Parshas Vayera is over-flowing
with ideas to talk about, many of which could be shockingly personal. This is
hard to understand if you read the parsha on a superficial level. Afterall, how
many of us can relate to angels visiting, cities being destroyed, family
members being told to leave, or being asked to sacrifice one’s child. And that’s
not even all of it! For all the rather drastic moments of the parsha, however, there
are dynamics that each of us relate to in our own lives. Not all moments in the
Torah are relatable – I certainly have never quite understood the Bris Bein
Habaturim at the end of last week’s parsha – but underlying the entire Sefer Bereishis
is the reminder that life is complicated; it has many ups and downs, even for those
who had direct interaction with Hashem, perhaps all the more so for them. Life
is not meant to be flat and easy, although in the challenging moments we often
wish it were.
This week’s parsha once again (connected
to last week’s writing) finds Avraham faced with the dilemma of needing to part
from a family member. When Avraham told Lot to separate from him because he was
unable to live up to the moral standards that Avraham viewed, it seems practical and justified. First
of all, Lot is a grown man. Secondly, Lot is going away to a good situation
(well, at least for the moment).
When Sarah presents a similar
situation to him, having a member of the household who seems unable to live up
to the moral standards of the household, who is running wild and being blatantly
belligerent, the situation isn’t so simple. Avraham cannot see the flaws in
Yishmael as he did in Lot. He has to wait for Hashem to tell him that Sarah is
seeing the world more accurately than he is.
Of course, you say – this makes
total sense since Yishmael is his son. Lot was only his nephew. Except Lot wasn’t
“only” his nephew. At that point, Lot had been like a son to him and his
presumed heir. More significantly, and sometimes overlooked, is that Lot was
Sarah’s brother, so they were twice connected.
It is, perhaps, interesting to
follow the line of this narrative. Avraham splits with Lot. Lot moves to Sodom.
Lot is kidnapped and needs to be rescued in a war. He is returned, by Avraham,
to Sodom. Lot’s life is then completely overturned (pun intended) when Hashem
destroys the valley of Sodom and Amorah. Lot ends up stranded in a cave with
his two daughters and, well, you know the rest of that story. It is several
years after this that Avraham is faced with the question of sending Yishmael
away. Perhaps, beyond his difficulty seeing the true nature of Yishmael’s
behavior, Avraham also suffered from a sense that had he not sent Lot away, Lot’s
life would have turned out differently.
When Avraham does accept that
Sarah is right – you know, with a little help from Hashem – it is still not an
easy thing for him to do. And unlike the story of Lot, Yishmael’s departure
does not come quickly to an easy life. The boy nearly dies on the journey away.
At the end of Parshas Vayera,
Avraham must once more make a decision to part from a relative. There is, in a
way, an escalation. He decided Lot needed to separate from him – good start,
bad end. Sarah, and Hashem, informed him that he needed to send Yishmael away –
bad start, decent end, but more on that in a moment. Finally, Hashem commands
Avraham to bring Yitzchak and fully part from him by offering him to Hashem.
The commandment to bring
Yitzchak is huge, and Avraham doesn’t flinch. He was certainly hesitant to send
Yishmael away from his tents, which is far less drastic sounding than bringing Yitzchak
for a sacrifice. But just as Avraham’s hesitation at Yishmael had, perhaps, a remnant
of trauma at the fate that befell Lot, his lack of hesitation at bringing Yitzchak
is because he has seen what became of Yishamel. According to the Midrash,
Yishmael – referred to in this part of the parsha as the Naar, the youth –
returned to his father’s household, returned to his father’s ways. A good
ending, an unexpected outcome.
It may seem a silly analogy on
the outside. According to Avraham’s understanding of what Hashem wished him to
do, there was no long-term good outcome. This was giving up his beloved son.
But between Lot and Yishmael, Avraham had learned to understand that partings
are part of life and that partings give each person the opportunity to fulfill
(or fail at) their tafkid. Lot could have done Teshuva and returned, but he stuck
to Sodom even when he knew their wicked ways. Yishmael did teshuva and returned
to the path of Avraham.
It’s almost 10:30 now, and did
most of this off-the-cuff this morning, so forgive me if it doesn’t make sense.
Now, I must end. The take-away:
No person can know or understand
where each step in life is going to take them.
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