Thread by @GREENESJ333

Roger Froikin @rlefraim wrote, "SHABBAT SHALOM

Parshat Vayera
Genesis 18:1–22:24

This Parsha is unique in that it deals with three separate issues.
1)

The first has Abraham circumcising himself despite his advanced age, and the arrival of three visitors for whom Abraham, even in his weakened state, provides first-class hospitality. These visitors tell Abraham that his wife Sara will have a son.
2)

The deeper story? Abraham started a custom, rare at the time, of circumcision. In an era when many peoples sacrificed children to appease their gods into bringing them health, crops, and a good hunt,
3)

Abraham did something to establish a partnership with G-d—an act of “completing creation,” altering himself, and changing the relationship with the Creator from one of subject to one of partnership, with all the responsibility that implies.
4)

An old, weakened Abraham showed a high level of hospitality in welcoming three travelers. Some say these were angels. Maybe they were just people. Maybe, some more imaginative minds may think they were aliens from another world—but whatever they were,
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the lesson is in how Avraham acted, the efforts he made to be compassionate in a hostile world. Think of compassion as a social obligation and as a model for all of us.
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The second idea is in Abraham’s plea to G-d to spare the degenerate city of Sodom, and the story of Avraham’s nephew (son of Nachor) Lot and his family, who lived and did business in Sodom. Their means of livelihood were there.
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But Lot shared his uncle’s value of hospitality, though he lived in a place where the culture was predatory and narcissistic—where the values of Lot’s family simply did not fit. When he protects visitors from the mob, as he has protected his wife and daughters,
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they warn him to leave before the city is destroyed. He picks up and leaves, but when the family leaves the city, Lot’s wife looks back and dies—turning into a mound of salt.

The lesson? A couple of them.
9)

Sometimes one needs to choose moral values even at the risk of financial and personal loss. And if one does not make that choice absolutely, one loses—like Lot’s wife.
10)

Third, G-d tests Abraham’s devotion by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah (thought to have been what is now the Temple Mount in Jerusalem). Isaac is bound and placed on the altar, and Abraham raises the knife to slaughter his son.
11)

A voice from heaven calls to stop him, and he stops. A ram, caught in the undergrowth by its horns, is offered in Isaac’s place.

This event—this story—has been quite controversial through the years.
12)

Would Avraham have sacrificed his firstborn with Sara, like the peoples around him, if he were not stopped? Or was he so sure he would not have to kill his son that he anticipated the result? I think it was the latter.
13)

I look at it as similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden and the apple—where eating that apple was the dividing line between being an animal, a subject of Creation, and being a human being with a soul from HaShem and self-awareness.
14)

What Avraham did with Yitzchak was an act of absolute faith combined with judgment.

What ties this Parsha together is the making of moral judgments rather than just reacting—making decisions based on values rather than social pressures or convenience—
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establishing a relationship with HaShem that is worth more than being subject to the whims of outside forces.

The Torah uses stories to teach us lessons: lessons in how best to create a moral culture and a positive future.

That’s why it is important."
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