VaYera (Genesis 18:1-22:24)
OVERVIEW
This is one of the most complex parashiyot in the Torah. As it opens, Abraham is sitting at the opening of his tent, when he notices three "men" approaching. The men, who are actually messengers from God, accept Abraham's offer of hospitality and then announce to Abraham and Sarah that Sarah will bear a child in her old age. Sarah (as would most 90 year old women) responds to this news by laughing. Afterwards, Abraham accompanies the three visitors as they proceeded on their journey. Two of the divine messengers make their way toward Sodom, while God makes known to Abraham the plan to destroy the sinful city. Abraham debates with God, earnestly interceding on behalf of the doomed city. But after protracted haggling, when not even ten righteous people are found in Sodom, God proceeds with the city's destruction. Abraham's nephew Lot, who tried to protect the messengers from the Sodomites' abuse, escapes the destruction with his two daughters. Later, hidden in a cave, thinking that they are the only ones left in the world, Lot's daughter's ply him with drink and sleep with him, hoping to repopulate the world.
Abraham then moves southward, and settles near Gerar. Here, with Abimelech the King of Gerar, there is a repeat of the earlier wife/sister deception with Pharaoh (Gen 20). Soon after this event, Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, who is now a hundred years old, circumcises his new son with great celebration. But Sarah now becomes deeply jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael, and insists that Abraham send them away. Abraham consults with God, who assures him that Ishmael too will become the father of a great nation.
Next, after a gap of many years, we see Abraham put to his greatest test. God appears to Abraham and commands him to go and offer Isaac as a sacrifice. They travel together to Mount Moriah (later to be the site of the Temple in Jerusalem) where Abraham binds up Isaac and raises his knife to slaughter him. But he is stopped by God, who provides a ram as a substitute. Abraham then returns to his home at Beer Sheba.
IN FOCUS
"The Eternal One appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot." (Genesis 18:1)
PSHAT
Right from the beginning, the portion makes sure that we understand that all that is about to happen is the doing of God. The next verse continues, "Looking up he saw three men standing near him." Abraham is sitting at the opening of his tent, shading himself from the heat of the day. In the Talmud (B. Mez. 86b) R. Hama the son of Hanina tells us that this was the third day after Abraham's circumcision, and the Holy One was fulfilling the mitzvah of Bikkur Cholim - visiting the sick. But even so, as he sat there convalescing, Abraham seemed caught off guard by these special visitors who seem to appear out of nowhere. He raises up his eyes and suddenly sees they are standing by him. The language implies that he was startled by their sudden appearance. Although he does not realize it right away, these men are an apparition of God.
DRASH
One of the things that singled out our patriarchs was the intimate nature of their relationship with God. But, at the very end of the Torah it says, "Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Eternal knew face to face" (Deut. 34:10). So, if Moses was the only one to interface with God directly, then how did the others come to know God?
The nature of each and every individual's relationship with God is different, because, of course, we are all different. Our parashah begins by telling us unequivocally that God "appeared" to Abraham, but then it continues to tell us that Abraham "saw" three men. If God, in the guise of these three men, is modeling the mitzvah of Bikkur Cholim, then Abraham responds by setting the example of the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim - "hospitality" or the welcoming of the stranger. Now, the text does not tell us exactly at what point Abraham and Sarah realized that these men were a manifestation of the Divine Presence, but they seem to realize this soon enough. Abraham directly refers to them as Adonai - meaning "my Lord" - a common enough phrase, but also that which we use as a substitute name for God. When one of the messengers indicates that he shall return and that Sarah shall give birth to a son, it seems clear that this is the voice of God speaking. It is at that point that the text again refers to God directly, and not the men.
So what's going on here? Why does the text have to interchange God for "men" and back again? Well, to help us understand this seemingly confused theophany (experience or manifestation of God), we need to look closely at the key word of this entire parashah, va-yar' - "and he saw" - or, as it is conjugated in the name of our parashah, va-yera' - "and He appeared". In verse 2, where the word appears twice, Rashi jumps right on it. He writes,
What does the repetition of this word va-yar' imply? The first time it has its ordinary meaning ("he looked"), the second that of understanding.
