Parashat Vayera (Genesis 18:22 - 23:24)

by Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith

Summary

At the beginning of this section containing both miracles and trials for Abraham, the patriarch is visited by three men and they are immediately offered hospitality.  The men enquire about Sarah and assure Abraham that she will give birth to a son; a most amusing forecast to Sarah given her very advanced age. 

The episode of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah follows.   God reveals his plan to destroy these cities to Abraham who argues for compassion.  Only Abraham’s relation Lot and his two daughters are spared.  Lot’s daughters then get him drunk and seduce him so that they will bear children; the myth of the origins of the Moabite and Ammonite tribes.      

Following this story of incest, Abraham nearly loses Sarah –whom he represents as his sister-- to King Abimelech.  But God intercedes and by way of Abimelech’s dreams orders Sarah released and Abraham’s life spared.  Sarah then gives birth to Isaac, named for her laughter and surprise.  But Isaac is in turn mocked by Ishmael the son of Hagar, Abraham’s other wife.  Sarah directs Abraham to expel her rivals from the camp.  Abraham meekly complies but they survive their ordeal in the desert; God has interceded here, too, and we have the foundation myth of the Ishmaelites.      

Following this trauma, Abraham makes an agreement with Abimelech to dig a well and settle in Beersheba.  God then appears to test Abraham once again.  ‘Take your son Isaac, your only son, whom you love…and offer him…for a burnt offering….’   Willingly, Abraham is about to slay his son when an angel of God commands him to abstain.  Isaac is spared and Abraham is then blessed:  his descendents will flourish.

All in all, stories of destruction and near-destruction and, eventually, fertility prevails. 

Commentary

In our present culture, we are seemingly riveted to an image of Isaac as he lies helplessly tied to the wooden altar about to be slaughtered by Abraham, his father.  Isaac is viewed as a passive and innocent child and Abraham  --taciturn, dominant  and brutal--  is apparently more interested in serving the will of his capricious and demanding God than in preserving the safety and welfare of his own apparently beloved offspring.  Isaac as exploited victim; Isaac as abused child.

But the perception equating childhood and innocence may well be a cultural ideal largely dating to the seventeenth century.  For example, pictorial images of children underwent a significant change during the Enlightenment.  Once understood as small versions of sinful and deficient adults, children were recast as having blankly innocent minds and feminised bodies absolutely free of adult sexuality.  In our present society where children are exploited as consumers and sexualised in so many ways, this ideal of childhood innocence is under threat and we fear the worst.  Our innocent children seem too-adult-like, too knowing.  Hence, visual imagery of children is more and more governed by fear and hysteria.  Of course, children do all too often suffer appallingly but is a perfect childhood at all possible and, if so, at what price to them and to society?

In our Romantic myths concerning the family, father and mother act as protectors who shield the child from all violence and premature sexuality.  But this very myth of childhood innocence may be what also encourages the exploitation of children as weak and trivialised beings.  Perhaps, it might be worthwhile to struggle to engage in different ways with the story of the Akedah?

Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith