NOW GOD APPEARED TO HIM BY THE OAKS OF MAMRE

AS HE WAS SITTING AT THE ENTRANCE TO HIS TENT

AT THE HEAT OF THE DAY.

"Appeared to him" - to visit the sick.

Said R' Chamma bar Chaninah: It was the third day since his circumcision,

and The Holy One, Blessed Be He, came to inquire as to his welfare.

(Rashi Bereishit 18:1)

 

You Shall Walk in His Ways

Said R' Chamma son of R' Chanina: What is the meaning of "You shall follow the Lord your God" (Devarim 13)? Is possible for man to follow the Shechina? Is it not written (Devarim 4) "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire"! But [the meaning is] "follow the attributes of The Holy One, Blessed Be He; just as he clothes the naked, as is written (Bereishit 3) "The Lord God make for man and his wife garments of skin and they wore them," so should you clothe the naked; The Holy One, Blessed Be He, visits the sick, as is written (Bereishit 18) "And the Lord appeared to him at the Oaks of Mamre"­, so should you visit the sick; The Holy One, Blessed Be He, consoles the mourners, as is written (Bereishit 25) "After the death of Avraham, the Lord blessed his son Yitzchak", so you should console the mourners; The Holy One, Blessed Be He, buries the dead, as is written (Devarim 34) "He buried him in the valley", so you should bury the dead.

(Bavli, Sotah 14a).

 

It was taught in a Barayta: Visitation of the sick has no limits. What does "has no limits" mean?... Said Abaye: Even an adult should visit a child. Rabba said: Even a hundred times a day. R' Acha bar Chanina said: Whoever visits a sick person, takes away one sixtieth of his sorrow.

(Bavli, Nedarim 39b)

 

Our Rabbis taught in a Barayta: We are to support the indigent gentile along with the Jewish poor, and we visit the gentile sick with the Jewish sick, and we bury the dead of the gentiles along with the Jewish dead - for the sake of peace.

(Bavli, Gittin 61a)

 

 

YOUR SON, YOUR ONLY ONE, WHOM YOU HAVE LOVED

Yoram Kirsch

 

As we read in Parashat Vayera about Yitzchak's akeida [tying], difficult questions arise. Avraham is asked by the Lord to offer his beloved son Yitzchak as a sacrifice, and he proceeds to execute the mission wholeheartedly, with no protest. Had not the messenger of God called out to him at the last moment, saying, "Do not send your hand against the boy", Avraham would have completed the mission and returned to Sarah without Yitzchak.

Not always does Avraham accept the words of the Lord without argument. When God informs Avraham that He intends to destroy Sodom and Amora, Avraham argues courageously with the Lord, not shrinking from the use of harsh expressions such as "Heaven forbid that you do a thing like this... the judge of all the earth - will he not do what is just?" It is surprising, then, that when Avraham is ordered to do such a terrible thing to his son, he remains silent and hurries to execute the order. Also puzzling is the opening phrase of the Akeida: "God tested Avraham". What was the purpose of this test? Was it intended to test Avraham's loyalty to God? Or perhaps its objective was to see if Avraham would rise up and argue with God over the need for human sacrifice, as he did in the matter of Sodom? The question is in order, because the Bible itself, a number of times, expresses fierce opposition to human sacrifice:

"And to the Children of Israel you are to say: Any man, any man of the Children of Israel and of the sojourners that sojourn in Israel that gives of his seed offering to the Moloch is to be put to death, yes, death; the People of the Land are to pelt him with stones. (Vayikra 20:2)

"There is not to be found among you one having his son or his daughter cross through fire." (Devarim 18:10).

"And they have guilt the shrines of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire - which I never commanded, which never came to My mind." (Jeremiah 7:31)

"They have built shrines to Baal, to put their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal - which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind." (Ibid, 19:5).

