TORAH SPARKS ניצוצות תורה

פרשת וירא

Parashat VaYera

 

November 3, 2012 – 18 Heshvan 5773- י"ח חשון תשע"ג

Annual: Gen. 18:1-22:24 (Etz Hayim, p. 99; Hertz p. 63)

Triennial: Gen. 21:1-22:24 (Etz Hayim, p. 112; Hertz p. 71)

Haftarah: 2 Kings 4:1-37 (Etz Hayim, p. 124; Hertz p. 76)

 

Prepared by Rabbi Joseph Prouser

 

(Temple Emanuel of North Jersey; Franklin Lakes, NJ)

 

In the guise of three angelic visitors, God appears to Abraham at his tent. The divine messengers foretell that a son, Isaac, is to be born to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah laughs at the prospect of fertility. Subsequently, God tells Abraham about his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, along with the morally corrupt people who live in those cities. Abraham, citing the injustice to any righteous citizens, unsuccessfully intercedes with God. The corruption of Sodom seems confirmed when the men of that city, with apparently salacious motives, surround Lot’s house, demanding, to no avail, that he surrender his two remaining angelic guests to them. Lot and his family are spared, escaping the destruction of the cities, though Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt when, contrary to God’s instructions, she gazes back at the desolation. Lot’s sons-in- law refuse to accompany him and die together with the rest of Sodom. Seeking refuge in a cave, Lot’s daughters induce their father’s intoxication. Their subsequent incestuous unions produce Ammon and Moab, progenitors of Israel’s morally suspect historic foes. After immigrating to Gerar, Sarah is taken by Abimelech and ultimately restored to Abraham, in a literary reprise of the previous parasha’s wife-sister motif. Isaac is born as promised; he is circumcised and eventually weaned. At Sarah’s behest, Abraham banishes Hagar and Ishmael. Mother and son survive their wilderness exile, fortified by angelic guidance and a divine promise that Ishmael, too, will found a nation. Abraham makes a covenant with Abimelech. God tests Abraham, commanding him to offer his beloved son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Compliantly and all but silently taking his son to Mount Moriah, Abraham places him atop an altar, but an angel stays his hand as he raises the sacrificial knife. Abraham’s reverence for God, and God’s covenantal promise of blessing to Abraham, are both confirmed with renewed vigor.

Theme #1: “Sodomian Chloride”

“Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt.”

(Genesis 19:26)

 

Study: Derash

“’His wife looked behind him.’ This is precisely what Lot is warned against.

Nowhere does the text indicate that he passes this information to his wife and daughters. The question remains: Does Lot’s wife not know about the warning

– or does she look back in spite of it? …She is reluctant to ignore what happens to those she leaves behind, and this concern costs her life.” (Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary)

 

“When she looked back she betrayed her longing for what was left behind which was in the process of being destroyed. Since this is where her mind was, that’s where she was entirely and so she too became a petrified piece of the historical landscape.” (Rabbi Label Lam)

 

“Even when she managed to escape from the holocaust of Sodom, she expressed no sentiments of grief, experienced no pangs of anguish or feelings of remorse. She turned around and watched her neighbors roasting in the furnace and remained unmoved by the catastrophe.” (Rabbi Bernard L. Berzon)

 

“So many of us are blinded to all that is beautiful in life by some ancient hate, fear or sin which haunts us throughout our life. Like Lot’s wife, we cease to be human. We dry up like salt and become petrified, imbedded in the ugliness, fright or pain of the past. ‘Look not behind thee,’ for behind thee lies Sodom and Gomorrah; before thee the land of promise.” (Rabbi Ahron Opher)

 

“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)

 

Questions for Discussion

Poor Lot’s wife: nameless and doomed! Was she a sinner or an innocent victim? A paragon of compassion or a heartless bystander? Is this narrative

detail a tribute to God’s swift justice… or a lament over the injustices good

people suffer? A cautionary tale about the inevitable impact of living in a corrupt society?

 

Rabbi Berzon refers to the “holocaust of Sodom.” How do Jews read this narrative differently in the post-Holocaust age? Does our historic experience of the twentieth century make us more or less sympathetic to Lot’s wife? To Sodom? Why salt?! Are the Women’s Commentary and Slaughterhouse Five saying the same thing?

 

Why do Lot and his daughters not react to this death? Might the trauma (and the lack of familial response) be linked to the scandal of incest that follows… and ultimately to the founding of Israel’s antagonists, Moab and Ammon?

