Parshas Vayerah: Avimelech of Gerar and Looking Ahead

 Dedicated to the chayalim who are protecting our nation and to the comforting of the displaced and the bereaved among our people and to a refuah shelayima to those who have been injured.

 

We are three parshiot into the new cycle of the Torah reading and four weeks into a devastating time period for the Jewish people. This week we read Parshas Veyerah, which is also the portion that we read on Rosh Hashana. It is a parsha that is overloaded with themes and ideas and lessons we can taken from our forefathers into our daily lives. It is the source of our greatest narratives: the care of guests from Avraham, the need to try to change the fate of society, the importance of family and family connections, and more.

 

Parshas Vayerah is also the parsha in which we meet the original Avimelech of Gerar, the king of a Pilishtim city. The Pilishtim of the Tanaach, it should be noted, have been identified as an Aegean boat society that settled in the Land of Canaan and who had no connection to Arabs. The inclusion of the Pilishitim in Vayerah is seemingly straight-forward and somewhat benign. It is almost a reiteration of the previous parsha’s events in Egypt; Avraham and Sarah travel out of the Promised Land due to famine and speak of themselves as siblings for protection. The ruler of the land, Avimelech, sees Sarah and wishes to marry her, he is punished by the Divine hand, realizes his mistake, and makes peace with Avraham. This takes place in Perek Chaf. In the next Perek, however, the Pilishitm king comes back in what seems to be an odd afterthought narrative:

 

Now it came to pass at that time, that Avimelech and Phicol his general said to Avraham, saying, "God is with you in all that you do. And now, swear to me here by God, that you will not lie to me or to my son or to my grandson; according to the kindness that I have done with you, you shall do with me, and with the land wherein you have sojourned."

 

And Avraham said, "I will swear." And Avraham contended with Avimelech about the well of water that the servants of Avimelech had forcibly seized. And Avimelech said, "I do not know who did this thing, neither did you tell me, nor did I hear [of it] until today" (Bereishis 21:22-26).

 

 

Here is history. Avimelech sees what Avraham has; he acknowledges Avraham’s relationship with Hashem. That does not, however, keep from dissembling. He is the king, and he knows what business his people have been about with the wells. (And a similar situation will occur in the next generation as well.) The commentator, Haemek Davar explains: “Avraham was concerned not about the injustice done to him but about the lack of fear of Heaven on the part of Avimelech’s men and presumably Avimelech himself. How could he propose swearing in Hashem’s Name if he had no fear of Him?”

 

 

Long before the current political situation, the Torah warned us about stealth and lies. Long before social media, we were warned that from the people known as Pilishtim, we can expect false declarations of innocence.

 

 

I do not usually write in such a highly political bent, but I think we are in an unusual time. Let me point out another fascinating piece of this week’s parsha. Just before these verses, the Torah relays the saving of Hagar and Ishmael, which concludes with the verses: “And God was with the lad, and he grew, and he dwelt in the desert, and he became an archer. And he dwelt in the desert of Paran, and his mother took for him a wife from the land of Egypt” (21:20-21). Here, in the midst of the two interactions with Avimelech of Gerar, is the formative event of the forefather of Islam.

 

 

What can we learn from this now beyond the fascination of seeing the present in the past? We see in Parshas Vayerah that the world has direction, that nations and peoples have character from their inception. Indeed, this is the parsha in which Amon and Moav are born of their father…And this is the parsha in which Yitzchak is born with the spirit of laughter – and in laughter I mean the sound of defying the odds – and he goes forth with his father in stoic understanding that to uphold the world there must be the ability to sacrifice and the knowledge that Hashem’s rachamim is present, even if we do not see it immediately.

 

The promises of other nations are fraught with the lack of Yiras Shemayim. The only trust we need to give is to Hashem.