Parshat Vayera
PARSHA OVERVIEW
Three days after performing brit mila on himself, Avraham is visited by Hashem. When three angels appear in human form, Avraham rushes to show them hospitality by bringing them into his tent, despite this being the most painful time after the operation. Sarah laughs when she hears from them that she will bear a son next year. Hashem reveals to Avraham that He will destroy Sodom, and Avraham pleads for Sodom to be spared. Hashem agrees that if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom He will not destroy it. Avraham "bargains" Hashem down to ten righteous people. However, not even ten can be found. Lot, his wife and two daughters are rescued just before sulfur and fire rain down on Sodom and her sister cities. Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s daughters fear that as a result of the destruction there will be no husbands for them. They decide to get their father drunk and through him to perpetuate the human race. From the elder daughter, Moav is born, and from the younger, Ammon.
Avraham moves to Gerar where Avimelech abducts Sarah. After Hashem appears to Avimelech in a dream, he releases Sarah and appeases Avraham. As promised, a son, Yitzchak, is born to Sarah and Avraham. On the eighth day after the birth, Avraham circumcises him as commanded. Avraham makes a feast the day Yitzchak is weaned. Sarah tells Avraham to banish Hagar and Hagar's son Yishmael because she sees in him signs of degeneracy. Avraham is distressed at the prospect of banishing his son, but Hashem tells him to listen to whatever Sarah tells him to do. After nearly dying of thirst in the desert, Yishmael is rescued by an angel, and Hashem promises that he will be the progenitor of a mighty nation.
Avimelech enters into an alliance with Avraham when he sees that Hashem is with him. In a tenth and final test of Avraham, Hashem instructs Avraham to take Yitzchak, who is now 37, and to offer him as a sacrifice. Avraham does this, in spite of ostensibly aborting Jewish nationhood and contradicting his life-long preaching against human sacrifice. At the last moment, Hashem sends an angel to stop Avraham. Because of Avraham’s unquestioning obedience, Hashem promises him that even if the Jewish People sin, they will never be completely dominated by their foes. The Torah portion concludes with the genealogy and birth of Rivka.
PARSHA INSIGHTS
Voting for the Existence of the World
“…and all the nations of the world will bless themselves by him (Avraham)” (18:18)
How valuable was your vote on November 5th?
In 2020 political spending, including rallies and TV ads, billboards etc. was 14.4 billion dollars. This year OpenSecrets predicts it will have been at least 15.9 billion. 16 billion dollars!
How important is our vote to them? How much do they value your time? What they are asking you to do is to leave work, leave your family, leave whatever you’d rather do - and vote.
Maybe it will take you half an hour – maybe less.
The question is how much do they value your time?
Well. Let’s do the math.
If you divide 15.9 billion dollars between 186.5 million people – that’s the number of Americans who are registered to vote as of September 2024 - you will be giving each one of them 85 dollars and 25 cents.
Not bad for half an hour of your time!
But let’s look at your time another way. Nefesh HaChaim says that the reason Hashem created the world as a sphere was that it would always be day somewhere. Somewhere on the globe, people will be awake, and there will be a Jew burning the midnight oil toiling in Torah. Because, if there would be one split second when no Jew was learning Torah, the world would return to Tohu u’vohu. Without that constant energy of Torah learning and observance, the whole world would return to primordial emptiness.
The Worldometer’s World Population Clock says that right now there are 8.2 billion people in the world. On Erev Rosh Hashana the year before last, the Jewish Agency said the number of Jews worldwide stood at approximately 15.7 million compared to 15.6 million in the year before that. More conservative estimates put it nearer 14 million, but whichever way you look at it, we are little more than 0.2 per cent of the world.
But it doesn’t stop there. According to the Institute for Jewish Policy research in 2022, only one in seven Jews are religious. In other words, there are only 2 million people giving life to the 8.2 billion inhabitants of this planet.
If you do some simple math, every second you learn Torah, or you do a mitzvah, you just gave life to 4000 people. Four Thousand.
And if,
It's quite impressive how powerful our actions are! Not just in the next world, not for just our children, but for the world to exist today, for all of Mankind.
Those who keep the Torah — less than a tiny 0.2 percent of the world – are supporting 8.2 billion people.
Politicians may value your vote at 85 dollars and change, but a religious Jew breathes life – the most valuable gift in the world - into 4000 people every single second.
