Vayera D'var Torah

Summary (by Isabel Pravda):

The Torah portion of Vayera is about Abraham and Sarah, Issac, and Lot and his family. Abraham and Sarah are approached by three visitors, who announce Sarah will soon have a son. Soon after, Abraham argues with God about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Meanwhile, Lot’s home is attacked by the people of Sodom and he escapes with his two daughters. Lot and his family had instructions not to look behind him while escaping, but his wife did not listen and got turned into a pillar of salt. At the end of the portions, Abraham and Sarah have their son Issac, and God tests Abraham by telling him to sacrifice Issac.

The haftarah of Vayera includes the profit of Alyshia. The story contains two miracles. The first miracle started with a widow who was in debt, dealing with creditors threatening to take her two children into slavery due to her little amount of money. Elisha asked what the widow had at home and she responded by saying she only had a vile of oil. Elisha then told her to gather as many empty containers as possible, she did as told borrowing many from neighbors and friends. He then told her to pout oil into each of the vessels. When the widow did this, each vessel started to fill with oil. She sold the oil and made a hefty profit, and was able to save her children from slavery.

The second story of Elisha started off when Elisha was visiting the city of Shunam. He was welcomed into the home of a hospitable couple, who made a guest room for him to stay. In return, the profit blessed the couple with a child. Years later when the child was working, he complained he had a headache and died shortly after. The couple layed his body on the guest bed where Elisha once slept and the mother of the child went on her donkey to get Elisha. Elisha quickly went to the house when he heard the news, and miraculously brought the child back to life. The child sneezed three times before waking up.

Commentary (by Matthew Koltenuk):

Another major event in Vayera is that God told Abraham to take his favorite son, Isaac, to a mountain in order to sacrifice him. Abraham was about to kill his son as an offering when an angel appeared and told him to stop, "For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me" (Genesis 22:12). Abraham instead sacrificed a ram, and then God blessed him for following instructions, with the blessing should sound familiar about how Abraham's descendants would become as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the ground. In fact, this story is so important that we read it on the second day of Rosh Hashanah every year.

This week in the religious school here at Temple Israel (in which I am a madrich, which is why I know this happened), the sixth and seventh graders had an interesting discussion about this passage. The question was: was this a test from God to Abraham, and if so, did Abraham pass or fail? One perspective shared on this was that this was a test, the goal of the test was to make Abraham stand up to God and realize that his son is more important than blindly following instructions from God, and that Abraham failed by being willing to sacrifice Isaac if the angel hadn't intervened. However, a different perspective was that this was a test, but the goal was for Abraham to prove his loyalty to God, and he passed by being willing to sacrifice Isaac just because God told him to do that.

Despite the intense discussion that these students had about the topic, I think that it's clear just by reading the text of the Torah that the latter opinion is true. The quote two paragraphs above said that the angel stopped Abraham from killing Isaac because it was determined that Abraham did fear God, and that he was willing to do whatever God said. And, after the test, God gave Abraham a very positive and perhaps the most important and impactful blessing in the Torah, and God's reasoning for this blessing was "because you obeyed my command" (Genesis 22:18). This shows that this was not at all a test to teach Abraham a lesson about self-advocacy or defending his family, but this story was about Abraham proving to God that he was loyal and fearful of God. He passed this test, and in return, he was blessed to be the ancestor of the Jewish people.