TORAH PORTION: VAYERA

Parshat Vayera

12 November 2022 / 18 Cheshvan 5783

Torah: Genesis 18:1-22:24 Triennial: 18:1-33

Haftarah: II Kings 4:1-37

In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Parasha by Bex Stern-Rosenblatt called "Donated Daughters", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb poses questions in her D'var Haftarah titled "To Have loved--and Lost", and Joshua Kulp offers a piece called "The Modern Mitzvah of Welcoming Guests".

Donated Daughters

Bex Stern-Rosenblatt

Parashah

The parallels between the banishment of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac have long been noted. Both stories tell of a cherished son who is nearly killed as a result of his parents following God’s instructions. Both stories end with the son saved by God and the promise of progeny. In our parashah, there is a third story that shares elements with this pattern. Shortly before we read the banishment of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac, we read of the donation of Lot’s daughters. 

This story is traditionally read in light of Genesis 18, the story of Abraham’s hospitality towards his divine guests. Lot enacts much of the same hospitality that Abraham did. But where Abraham had offered them cakes and a calf, Lot offers his daughters. It is here that the parallels with the banishment of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac become instructive. 

Both those stories begin with God’s speech. God tells Abraham to listen to the voice of Sarah, to all that she says. Sarah says to drive out the slave woman and her son, Ishmael. So Abraham does. He wakes up early in the morning, gives Hagar a pittance of water, and sends them away. When the water runs out in the wilderness, Hagar casts her child down so that she does not have to see him die, and she cries. God hears Ishmael’s voice and an angel tells Hagar not to fear, opens her eyes to a well of water, and promises to make a great nation of Ishmael. 

Likewise, in the story of the Akeda (Isaac’s binding) God tells Abraham to offer up Isaac. He wakes up early in the morning and is about to sacrifice his kid when an angel calls out to him and tells him not to do so. He substitutes a ram, gets promised many descendants, and names the place “God sees.” 

In the story of Lot’s daughters, those same elements are all there but they are topsy-turvy. The angels appear at the outset of the story instead of as a deus ex machina at the end. The children at risk are daughters instead of sons. They are at risk for rape rather than for death. The replacement sacrifice is Sodom rather than a ram and it is offered by the angels. Instead of God opening eyes and letting the hero see, the angels blind the people of the town. Instead of God commanding the killing of the child, the angels do all they can to prevent the scenario from ever arising, trying their best not to enter Lot’s house in the first place. It is on Lot’s own initiative that he offers up his children. 

The biggest reversal is the lack of promise of progeny. Hagar and Abraham are both promised many children as a reward for nearly losing their child. Lot will also end up with many children. He too will be the father of nations, Moab and Ammon. But it is through rape and incest instigated by his daughters that these nations are produced. It is a good example of mida k’neged mida, measure for measure consequences. Each parent reaps what they have sown. 

The Abraham story began last week with Lot as a potential heir to Abraham. Lot was an essential part of the family, coming with Abraham from Ur Casdim. But Lot was unchosen. God never spoke to Lot. God never gave Lot a destiny to fulfill. The best Lot could hope for was to be blessed through Abraham. In our parashah this week, he is. Lot and his family are saved because of Abraham’s intervention. But Lot’s attempt to follow the same pattern as Abraham leads to disaster. Lot provides a glimpse of what life without a higher purpose looks like. Disconnected from God and unconcerned with the future, Lot lacks everything that gives our story meaning. We never want to let our children go, to offer them up to something else. Lot sacrifices his daughters without cause and without assurance that there is a higher purpose.

HAFTARA

To Have Loved--and Los

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Haftarah

Sometimes, a woman comes home with empty hands.

“May you come home with full hands;” a wish I have heard frequently in recent years wished upon a woman looking as if she is heading to the delivery room at any moment. It always makes me pause (especially after a friend recently experienced a stillbirth). It is a wish coming from a place of experience. Bitter experience. Any couple whose route to a child has not been smooth (and it is often not as smooth as it seems that it should be) knows: A child is a miracle, and miracles are not our inalienable right. 

After two parashot it seems clear that Sarah and Avraham do not have a child because Sarah is unable to conceive. Avraham conceived a child with Hagar without great drama, leaving Sarah doubly alone.  Having no child, and no husband to share some of her intense longing and pain. He has a child, a love, continuity. Anyone who has watched others play with their child while they are left out knows what that loneliness feels like.

When Sarah is told in this parashah that she will give birth in a year’s time, she laughs.  Not having the soundtrack, we are left to imagine what that sounded like (there are probably as many laughs as there are emotions.) The haftarah may function as a commentary on the reaction of the childless woman. A reaction that seems not to be understood by the men around her.

