Parashat Vayeira

This weeks Torah portion is filled with one dilemma after another, and culminates with one of the most famous dilemmas in the Torah. We start with Abraham, then go to Lot, then Sodom and Gomorrah, then Abimelech and finally it all culminates with the Akedah.

The Torah views all these events as being somehow related. The Akedah story is led into with the phrase “And it happened after all these things”. If this parashat was simply a chronology of events, then it would be clear that the Akedah happened after all these things The fact that the text makes that explicit, suggests that there is not only a temporal relation, but a deeper one.

Each of these events contain a moral dilemma which Abraham has to address (in the case of Lot, Abraham is only indirectly involved). It is his response to each one that leads to his ultimate test – the Akedah.

In the second of last dilemmas, Abraham tells Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. Consequently, Abimelech takes Sarah. G-d tells Abimelech that he is a dead man for taking Abrahams wife. Abimelech confronts Abraham and asks why he did not tell him Sarah was his wife. Abraham’s response was “I saw there was no fear on G-d in this land, and I knew you would kill me for my wife.” Apparently, Abimelech’s kingdom would not commit adultery, but would not think twice about kill the husband so that the wife becomes fair game (compare that to our society where we would not kill someone, but adultery is OK).

It was this response that made the Akedah necessary. Basically Abraham was saying that morality was whatever G-d says. So G-d’s response was “OK, if morality is whatever I say, then go kill your son.” Now Abraham is in a bind (no pun intended), he just rebuked Abimelech for not following G-d’s will, so how can Abraham not do what G-d asks of him – even if it means killing his own son.

Of course we all know how it ends up (if you don’t read your Torah). I’ll tell you a story about the consequence of the Akedah next time.