Food for Our Souls: Parashat HaShavua in Our Lives Vol. 2, Episode 4: Vayeira - Genesis 18:1 - 22:24

(1) Now God was seen by him by the oaks of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot.

(2) He raised his eyes and saw: Here, three men standing before him. He saw, and he ran toward them from the tent flap and bowed to the ground. (3) And said: My lords, pray if I have found favor in your eyes, pray do not pass by your servant! (4) Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. (5) And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on—seeing that you have come your servant’s way. They replied: Do as you have said.

(9) They said to him: Where is your wife Sarah? He said: Here in the tent. Now he said: (10) I will return, yes, return to you when time revives, and Sarah your wife will have a son! Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him.

(16) The men set out from there and looked down upon the face of Sodom, Abraham walking with them to see them off.

(1) The two angels/messengers came to Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to greet them and, bowing low with his face to the ground, (2) he said: Now pray, my lords, pray turn aside to your servant's house, spend the night, wash your feet; starting early you may go on your way. They said: No, rather we will spend the night in the square. (3) But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

(12) The men said to Lot: Whom else have you here - a son-in-law, sons, daughters? Bring anyone whom you have in the city out of the place! (13) For we are about to bring ruin on this place, for how great is their outcry before God! and God has sent us to bring it to ruin. (14) Lot went out to speak to his sons-in-law, those who had taken his daughters (in marriage), and said: Up, out of this place, for God is about to bring ruin on the city! But in the eyes of his sons-in-law, he was like one who jests.

(17) When they had brought them outside, one said: Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away. (18) But Lot said to them: Oh no, my lord! (19) You have been so gracious to your servant, and have already shown me so much kindness in order to save my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. (20) Now pray, your servant has found favor in your eyes, you have shown great faithfulness in how you have dealt with me, keeping me alive- but I, I am not able to escape to the hill country, lest the wickedness cling to me, and I die. (21) He said to him: Here then, I lift up your face in this matter as well, by not overturning this town of which you speak. (22) Hurry, flee there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Hence the town came to be called Zoar.

(23) As the sun rose upon the earth and Lot entered Zoar, (24) God rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire coming from God from the heavens. (25) God overturned those cities and all of the plain, all those settled in the cities and the vegetation of the soil. (26) Lot’s wife gazed behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

(27) Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood in the presence of God. (28) He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw and, look, smoke was rising like the smoke from a kiln.

(9) Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing. (10) She said to Abraham: Cast out that slave-woman and her son, for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac. (11) The matter distressed Abraham greatly, for it concerned a son of his. (12) But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave; whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you. (13) As for the son of the slave-woman, I will make a nation of him, too, for he is your seed.

(15) When the water was gone from the skin, she left the child under one of the bushes, (16) and went and sat down at a distance, a bowshot away; for she said to herself: Let me not look on as the child dies. And sitting thus afar, she burst into tears.

(17) God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her: What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. (18) Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him. (19) Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and let the boy drink.

(1) Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test and said to him: Abraham! He answered, “Here I am.” (2) God said, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go you forth to the land of Moriyya/Seeing, and offer him up there as an offering up upon one of the mountains of that I will tell you.

(4) On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

(7) Then Isaac said to his father Abraham: Father! He answered: Here I am, my son. He said: Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering? (8) Abraham said: God will see to the sheep for God's burnt offering, my son. And the two of them walked on together.

(13) Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw: there, a ram caught behind in the thicket by its horns! Abraham went, he took the ram and offered it up as an offering up in place of his son. (14) And Abraham named that site Adonai-yireh/God sees. As the saying is today: On God's mountain it is seen.