The Great Woman of Shunem goes through great trouble to host the Man of God, Elisha, in the greatest comfort, and he wishes to repay her. After having rejected any attempt to offer her his great connections in the government (she claims to be able to handle it all by herself), his servant, perhaps more in tune with the vibes in the household, points out that she does not have a child, and her husband is old.  A Child! What a perfect gift!

“No my lord, the Man of God! do not disillusion (tekhazev) your maidservant!” responds the alarmed woman, perhaps confusing the readers.  Disillusion?! A stream that carries water only occasionally, one that you may come to only to discover that it is dry, is called a Nahal Akhzav – a disillusioning stream.  But such a stream once did have water…

Not having a child is not always because a woman cannot conceive.  Did the Great Shunamite woman experience pregnancy and perhaps birth?  Unlike Sarah, she does not reject the possibility of conception, but rather fears the disillusion.  Like Sarah, her husband is described as ‘old’, with all the physical and social challenges that it might pose.  And she seems to be alone in her pain.  Did her husband have other children? The haftarah raises many possibilities between the lines.



There are many points the Torah could have focused on in the formative stages of the founders of the people of Israel.  The haftarah points our attention to the personal, emotional, aspect of continuity.  All the changes that have occurred in the world have not erased the deep hopes, the dreams, the fear of disillusion surrounding childbearing and raising.  We want to come home with full hands, and tuck our children in at night.

MORE

The Modern Mitzvah of Welcoming Guests

Joshua Kulp

Halakhah in the Parashah 

Of all the lessons we learn from the behavior of our ancestors in Genesis, Abraham’s welcoming of guests is perhaps the most outstanding one. Famously, at the beginning of this week’s parashah, Abraham sees three men standing near him. Without hesitation, and I truly find this astonishing every time I read it, Abraham offers them water to wash their feet and shade to get out of the hot sun. He asks them if they would like food, and when they accept his offer, he rushes (!) to Sarah to tell her to make some bread (from scratch, no two day old off the shelf loaves for the guests), he tells his servant to slaughter a calf (poor little guy), and he fetches for them butter and milk (no kosher rules yet!). Can you even begin to imagine acting in this way today? It's truly one of the most remarkable passages in Genesis.

From this passage the rabbis derive the mitzvah of welcoming guests. Maimonides, (the Laws of Mourning 14:1 [the mitzvah is here because it is part of a list that includes mourning the dead]) writes that while the mitzvah of welcoming guests is of rabbinic origin (meaning it is not legislated explicitly in the Torah), it is ultimately derived from Leviticus 19:18, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He then alludes to Hillel’s famous golden rule (which he quotes in the positive and not the negative): “Whatever you would like other people to do for you, you should do for your fellow.”

The Rambam goes on to write that the highest manifestation of welcoming guests is actually helping them on their way, “Accompanying them is greater than showing them hospitality. Our Sages said: ‘Whoever does not accompany them is considered as if he shed blood.’” The Talmud (Sotah 46b) tells tales of rabbis accompanying others on the road to protect them from harm. Welcoming guests is not just a matter of giving some good food to other people. It is our way of showing concern for their physical safety. This is indeed, the greatest act we can perform for others. 

In his modern halakhic work, Peninei Halakhah, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed asks an insightful question–can we really observe the mitzvah of welcoming guests in our times? The mitzvah of welcoming guests is not observed by inviting friends over for a meal, at least it certainly does not end there. The mitzvah of welcoming guests extends to the poor, to the homeless, to the traveler, to the unknown person. Today we do observe this mitzvah when we help organizations that aid the poor and the needy; this is something that has always been an important part of the fabric of Jewish life. But can we invite people into our homes in such a way that also fulfills the mitzvah of welcoming guests?

Rabbi Melamed suggests that while in our days physical poverty is rare, there is a different kind of poverty, one that is as prevalent as ever–the poverty of mental anguish and suffering. In a world in which there are probably more people than ever experiencing depression, alienation, anxiety and a host of other mental difficulties, the emphasis on welcoming guests must be shifted from a concern for the material prosperity of others to a concern for their mental and spiritual prosperity. Rabbi Melamed calls on us to invite into our homes the people who are lonely, the people who are in distress and the people who are going through difficult periods in their lives. Letting these people know that their lives are valuable, that others care about them, that others enjoy being around them, and that we are happy to be with them is our modern version of “accompanying the guest.” It is literally how we save other people’s lives. 

The Talmud (Shabbat 127a) lists six things whose “interest” a person consumes in this world and yet the principal (i.e. the reward) awaits us in the world to come. By inviting the lonely, the heartbroken, the distressed into our homes, we make our world into a better place right here and right now. A community that acts in this way is surely the type of community in which we all want to live. And the rewards for such an act last forever. They await us in the world to come.