Lara Fosbery – Year 12 (Class of 2021)

VaYera 

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat VaYera, is full of classic and well-known biblical tales, but possibly the most well-known is the almost-sacrifice of Yitschak.

In this portion, God instructs Avraham to take Yitschak up Mount Moriyah and sacrifice him. Avraham is over 100, and it seems that Yitschak is the only son he’ll ever have, but he doesn’t fight God, and instead prepares Yitschak for a journey up the mountain, without directly revealing what exactly the sacrifice is.

When they arrive, he ties Yitschak to the altar and prepares the knife to sacrifice him to God. But just as he’s raising the knife, an angel calls out to him: – “Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do anything to him: for now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.” Abraham sees a ram caught in the bushes and offers it as a sacrifice in place of Yitschak. God says that he will bless him and will multiply his “seed as the stars of the heaven”, due to his Avraham’s obedience.

When I first heard this story, it infuriated me – why would God, an all-knowing being, need to test Avraham? Surely he knew that Avraham, a 100-year-old man who had lived a respectful and righteous life, was completely loyal to Him. And even if he didn’t, why would the test be to force Avraham to sacrifice the son he had just been blessed with? And surely sparing an innocent life aligns just as much with Jewish values as sacrifice to God does? It made absolutely no sense to me.

A few years on, having heard the story a number of times, and now studying it for this Devar Torah, it still seems like an odd task, but I do see the reason in it. Upon earlier readings, I had not considered the idea that God never intended to let Avraham sacrifice Ytschak, and that subconsciously, Avraham knew this. I had always assumed that God had designed a test, and that Avraham saw no other choice but to comply. However, if we consider the possibility that both God and Avraham somehow understood that Yitschak wasn’t actually going to die, it sheds a whole new light on the story. Instead of a story of a harsh God and a compliant subject, it becomes a tale of dedication and trust.

Though ritual sacrifice plays no role in modern Judaism, I think the idea that we are not in opposition to the forces around us, but working with them, is important in a time of such political and social division. If we consider that everyone has their own reasons for making the choices they do, and that instead of fighting those choices, our mission is to work around them, it can allow us to perceive the world with more empathy and consideration, and less conflict. I hope that this Devar Torah provided a new perspective on a well-known story, and I wish everyone Shabbat Shalom.