Parashat Vayera: Pleading for Others, Having Faith in Ourselves

Abraham, our partriach, has quite a week this week. He learns he and Sarah will have a son, though they are both nonagenarians. He argues on behalf of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, to no avail. He refers to his wife as his sister, nearly causing a king to sleep with her. He has his son, Isaac, which only leads to Sarah's plea to have Abraham cast out his son, Ishmael, and his mother, Hagar. And ultimately, he prepares to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Wow. It's almost too much to handle all at once.

Each of these moments is complex, filled with uplift and depression. But it is with Abraham's pleading with God on behalf of the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that I want to wrestle this week. I encountered a teaching about this portion, Vayera, from Kolel, the Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, in Toronto, that spoke to me, especially in light of my recent blog posts about bullying and GLBTQ youth.

In the portion, Abraham is deeply troubled by the possibility that when God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, innocent people will be wiped away with the guilty. He even goes so far as to chastise God, saying, "Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?" (Genesis 18:25).

The commentary from Kolel unpacks this moment in contrast to the last scene in our sedra, where Abraham willingly prepares to sacrifice his son without any argument. With Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham argues for quite a while, first asking what God would do if there were 50 innocent people, eventually bargaining God down to only 10. But there weren't 10. But when it comes to his son Isaac, Abraham remains silent. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, citing midrash, indicates that Abraham's silence in regards to his son doesn't come from a place of fear, but rather from a place of faith. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham sees it as an issue of justice. But regarding Isaac, his son, it is an issue of faith. These are two completely separate issues for Abraham.

So, what does this mean for us today? The commentary from Kolel asks, "How often do we put other people's interests before our own? In our society today, we tend to 'look out for number one,' which is not to say that we don't care for others, but we put ourselves and our own needs before all others." Justice, the value that motivated Abraham's actions around Sodom and Gomorrah, and faith, the value that motivated Abraham's silence surrounding the near-sacrifice of Isaac, do not exist separate from one another. Sometimes, they require compromise. In order to make a better world for everyone, the commentary argues, we sometimes need to put our own needs after those of others. If we are willing to give a little more to others, we can create a better world for all of us. The commentary concludes by teaching us, "Abraham showed us that we manifest our love for God best when we believe in a God-like fashion towards others, and maintain a faith in God for ourselves."

I believe that Abraham also teaches us that we have to know when to speak up for others and when to be secure in who we are.