Shalom Friends;
This week, our Parshat HaShevua Vayeira is being sponsored by Dr. David and Tamar Kallus and family of Ramat Beit Shemesh dedicated for a total, complete refuah shleima for Rav Chaim Zev ben Kayla (Rabbi Malinowitz) and for Genessa Batya bat Hinda (Mrs. Sonnenberg). To the Kallus family, many thanks for your sponsorship and your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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Rabbi Shmuel Goldin provides a context in his sefer “Unlocking The Torah Text” regarding the two dramatic events of our Parshat Vayeira (page 88):
Two towering events serve as dramatic bookends within Parshat Vayeira: the cities of Sodom and Amora and the Akeida (the aborted sacrifice of Yitzchak).
Avraham reacts to the first of these events true to expected form. Unable to accept an unacceptable reality, he argues, debates and struggles with his Creator. He is determined to change Hashem’s mind. (Rabbi Goldin citing Sefer Breish’t, Perek 18, posukim 23-33)
When confronted with the commandment to sacrifice his son, however, Avraham is silent and obedient. (Rabbi Goldin citing Sefer Breish’t, Perek 22, posuk 3)
In contemplating Parshat Vayeira, and then Parshat Chayei Sarah, this author seems to always come back to three versions heard regarding the Akeida — one version heard some forty-four years ago by an Israeli tour guide and two other versions heard some eighteen years ago in a shiur given said by Rabbi Aba Wagensberg.
The tour guide’s version was simply this: “When Sarah heard that Avraham was about to schecht (slaughter) his son, Yitzchak, she died.”
Rabbi Wagensberg’s version is a bit more complicated. He indicates that Rashi has problems with the narrative of the Akeidat Yitzchak and goes up against many M’forshim. It also seems that Rashi is influenced here by the Zohar.
Rabbi Wagensberg tells how Sarah awakens to find no Avraham, no Yitzchak, no Eliezer, no Yishmael and no schechting knife — everyone is gone. As Rabbi Wagensberg recounts a version of the story, Sarah supports Avraham in following Hashem’s command of the sacrifice. So, finding everyone gone, Sarah runs to the giant Og and asks that he look for the group.
Og sees Avraham and Yitzchak climbing Har HaMoriah (Mount Moriah), schechting knife in hand, and he (Og) begins to give Sarah a play-by-play description of events on the mountain. Sarah is next to Og, rooting Avraham on with all of her strength. The air is thick with tension. And then…
One version Rabbi Wagensberg relates is that Yitzchak is actually sacrificed and is up in Shemayim, out of space and time, for two years before returning to this world. The tension of the event is too much for Sarah and she dies.
The second version from Rabbi Wagensberg has Og informing Sarah that a Moloch (Angel) comes to Avraham and says, in the name of Hashem, “…for now I know that you are G’d-fearing, and you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.” (Sefer Breish’t, Perek 22, posuk 12 as rendered to English in The Sapirstein Edition, The Torah with Rashi Commentary) The Moloch points out to Avraham the ram caught in the thicket, which Avraham offers on the Mizbeiyach, Meanwhile, Sarah, at the height of her tension, and expectation having been shattered by the change in the offering, dies.
Avraham, having descended from Har HaMoriah, returns to Kiryat Arba to find Sarah nifteret.
But, back to Rabbi Goldin’s questions and approaches regarding Avraham’s reaction to the command of Akeida, in contrast, to his reactions regarding Sodom and Amora.
Rabbi Goldin now asks the following questions on these two dramatic events and provides approaches (“Unlocking The Torah Text” on sefer Breish’t, pages 88-92):
Why does Avraham react to the challenge of the Akeida with deafening silence? Where is the Avraham… who is unwilling to accept the world as it is; the man who, unlike Noach before him, struggles with his Creator at every stage of his life [and specifically regarding Sodom and Amora]?
…Bothered by Avraham’s apparent silence in the face of the Akeida, scholars across the ages, in the Midrash and beyond, …. claim that, at least internally, Avraham was not silent at all. He is not only a father moved beyond measure by compassion and love for his son, but also a patriarch unable to reconcile Hashem’s previous promises to him — of a nation to be created through Yitzchak — with the current commandment to sacrifice that very son.
The Midrash… presents a… narrative in which Satan appears to Avraham in the guise of an old man. Step-after-step, along the journey to Mount Moriah [Har HaMoriah], this old man argues with Avraham: “Where are you going? Old man! Have you lost your mind? A child given to you after one hundred years, and you go to slaughter him? Tomorrow G’d will accuse you of murder, of shedding the blood of your own son!”
When Satan sees that Avraham is not dissuaded from his path, he creates physical obstacles blocking Avraham’s journey, but to no avail. Avraham is determined to carry through the sacrifice of Yitzchak in response to Hashem’s command. (Rabbi Goldin citing Midrash Tanchuma Sefer Breish’t, Vayeira 22)
…The Rabbis detail the profound internal struggle that must have been taking place within Avraham’s soul. The old man… is clearly Avraham’s own alter-ego as he wrestles with his powerful doubts.
Rashi, for his part, sees Avraham’s struggle reflected in the text itself as the Akeida begins…. At each stage of this commandment, claims Rashi, Avraham argued: When Hashem said, “Take your son,” Avraham responded, “I have two sons.” When Hashem said, “Your only son,” Avraham responded, “Each one of them is the only son born of his mother.” When Hashem said, “Whom you love,” Avraham responded, “I love them both.” Only then does Hashem say, “Yitzchak.”
Rashi portrays Avraham fighting against the dawning realization that Yitzchak is to be the subject of Hashem’s command. (Rabbi Goldin citing Rashi on Sefer Breish’t, Perek 22, posuk 3)
While the Midrash, Rashi, and other commentaries portray a complex picture of struggle on Avraham’s part, however, our fundamental problem remains.
Rabbi Goldin offers this solution in concluding (ibid, page 92):
Avraham, through prophetic vision, was able to distinguish between the two realms of din [Judgement] and nissayon [test]… between Hashem’s logical decision concerning Sodom and Amora, and the inexplicable commandment of the Akeida. Avraham was, therefore, able to react to each of the major events of Parshat Vayeira in appropriate fashion.
We however are unable to make this distinction. We never know whether a particular challenge facing us… is a reflection of din, of nissayon, or a combination of the two. We are, therefore, meant to react to all challenges in life on both levels at once. We struggle, pray, plead and argue for justice. At the same time, when all of the prayers have been recited and our arguments have been offered, we turn to Hashem, and we accept His Will. We then pray again… that Hashem grant us the strength to pass the test.
This author sees in Rabbi Goldin’s conclusion special meaning on a national level in terms of the current governmental stagnation, indecisive results of the two recent Israel national elections and possible ramifications of these indecisive results for future governance.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them and that the twice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes, at government expense; both due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. May our dear brother Jonathan Pollard be liberated and truly free — which can only occur when he is home in Israel and carrying for his ill wife Esther Yocheved bat Rayzl Bracha, and that the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of five years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt is an Oleh, writer and commentator on news and events in Eretz Yisrael. He is the founder and director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network and lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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