a bank that sets the tests. We do not know how greatly aware Abraham was that he was being tested, but we do see from the Torah how his willingness and determination to carry out God's instructions as closely as possible meant that he could pass his tests whether or not he was aware of how he was being tested.