 

Theme #2: “Avuncular Avraham”

“Some time later, Abraham was told: Milcah too has borne children to your brother Nahor: Uz the first-born, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel, the father of Aram, and Chesed, Hazo, Pildah, Jidlaph, and Bethuel – Bethuel being the

father of of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore children: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.” (Genesis 22:20-24)

 

Study: Derash

“’Bethuel being the father of of Rebekah.’ All this genealogical information is provided only for the sake of this verse.” (Rashi)

 

“’To Nahor, Abraham’s brother.’ This is to teach that Milcah was also barren, like Sarah, but she nevertheless bore children to Nahor because he was Abraham’s brother. It was because of Abraham’s merit that she, too, bore children.” (Netziv, Ha’amek Davar)

 

“What happened on that mountaintop brought both Avraham and Yitzhak face to face with the fragility and imperfection of human existence; these facts are not easy to confront. One response to pain is despair; the other is to seek a greater perspective, to see that life will bring loss, but loss is not all that life brings. This, to me, is why the genealogy verses belong at the end of the Akedah: Avraham is reminded that there is a wider view, that children are being born and matches are being made and life continues to flourish beyond the horizon of his grief.” (Rabbi Neal Joseph Loevinger)

 

“Abraham had tremendous difficulty in conceiving a son with his wife Sarah and once he did, he was commanded to sacrifice the young man. In contrast, Abraham’s only surviving brother, Nahor… is blessed with eight sons by his wife Milcah, and has four more with his concubine, Reumah. The biblical report makes absolutely no mention of any difficulty his brother might have had with conceiving children. In placing this message immediately after the traumatic events of the Akedah, could the Bible be pouring salt on Abraham’s wounds? Why would it do that? I believe a clue to understanding this strange passage lies in the name of Nahor’s firstborn son, Uz. This can be connected with the first verse in the Book of Job: ‘There was a man who lived in the land of Uz and Job was his name; this man was wholehearted and righteous, one who feared God and kept far from evil.’ The book continues by telling us how God proclaimed the greatness of Job before Satan, who responded that it was no wonder Job was righteous after all the good fortune he had received. It is this dialogue that leads to God’s decision to ‘test’ Job with misfortune. The parallel to Abraham’s ‘test’ is clear. Both stories emerge from the land of Uz, which symbolizes the unfair, incomplete and as-yet unredeemed world where God’s face remains hidden and the righteous continue to be tested.” (Rabbi Shlomo Riskin)

 

Questions for Discussion

These verses form the last narrative aliyah (i.e., excluding maftir) read from the Torah on Rosh Hashanah. Why are they included? What is their critical message? A tribute to the institution of family and a recognition of our tradition’s multi-generational approach to redemption? Was this information conveyed to Abraham as a gesture of

divine comfort and reassurance (see Rabbi Loevinger)… or was it “salt in the wounds” of

God’s long-suffering covenant partner – and, if so, why? Or are they merely a literary segue to coming chapters of the patriarchal period – á la Rashi?

 

Nahor has twelve sons: eight through his primary wife and four through a secondary spouse of sorts. This is a direct parallel to Jacob, eight of whose sons were born to his first wife, Leah (and through her, to her maid and surrogate, Zilpah)… and four to his second wife, Rachel (including the two born to her maid and surrogate, Bilhah). Why the inherent comparison to the eponymous founder of Israel himself?

 

Rabbi Riskin essentially proposes that the Book of Job is a midrash on these verses from Genesis! What other parallels can you identify between Abraham and Job… and their respective tests? How does this reading affect your understanding of this passage in the context of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy?

 

Explore Rashi’s theory about Rebekah. Does he mean that the verse highlights her role in a bright future? Or is her inclusion in reference to Abraham’s unfortunate lack of a daughter (a lack elsewhere redressed by the midrash)?

 

Historic Note

Parashat Vayera, read on November 3, 2012, describes the angelic intervention to protect Lot

from his attackers among the men of Sodom, who were stricken with sanveirim – generally translated as “a blinding – or brilliant – light.” On November 3, 1752 (360 years ago today), composer George Friedrich Handel underwent eye surgery – alas, an unsuccessful procedure. Among Handel’s oratorios of content related to the Hebrew Bible are: Esther, Deborah, Athaliah, and Israel in Egypt.

Halachah L’Maaseh

Jeremiah 29:7 speaks to the religious duty of Jews to be involved in the civic life of their

communities and nations, forming the basis for the following “Prayer before Voting” (here excerpted), written by Rabbi David Seidenberg and adapted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow. Those participating in the United States Presidential election this week are invited to offer these words of prayer and petition:

“Here I am, ready with my vote to seek peace for this country, as it is written: ‘And you will seek peace for the city where I send you, and you will pray for her sake to YHWH, for through

her peace you will have peace.’ May it be Your will that my vote will be accounted as if I fulfilled this verse in all its meaning… May it be good in Your eyes, YHWH my God and God of my forebears, that you give a heart of wisdom to those whom we choose today and give to

us and to all the people of this country the strength and will to pursue righteousness and to seek peace as one unity. And may You raise up a government for us for the sake of good and blessing… for all who live on earth, and for Jerusalem…”