Vayeira

This past Sunday I visited our third grade class. One of the students asked me a question – How many letters are there in a Torah? In rabbinic school we learn that although we “Rabbis to be” will not be able to answer every question put to us, we will be able to know where to go and look for the answer to any question we cannot answer immediately. I immediately knew exactly where to go to answer this question. As the students looked on, I whipped out my cell phone and googled it! There were, I told the students, 304,805 letters in the Torah. In addition, there were 79,847 words in a Torah scroll. In fact, the Talmud tells us that the early Sages were called “soferim”, or “counters” because, so dear was the Torah to them, that they counted every letter and word. To this day, a person who writes a Torah is called a “sofer” – a counter – and not a “kotev” or writer.

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeira
By Rabbi Heidi Hoover (’11)

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira, Abraham is sitting outside his tent at the hottest part of the day. God visits him. Our rabbis tell us that this is an act of compassion on God’s part. The reason Abraham is sitting isn’t just that it’s the hottest part of the day—too hot to work or do anything, really—but also because he’s recovering from having circumcised himself, as God had commanded him to do at the end of last week’s Torah portion.

This is where we derive the duty to visit the sick—we are emulating God, who visits Abraham when he is recovering from surgery. God, who is so much more important than Abraham, takes the time to come see him when he isn’t feeling well.

And look at the effect it has on Abraham, who must be toward the end of his Read More >

by Cantor Sandy Horowitz

“`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run”
Bruce Springsteen

Parashat Vayera begins, “Vayisa einav vayar v’hinei shlosha anashim — And he [Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold three men stood by him”; it continues, “And he saw them, and he ran (vayaratz) to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground” (Genesis 18:2).

These opening verses are often cited as a central example of the virtue of hospitality. The active verbs provide a reminder that being welcoming is not a passive, receptive experience but rather a course of action, as we read how Abraham then spoke to the strangers, offered them food and water and a place to rest, and then rushed to prepare the food, enlisting his wife Sarah in the endeavor.

In addition to the act itself of being welcoming, is Abraham’s willingness to run towards something unknown in order to perform an Read More >

by Cantor Sandy Horowitz
Look back and die!
Such is the fate of Lot’s wife in Parashat Vayeira.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EARLIER: Lot has been living in Sodom, city of sin destined for destruction by God. On the eve of destruction, angels come knocking on his door, for the purpose of warning him to flee. He invites them in, feeds them, and then tries to protect them when the townsmen demand that he turn his guests over to them for their sexual sport. Lot offers up his two unmarried daughters in exchange for the guests’ safety; the angel-guests intervene just in time.

Next morning, Lot and his family heed the warning and depart Sodom, leaving behind their two married daughters. As Lot departs we read, “Vayitmamah” (“And he lingered”, Genesis 19:16). This word is chanted using shalshelet, an elaborate cantillation trope which occurs only three other times in the Torah. Shalshelet‘s duration is long and the tone Read More >

Vayeirah
Hazzan Marcia Lane

Let me just say, straight off, that choosing one or other episode from this week’s parashah, like all the parshiyot of the book of Genesis, is a tricky proposition. Shall I address the story of Abraham and Sarah and their angelic visitors, but ignore the Akedah, the binding of Isaac? For synagogues that follow the triennial reading of the Torah, the big event this week will be the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah, but we will also read about the king of Gerar, Avimelech, and how he took Sarah into his household, thinking that she was Abraham’s sister. The banishment of Hagar and Ishmael? You can see the problem here; the Torah portion is simply too good. Too packed with juicy stories. But there is a thread that connects these episodes. Our Torah portion introduces two important and inter-connected mitzvot (commandments): bikkur holim (visiting the sick) and hakhnasat Read More >

By Rabba Kaya Stern-Kaufman

This week’s Torah portion tells the story of several crisis points in the life of one ancient family. As the parashah opens, the family constellation includes husband Abraham, first wife- Sarah, surrogate mother-Hagar and the firstborn son of Hagar and Abraham-Ishmael. The text begins with the annunciation of Isaac’s birth. As foretold, Sarah miraculously becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac at the age of 90. It is difficult to imagine the complicated dynamics in this unusual family situation. As the story unravels before us, so too do these relationships that have been tenuously held together by the need to ensure the future lineage of Abraham.

For thirteen years Ishmael was the treasured firstborn. Though his mother was first a servant in the household, one might wonder what has become of her status over these years. As the mother of Abraham’s firstborn, what kind of relationship do she and Abraham Read More >