In our discussion of Parshat Vayera (Gen. 18:1 - 22:24), we will explore ways to confront silences and ambiguities in the text. Who is silent? Where can we see – or how might we see – possibility in silence? Content warnings: homophobia and violence.
Blessing for Torah Study
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la'asok b’divrei Torah. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who hallows us with mitzvot, charging us to engage with words of Torah.
Beginning with Our Own Torah
Think of a moment when you were silent in the face of a challenge. How did you feel in that moment and afterwards? Did you consider any other possibilities?
Genesis 18:23-26, 32
Context: God told Abraham that they will test the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Questions to consider: In what tone is Abraham speaking with God? How does God receive him? What might have other possibilities looked like?
וַיִּגַּ֥שׁ אַבְרָהָ֖ם וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַאַ֣ף תִּסְפֶּ֔ה צַדִּ֖יק עִם־רָשָֽׁע׃
Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?
And GOD answered, “If I find within the city of Sodom fifty innocent ones, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”
And he said, “Let not my Sovereign be angry if I speak but this last time: What if ten should be found there?” “I will not destroy, for the sake of the ten,” came the reply.
Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subersiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole by Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser (2023)
I grew up hearing Sodom as shorthand for castigating queer love, for imagining our sexuality as an affront to God. That's not at all what I mean. Genesis 19 portrays the city of Sodom as an extraordinarily wicked place, a place destroyed by God after the townsfolk flout the basic laws of hospitality and human decency. Two angels come to town, appearing as strangers, and the men of Sodom decide to rape them....
Sodom is a condemnation of brutality, an assault on rape. As Rabbi Jay Michaelson argues, "Reading the story of Sodom as being about homosexuality is like reading the story of an ax murderer as being about an ax."
In the classic Jewish sources, Sodom is not a story that condemns male-male love (pg 43).
Genesis 19:5-7
Context: Two of God's messengers visited Sodom, where Lot greeted them and welcomed them into his house. A mob of townspeople gathered around Lot's house.
Questions to consider: What is Lot's approach to talking with the townspeople? How does the mob respond to him? What could Lot have done differently?
And they shouted to Lot and said to him, “Where are the ones who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them.”
So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him,
and said, “I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong.
Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please; but do not do anything to the others, since they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
(ט) וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ ׀ גֶּשׁ־הָ֗לְאָה וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ הָאֶחָ֤ד בָּֽא־לָגוּר֙ וַיִּשְׁפֹּ֣ט שָׁפ֔וֹט עַתָּ֕ה נָרַ֥ע לְךָ֖ מֵהֶ֑ם וַיִּפְצְר֨וּ בָאִ֤ישׁ בְּלוֹט֙ מְאֹ֔ד וַֽיִּגְּשׁ֖וּ לִשְׁבֹּ֥ר הַדָּֽלֶת׃
But they said, “Stand back! The fellow,” they said, “came here as an outsider, and already he acts the ruler! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” And they pressed hard against that householder—against Lot—and moved forward to break the door.
Genesis 22:1-3, 7-8, 11-13
Questions to consider: How does Abraham respond to God's request? How does Isaac respond to Abraham? What could have been other possible responses?
Notice the use of the word, "hineni" – roughly translated as "here I am." What might this word mean? What are the similarities and differences between each use?
Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test, saying to him, “Abraham.” He answered, “Here I am” (hineini).
“Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”
So early next morning, Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him.
Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Here I am (hineini), my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
And Abraham said, “It is God who will see to the sheep for this burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.
Then an angel of GOD called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am” (hineini).
“Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.”
When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.
Rabbinic Midrash, 300-500 CE
When Abraham our patriarch bound his son atop the altar, the ministering angels wept.
Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser
It matters to me that the angels weep. I've always recoiled from a straight reading of Genesis 21, in which God tests Abraham's faith by telling him to kill his child.... That is not God. I read this story as a warning, a reminder to beware the fantasy of clear instructions, the brutality that follows when we think ourselves compelled by God.... [I] am glad to know the ancient rabbis shared something of my own disquiet, that they too felt heaven's heart lament (pg 150).
Ending with Our Own Torah
Return to the moment when you were silent in the face of a challenge. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?