Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL
faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
PARASHAT VAYERA
(Genesis 18:1 - 22:24)
Abraham's challenge to God regarding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and
Abraham's submission to God's command to sacrifice Isaac provide a profound insight into
the nature of the covenant. In the first story, Abraham questions, argues and convinces
God to back down from an extreme position. The radical assumption underlying Abraham's
protest is that God must follow a standard of justice comprehensible to Abraham. This
suggests that human judgment over and against God is valid and that the human partner
plays an active role in determining what is right and wrong.
Yet the same bold, challenging Abraham demonstrates absolute submission before God's
terrifying command to sacrifice his son, though this surely violates his sense of justice.
Only after Abraham has proven he will obey this command is a ram provided in Isaac's
place. This story suggests that there is no alternative to the acceptance of God's will
and that the human role in the covenant is submission.
The Torah's inclusion of both stories teaches that the Jewish way cannot be reduced to
either perspective. By itself, the deeply autonomous thrust of the Sodom and Gomorrah
story would lead to a Judaism in which the human conscience would eliminate anything that
offended it. God, Torah, the tradition would become synonymous with whatever human beings
want. Every person would decide what is right and wrong. But reducing the Jewish way to
the deeply submissive thrust of the Akedah would lead to a fanaticism in which no act, no
matter how repugnant, could be ruled out -- a mindless obedience enslaving the human being
and destroying his/her dignity.
The genius of the covenantal way is that these two powerful principles, autonomy and
heteronomy, are yoked together and held in creative tension. Both challenging and
submitting to God and the tradition are authentic covenantal responses to the dilemmas of
Jewish life. The covenantal question addressed to each generation and even each person is
when to act in which way.
(Irwin Kula)
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