There are also commentators who argue that the Akeida was intended all along to be a trial that was not to reach realization; its aim was to express the Torah's opposition to human sacrifice. Expounding upon the verse in Yirmiyahu, "which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind," the Sages (Tractate Taanit 4a), state:

"Which I never commanded" - this refers to the son of Misha, King of Moab, as is written (II Kings, Chap. 3), "So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up on the wall as a burnt offering"; "never decreed" - this refers to Yiftach; ", and which never came to My mind" - this refers to Yitzchak, son of Avraham."

This midrash assigns Avraham to questionable company, leading us to conclude that in the author's opinion Avraham should have reacted differently.

Must we conclude that Avraham failed the test? The Torah does not say this. On the contrary, it affirms that Avraham passed the test:

"By myself I swear - God's utterance - indeed, because you have done this thing, have not withheld your son, your only, indeed I will bless you, bless you, I will make your seed many, yes, many, like the stars of the heavens and like the sand that is on the shore of the sea; your seed shall inherit the gate of their enemies". (Bereishit 22:16-17)

On the one hand, the Torah lashes out sharply against human sacrifice; on the other Avraham merits praise for not having pity upon his son. How to resolve this enigma? The answer, it seems, is that in order to fully pass the test, Avraham had to do exactly what he did. In order to understand this, we have to consider the meaning of the phrase "to hear the voice of God." How does one know that the voice he hears, a voice which commands him to do something, is indeed the voice of God, and not the voice of the Evil Inclination, or the voices of set opinions, etc. The answer is that the distinction between the voice of God and other voices appears to be not simple, especially when it involves a fateful decision; only people of Father Avraham's stature are capable of making such a distinction.

We must remember that human sacrifice was the norm in various places in the ancient world; many people would sacrifice their beloved children in order to prove their devotion to the idols they worshiped. When Avraham hears the voice saying to him: "Pray take your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzhak, and go you forth to the land of Moriyya/Seeing, and offer him up there as an offering..." he hears a voice heard by many of his contemporaries. In Avraham's world, people were often overcome by a powerful religious motivation to prove loyalty to god by offering up that which is most dear. Therefore, when Avraham hears this command, it does not occur to him to argue and refuse.

Avraham's uniqueness lies in that, at the last moment, his hand holding the knife, he hears another voice of God, which says: "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, do not do anything to him!" Avraham's contemporaries shut their ears so as not to hear this voice. Avraham's greatness was that he heard it, and obeyed. This is what elevates Avraham to the highest religious and moral level of his generation, making him the founder of a more advanced and more ethical religion, the messenger of monotheism.

Can we extract from this parasha a general conclusion, a system of universal rules, which will assist us in ruling on ethical issues, and in choosing from among contradictory voices we hear? I think not. An ethical decision is often a matter that cannot be decided according to formal rules; only hindsight can determine whether the correct path was chosen. All that can be concluded from this approach to the Akeida is that we must be cautious, paying attention to more than one voice when we are faced with fateful decisions.

Yoram Kirsch is Professor of Physics at the Open University, and a member of the executive of "Ne'emanei Torah VaAvoda", which works for moderation within the Religious Zionist community.

 

 

The Akeida of Yitzhak: The Humane View

"And place him upon the altar": Avraham's eyes are fastened upon Yitzhak's eyes, and Yitzhak's eyes upon the highest of Heavens, and tears dropped from Avraham's eyes, his stature covered with tears. He said to him: My son, since you have already begun to shed a fourth of your blood, your creator will provide another offering in your stead. At that moment, his mouth opened in sobbing and great moaning, and his eyes looked about for the Shechina and he raised his voice and said, "I lift my eyes to the hills, from whence will come my help? My help is from the Lord creator..." The ministering angels stood in ranks in the firmament, saying one to the other: See how the only one slaughters and the only one is slaughtered! They said: Who will sing before You "This is my Lord - I honor him"? What will become of the vow "So will be your seed"? Immediately: "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad."

(Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishit, Chap. 22:101)

 

The Thin Line between Idolatry and Service of God

That deep addiction to idolatry, which was, for primitive man, the be-all and end-all, even to the point of triumph over parental compassion, making cruelty towards sons and daughters a permanent feature of worshipping the Moloch, is a misty consequence of the recognition hidden in man's heart, that the divine is the dearest of all matters, and everything beloved pleasant thing is nothing compared to it.

(Orot R''iyah, R' Kook, Vol. II, p. 43)

 

Expulsion Has Its Price

"Drive out this slave woman and her son" - ["Drive out" appears] thrice in the Bible: "Drive out this slave woman", "Drive out the scoffer" (Proverbs 22:10), "When he sends you free, it is finished - he will drive, yes, drive you out from here" (Shemot 11:1) - Drive out this slave woman and her son, and then you will have driven out the scoffer, and because Sara drove Hagar out of her home, she was punished, and her descendents were enslaved and had to be driven out of Egypt.

(Baal Haturim, Bereishit 21:10)

 

Yishmael, Son of the Slave Woman, Remains Son of Avraham

"The matter was exceedingly bad... because of his son" - Even though he was the son of the slave woman, he was his son, and he loved him, because he was his firstborn and he had pity upon him as a father pities his children, and he walked in a good path, for he grew up with him and he taught him the way of God, for even others did he teach and guide in the right path, all the more so to his son, and it was bad in his eyes that he be driven from his house; he did not admonish his wife out of considerations of peace in the home, as we wrote regarding Hagar (Bereishit 16:6), and he was saddened over the matter and he tolerated his wife's quarrel until the matter came before him.

(Radak, Bereishit 21:11)

 

"He said to her: What ails you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the lad there where he is."

"There where he is": He is judged according his current behavior, not in consideration of his future behavior.

The ministering angels were complaining: "Master of the Universe, one whose descendents are destined to kill your children with thirst, and you bring forth for him a spring!?"

He replied: "What is he now, a Tzaddik or a wicked man?"

They answered: "Tzaddik".

He said to them: "According to his present behavior do I judge", and this is what is meant by "there where he is."

 (Rashi, Bereishit 21:16)

 

"What Is Mine Is Mine, and What Is Yours Is Yours, This Is a Characteristic of Sodom."

The people of Sodom rebelled against the Omnipresent because of all the good showered upon them, as is written (Job 28): "Earth, out of which food grows... Its rocks are a source of sapphires... No bird of prey knows the path to it..." The people of Sodom said: Inasmuch as food comes out of our earth, and silver and gold comes from our earth, and preceious stones and pearls come out of our lands, we have no need for people to join us - they will lessen our fortunes. Let us stand, and deny their presence among us. Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He: When I am good to you, you forbid others from joining you. I will cause you to disappear from the earth. What is the scriptural source for this? "He carves out channels through rock, his eyes behold every precious thing" (Ibid.) and "Robbers lie untroubled in their tents..." and "As I live - declares the Lord God - your sister Sodom and her daughters did not do what you and your daughters did...Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! she and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility, yet she did not support the poor and the needy (Ezekiel 16).

 (Tosefta Sotah 3:3)

 

"Would you kill a nation, though it be innocent?

If you kill me, then you must kill Avraham the Tzaddik, because he sinned and caused me to sin.

 (Baal HaTurim 19:4)

 

"The Judge of All the Earth - Will He Not Do What Is Just?"

The use of the chataf-patach beneath the letter heh [ha-shofet = the judge] makes the sentence a rhetorical question: Is it possible that one who is a judge, will not provide true justice?!

 (Rashi, ibid.)

 

If it is a world that you desire, then there can be no justice. If it is justice that you desire, there can be no world. You want to hold the rope at both ends, you want a world and you want justice. Unless you are willing to concede a bit, the world will not be able to exist.

 (Bereshit Rabba 49)

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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