The Foundation of Faith: Vayeira

The Foundation of Faith

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeira

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The pivotal points of this week’s parasha, Vayeira—“And God was seen” [by Abraham], Gen. 18:1-22:24—appear at the beginning of the portion and then again at its end.  As Vayeira begins, God announces to Abraham His intent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  Later, at the end of the portion, God issues a terrible demand—that Abraham offer his beloved son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God.  These are momentous, even cataclysmic moments in Abraham’s life.  But exactly because they are so significant, we tend not to notice the background of the story. 

If the bookends of this parasha demonstrate Abraham’s faith and deepening sense of morality, the middle is about the decadence and depravity that were the characteristics of the culture of the time and place.

Against such dismal background, Abraham’s response to God’s challenges stands out as a towering example of justice and compassion.  His faith in a God who models these values becomes the foundation of our own relationship with the Divine.

Abraham isn’t self-righteous, as Noah had been ten generations earlier.  Abraham protests against the injustice he perceives around him.  He even goes so far as to upbraid God for the plans to destroy entire cities, seemingly without regard for the innocent among the guilty.

However, in the famous passage in which Abraham questions God (Genesis 18:25, “Will the Judge of the entire earth not perform justice?”), he also expresses a new and even revolutionary idea.  Righteous acts do not bring rewards only to those who perform them; in the moral balance upon which the world rests, righteousness can outweigh wickedness.  The good deeds of the few can overpower the evil of the many.  It is, of course, still a balance.  If there simply aren’t enough good deeds, destruction invariably must follow, as it does in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah.

This potential for redemption that Abraham recognizes in his fellow human beings makes him so different from everyone else around him.  Abraham sees into the human soul itself—and he expects God to do the same.   

Some see Abraham’s dispute with God, in which he argues for God to desist from His plans of destruction, as one in a series of ten tests that Abraham must pass in order to prove himself worthy of being the father of a new people.  Yet it can also be seen as the total opposite:  Abraham is testing God. 

It is no simple matter to abandon traditional ways and to follow a new, mysterious, invisible God.  Abraham is willing to do it, but only if God proves true and worthy of his trust and faith.  In order for Abraham to worship God, God cannot be like the amoral gods of the surrounding nations.  God can’t be vain or envious, imperious or high-handed.  Abraham has already proven his trust by leaving his homeland and going to this new land God had told him about.  Now it’s God’s turn.

And so when the final and most awful of these ten tests of faith comes, the traditional view is to see it as the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith.  But it is just as much a test by Abraham of God’s trustworthiness.

The call to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the beloved child he and Sarah had at such an advanced age, must have seemed like the most crushing demand.  Isaac was to be the ultimate proof of God’s intent, the goal and sweetest reward God had intended for Abraham.  It was through Isaac that God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled.  Yet now this same God seemed to contradict Himself and take everything back

What filled Abraham’s heart and mind at that moment?  We can imagine the pain and sorrow, the disappointment and even frustration.  There must have been anger and bitterness.  Yet, without so much as a peep, Abraham complies with the command he hears. 

Who of us would be so steadfast in our faith as Abraham was when he set out on this tragic journey?  Yet the very same Abraham who had earlier argued with God so passionately about the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah now says nothing at all.  Wordlessly, he saddles his donkeys, takes wood, fire and a sharp knife, and step-in-step with his beloved son, leaves early in the morning.

As Abraham saw it, however, the test was not whether he would actually go ahead and offer Isaac.  The test was whether God would stop him from such a terrible and wrongful act.

It was the ultimate test of God’s character.  Would the God who forbade any abuse and violence now demand the life of an innocent child?  If so, then that would disqualify anything Abraham had done for this God up until this moment.  It would mean that his lifelong struggle against injustice, against blind ignorance, against immorality, against all that he considered evil, was meaningless.

Yet Abraham is full of faith.  To the last moment, holding the knife high over his boy’s chest, he is certain that God would stop him.

And God does just that, showing Abraham a ram to offer instead of his son.

Though intended as a test of faith, for Abraham—and for all Abraham’s descendants from that point on—this moment becomes a model lesson.  Dedicating our children to God does not mean we harm them.  Rather, we must rear them lovingly, educate them, teach them what God is all about and what God expects of us.

Vayeira thus lies at the foundation of our faith as a people.  The title of this portion means “God appeared.”   It is through these tests that God appeared to Abraham.  Similarly, so does God “appear” to us too.  God is the sum total of the values we hold sacred.  Our pursuit of justice and compassion; the faith we have in the potential of every human being to be good; the love we show our children and the wisdom we endow them with—these are the foundation stones of our faith. As long as we hold these values sacred and follow them, our people survives.

But it’s a precarious balance, one that demands our careful attention in purpose and detail.  After all, it isn’t only our own survival, but also the survival of the entire world that hinge on these acts of faith.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman