Genesis 18:1-22:24
In Vayera, God appears to Avraham and the boundaries between heaven and earth grow startlingly close. The parashah moves from hospitality and compassion to the moral challenge of Sodom, and finally to the terrifying test of the Akedah. It asks how one can hold together faith, ethics, love, and obedience in the face of overwhelming demands.
In Abraham and Parashat Vayera by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Avraham is the prototype of every Jew. And his greatest trial is what is experienced by all Jews: the impossibility of identifying God in terms of consistency and goodness.
In Theodicy and Parashat Vayera by Calev Ben-Dor
The theme of ashes, (efer / עפר) plays a role in two stories in this week’s parsha. Abraham uses the term when entering into negotiation with God to spare the city of S’dom. The other mention of ashes is in the Akeida, where Abraham is commanded to take his beloved son Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him as an olah, a burnt offering. The story not only fascinated traditional commentators but modern Israeli and Zionist thinkers too. What does this story mean for us today?
In Abraham and Parashat Vayera by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Prior to the Akeda, Avraham still lives in the world where man submits unconditionally to any god, whatever its demands. He is still a child of his times. Only when God, by way of His angel, shouts No! “Do not lay a hand on the boy” does Avraham wake up from his so-called religiosity.
In Abraham, Jewish Thought and Philosophy and Parashat Vayera by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
For the biblical personality and those living in early post-biblical times, the existence of God was apparent. One would discover His fingerprints everywhere: in heaven, on earth, in the colors of a flower, in the stormy sky, in the thunder and lightning, in the smile of a baby or the beauty of the seashore.