So the use of this word here is really less about visualization and more about perception. And there are two levels to perception - that of visually seeing, and that of understanding what is seen. Abraham seemed to leap from one level to the other fairly quickly; he first saw the men, and then came to understand almost immediately that the men were a manifestation of God. But Abraham is an outstanding man of God. For most of us, it does not happen that fast. As Franz Rosenzweig wrote:
The story opens by saying that God appeared to Abraham, but when Abraham applies the vision to his own world he suddenly sees three men standing before him. Abraham is the religious man par excellence for he sees God in the human situation.
With the exception of Moses, God can only appear to people in a form they can handle. Hence our traditon's lengthy development of the concept of Malachim - literally "messengers" - but commonly translated as "angels." The men who visited Abraham, the voice that called out to Abraham as he stood over the bound Isaac on Mount Moriah, and the man who later wrestled with Jacob, all fit into this category, messengers of God who present themselves in human form so that God's message can be seen and heard and understood by humans. Bereshit Rabbah (50:2), questioning why three "men" arrived at Mamre but only two "angels" came afterwards to Sodom, answers with the job description of the Malachim:
It was taught : One angel does not perform two missions, nor do two angels together perform one mission, yet you read that two angels came to Sodom? The fact is, however, that Michael announced his tidings [to Abraham] and departed; Gabriel was sent to overturn Sodom, and Rafael to rescue Lot.
By extension we may believe that Malachim are all around us, even to this day. We may see them (as people) but we may not often understand their special purpose.
But not everyone is comfortable with the idea that God communes with us through messengers. The Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimonide) in his Moreh Nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed) suggests that none of these events actually took place, nor any of the other cases where Malachim are purported to have appeared. Rather, Maimonides maintains, in all of these cases, God appeared in a vision, and the passages in Torah merely describe the vision.
The Ramban (Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman) takes great exception to Maimonides's suggestion that Torah events may not have happened, but he does agree that human senses cannot perceive angels. The angels, he explains, merely become mediums for the transmission of God's message. Only prophets, he explains receive God's message through visions. All others need some form of medium to perceive the divine word.
Personally, Ramban's approach is more appealing to me, because in distinguishing between prophets and other mere humans who struggle to perceive God, he suggests that different types of people need different ways to relate to God, and that God is sensitive to each of our needs. I would extend that idea even further to argue that even within the scope of our individual lives, we relate to God differently at different times. Therefore, how God is manifest to us may need to change as well.
This idea is supported by the reappearance of the root word yir-'eh in the story of the Akedah - the binding of Isaac - which is also included in our parashah this week (Gen. 22:1-19). As they ascend Mount Moriah together to offer a sacrifice, Isaac asks his father Abraham, "Where is the sheep for the burnt offering?" Abraham, who knows God has asked for his son Isaac as the offering, answers, Elohim yir'eh lo ha-seh l'olah - "God will see to the sheep for the burnt offering." Rather then saying God will give or God will provide, Abraham answers, "God will see." The question of what will be offered is open to perception, and the intention of God, and the perceptions of Abraham and Isaac (and the fateful ram) may all be different at that uncertain time. After Isaac is spared by another angel and a ram is sacrificed in his place, that spot on the top of Moriah is renamed Adonai-Yir'eh, explained in the text to mean, "on the mountain of the Eternal it will be seen."
How we understand God always remains to be seen. It is always a matter of personal perception. There is only one God, but as many different manifestations of God as there are people. We learn from our patriarchs and matriarchs that our relationship with God is an intensely personal matter. It is a matter of faith that God will "see to it" that we perceive God in the way that is best suited to us.
DAVAR AHER
The Midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 56:10) explains how the site of the Akedah at the top of Mount Moriah came to be called Jerusalem:
And Abraham called the name of the place Adonai-Yir'eh (Gen. 22:14). Shem called it Shalem : And Melchizedek king of Shalem (Gen. 14:18) Said the Holy One of Blessing: "If I call it Yir'eh as did Abraham, then Shem, a righteous man, will resent it; while if I call it Shalem, as did Shem, Abraham, the righteous man, will resent it. Hence I will call it Jerusalem, including both names, Yir'eh-Shalem.
Hence the name Jerusalem : Vision of Peace.
