Parashat Vayera, Genesis 18:1-22:24

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Joi Guttman in loving memory of Stephen Istvan Guttman, Yahrzeit Cheshvan 15.

The simple mundane items in life become priceless treasures when we no longer have them.

What an incredible parasha we read this week! Vayera contains more action than most film trailers. There is the announcement and birth of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ishmael is sent away and almost dies, and Isaac is bound and almost sacrificed. One event is more dramatic than the next.

Yet the portion begins so simply and innocently. God appears to Abraham as he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. (Genesis 18:1) Why this detail of ke-khom hayom, in the heat of the day? Years ago, my colleague, Rabbi Loraine Heller, presented a beautiful drasha on appreciating this seemingly insignificant bit of information. It is such a small detail, yet it becomes hauntingly significant knowing everything else that will occur.

Certain events at this time of year always make me appreciate small details. On November 11th we observed Remembrance Day. You may not have heard of John Babcock, but he is the last surviving Canadian veteran of World War I. Mr. Babcock joined up at the age of 15. He celebrated his 108th birthday this past July. He was fortunate enough never to make it to the front lines. Many others did and wrote of their experiences.

Alfred Anderson who died close to three years ago at the age of 105 was present on the Western Front during the famous "Christmas Truce" of 1914.

 "I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence…All I'd heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine-gun fire and distant German voices,"

Last Survivor of 'Christmas Truce' Tells of his Sorrow, Lorna Martin, 

The Observer, December 19, 2004 Guardian.co.uk

This silence was the World War I equivalent of ke-khom hayom, the heat of the day. It was something so mundane that in normal circumstances you would not be aware of it.

I am reminded as well of a book called Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, which I read as an adolescent. This memoir described the childhood and early adulthood of this leading English pacifist. What made a lasting impression on me was the transformation from Victorian to Edwardian England as seen through the individual's realization of the reality of war and the post-war environment.

At first, taken in by her England's heroic view of war and battle, Vera encouraged her younger brother Edward to enlist. Her fiancé did so as well. In an instant, these two young men, along with so many other youths of their generation went from ke-khom hayom, an awareness of the soothing heat of the day, to the terror faced by Isaac at the akedah (binding). Nothing was ever the same again.

Only three weeks into the war Vera Brittain could sense the change between ke-khom hayom and what followed:

It was one of those shimmering autumn days when every leaf and flower seems to scintillate with light and I found it "very hard to believe that not far away men were being slain ruthlessly.... The destruction of men, as though beasts, whether they be English, French, German or anything else, seems a crime to the whole march of civilisation."

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, p. 97

The importance of ke-khom hayom, the simple mundane items in life that become priceless treasures when we no longer have them, was best expressed by those who were there:

… in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly...
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow…

These words were placed in mouths of those who lie In Flanders Field by the poet John McCrae.

Others had their own memories:

Often a skylark sang sweetly when I went to tether the cows on their scanty pasture amongst the shell holes. Apparently the birds were unaffected by the firing. At times a kestrel hawk could be seen hovering over the desolate wastes that had once been fields. Then there was a thrush that called from the shattered branch of a roadside tree. Men might die, cities, towns, and villages might fall in ruin, but still the birds sang on!

T.S. Williams, Memories and Diaries: The Carnoy Cows, www.firstworldwar.com

This week marks ninety years since the end of the war to end all wars. While the poppies may still be blowing in Flanders Field, in Canada and across the world the flowers of that generation are withering. The few remaining veterans are older than Abraham was in parashat Vayera. We would hardly acknowledge them if we were to see them on the street. We certainly would not look twice at these gentlemen were they sitting at the entrance to a nursing home in the heat of the day.

How sad, for they have much to teach us about ke-khom ha-yom, appreciation for the mundane, that we fortunate recipients of their youthful sacrifice cannot comprehend. In addition to their appreciation for the mundane, many of these veterans had an encounter with the sacred as well. Some of these experiences were positive and others were traumatic. There is an old cliché that there are no atheists in a foxhole. Perhaps there were none in the World War I trenches either, though we know full well that the trauma of battle destroyed the faith of many on their return.

This brings us to an interesting verse in Vayera, one that is easy to ignore because it appears to be as minor a detail as ke-khom hayom:  Abraham and Sarah are sojourning in Gerar where Avimelech, the king, takes Sarah, assuming that she is Abraham's sister. He finds out the truth in a dream.
But God came to Avimelech in a dream by night and said to him, "You are to die because of the woman that you have taken, for she is a married woman." (Genesis 20:3)

Commenting on the Avimelech's dream, Rabbi David Kimchi explains that God reaches us in two ways, one being through dreams (halomot), the other being through tribulations or chastisements (yissurim). As my colleague Rabbi Dow Marmur once put it, "God strokes or God strikes."  While I disagree with the perspective that God is actively "putting us through our paces,"  I do see both positive and negative situations as way we can reach God.

We all understand the "stroking;" indeed, chances are that we all desire the "stroking."  This is the derech noam, the pleasant way to God. We are also aware that life is not like that. Sometimes innocence fades overnight, as Vera Brittain discovered, and young men lie buried in Flanders Field.

Sometimes all is going well and accident, illness, or tragedy strikes, leaving the individual in intense pain and alone. Yet, this too is an opening for a divine encounter, as Abraham discovered sitting in front of his tent in the heat of the day, three days after undergoing circumcision.

Oftentimes things will get worse before they get better. Sarah will be threatened by Avimelech. Ishmael will nearly die. Isaac will be bound for sacrifice during the akedah. These events will bring pain and trauma far worse than Abraham can imagine in the heat of that day.

Harder still to comprehend is God’s presence at such times. Abraham’s suffering will raise his awareness, sensitivity, and desire to reach out to God. Too many Jews mistakenly think that the positive evaluation of suffering is solely a Christian concept. Certainly none of us desire to experience God through suffering. But in difficult times, and we all encounter such occasions, Vayera teaches us that God is there. The psalmist affirms this as well in writing
In distress I called out to Adonai
Adonai answered me by setting me free. (Psalms 118:5)
This is not a physical freedom but a spiritual encounter. As the psalmist concludes:
Adonai is at my side, I am not afraid. (Psalms 118:6)

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel