This week, the Torah adds new dimensions to our patriarch,
Avraham. Up until now he has shown himself as a man of faith, ready to go where
God asks him to go. He has given us a hint of his ability to question and
challenge God as well. When God promises that he will be the father of a huge
nation, Avraham laughs and wonders aloud how this will even be possible, given
that he has not children and that Sarah, his wife, is barren.
This week, we see that Avraham is not only a man of faith, but one of compassion and
outrage as well. God shares with Avraham that God is about to destroy the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Avraham speaks up, outraged that God would
destroy an entire city even if there might be some righteous people living
there. God seems to be testing Avraham here, to see if justice is important to
him. In fact, two of our key words for this parasha are “Justice” and “right.”
This week we also encounter the troubling passage of the “Akedah,”
the near-sacrifice of Isaac by his father Avraham. The word “love” appears for
the first time in the Torah, as God asks Avraham to take his son, his only one,
whom he loves, and sacrifice him. Whereas last week, God tells Avraham to walk
away from his past and leave his father’s house, this week God asks Avraham to
erase his future by wiping out his own son. The three-fold poetry this week of “take
your son, your only one, whom you love” closely parallels last week’s poetry, “Go
forth from your land, from your kindred, from your father’s house.”
The opening and closing passages of the parasha ask us to
wrestle with some big words and some big questions: justice and love. And in
between those passages, we have the story of Lot, one in which justice and love
are twisted. Avraham – the ever-ready man of faith, and the man who cries out
against in justice – is held up in contrast to his nephew Lot, who offers his
daughters up to be raped, and who lingers and procrastinates rather than
fleeing the city that God is about to destroy.
What does it really mean to bring a child into the world and
to love that child? What does it mean to be one who does what is just and
right? Avraham will give us his answers to those questions this week. Come and
study!
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