Torah Portion

Vayera

וירא

Genesis 18:1-22:24
Second Kings 4:1-37

“The” Message of the Akedah?

“The” Message of the Akedah?

Interpretations of the binding of Isaac all suffer from a common fault: they fail to consider the ambiguities and unanswered questions of the story. Rather than a simple lesson or theological conclusion, the story leaves us with a deep and abiding perplexity, even anxiety.

Prof.
Kenneth Seeskin
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Abraham’s Hospitality: Is God a Good Guest?

Abraham’s Hospitality: Is God a Good Guest?

Abraham famously receives three divine guests and hosts them lavishly (Genesis 18:1–15). Anthropological fieldwork on the etiquette of hospitality in Mediterranean-type societies allows us to better understand Abraham as host and his divine visitors as guests.

Prof.
Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme
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The Angel of YHWH

The Angel of YHWH

Abraham, Hagar, Moses, and Gideon all encounter the angel of YHWH. What is this divine being and how are we to understand its relationship to YHWH?

Dr.
Daniel O. McClellan
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Was Abraham Really a Man of Faith?

Was Abraham Really a Man of Faith?

Abraham does not comply with the very first command that YHWH gives him, and throughout his life, he doubts and questions YHWH. Does Abraham ultimately become the man of faith he is reputed to be?

Prof.
Diana Edelman
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Lot’s Absence in Abraham’s Plea for Sodom and Gomorrah

Lot’s Absence in Abraham’s Plea for Sodom and Gomorrah

When YHWH tells Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah are to be destroyed, Abraham pleads for their lives without mentioning Lot. Why? The answer is in the sources describing Lot’s accompanying of Abram to Canaan and their eventual separation.

Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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Abraham’s Chiastic Journey

Abraham’s Chiastic Journey

Abraham’s story is structured chiastically, with the parallel narratives contrasting with each other. The one exception highlights the missing genealogy of Abraham to emphasize that he is the father of all who wish to join the covenant.

Dr. Rabbi
Yoel Bin-Nun
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Sarah, Afraid of Abraham, Denies Laughing

Sarah, Afraid of Abraham, Denies Laughing

When Sarah overhears that she and Abraham will have a baby, she laughs and when confronted, denies it for fear of Abraham’s reaction. After all, Abraham has consistently put her in jeopardy, neglected her, and was content with Ishmael, Hagar’s son, as his heir.

Prof.
Tammi J. Schneider
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Lot Sexually Manipulates His Two Daughters

Lot Sexually Manipulates His Two Daughters

After escaping Sodom, Lot and his daughters hide out in a cave. Believing they were the last humans on earth, the daughters get their father drunk, and conceive children with him while he is asleep. But since when do daughters rape their fathers? A womanist midrashic reading retells the story from their perspective.

Prof. Rev.
Wil Gafney
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Lot’s Wife Turns as an Act of Resistance: The Art of Yehuda Levy-Aldema

Lot’s Wife Turns as an Act of Resistance: The Art of Yehuda Levy-Aldema

Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom is traditionally understood as an act of disobedience to God. Yehuda Levy- Aldema, an Israeli Orthodox-Jewish artist, offers a visual reading that instead interprets her turning as an act of resistance to her sexually violent husband.

Prof.
Susanne Scholz
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Hagar: An Egyptian Maidservant’s Suffering Is Seen by YHWH

Hagar: An Egyptian Maidservant’s Suffering Is Seen by YHWH

Abused by Sarai, Hagar flees to the wilderness. An angel of God appears to her and instructs her to return and continue her suffering and enslavement under Sarai, but he promises that Ishmael will be free. Hagar responds by naming YHWH El-Roi, “God has seen me.” Hagar’s story parallels Israel in Egypt, highlighting that God cares about people beyond just Israel.

Dr. Rabbi
Shai Held
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Does Ishmael Molest Isaac?

Does Ishmael Molest Isaac?

In Genesis 21:9, Sarah sees Ishmael מְצַחֵק metzacheq and tells Abraham to banish the boy. The verb has long been interpreted innocently, as laughing or playing, yet this may not be what it means.

Dr.
Lisbeth S. Fried
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The Binding of Isaac, a Sacred Legend for the Jerusalem Temple

The Binding of Isaac, a Sacred Legend for the Jerusalem Temple

The Akedah (binding of Isaac) takes place on a mountain in the obscure land of Moriah. When a Judahite scribe later revised the story to have the angel of YHWH stop Abraham from killing his son, he connected Moriah with the Jerusalem Temple, thereby giving it a new hieros logos—a sacred founding legend, to compete with the northern worship site Beth-El.

Prof.
Rami Arav
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Reconciling Hagar and Sarah: Feminist Midrash and National Conflict

Reconciling Hagar and Sarah: Feminist Midrash and National Conflict

Hagar and Sarah are the matriarchs of the Arabs and the Jews in Jewish and Muslim interpretation. In the Bible, the feud between the two women is never mended, but Jewish and Muslim feminist readers have used midrash-style poetry to rewrite the ending of their story, in hope of reconciling the contemporary conflict between their putative descendants.

Noam Zion
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“Take Your Only Son Isaac” – What Happened to Ishmael?

“Take Your Only Son Isaac” – What Happened to Ishmael?

In the introductory verses of the Akedah (Binding of Isaac), God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s only son, ignoring the existence of Ishmael. Ishmael’s absence has bothered even the earliest readers of the text, but a documentary approach obviates the problem. The key is understanding the relationship between Abraham and Hagar.

Dr.
Philip Yoo
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Grace Leake
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Abraham and Lot’s Bedouin-Style Hospitality

Abraham and Lot’s Bedouin-Style Hospitality

Bedouin culture goes back 4,500 years. Owing to the unchangeability of desert conditions, this culture remained largely unchanged and is recognizable in the Bible. The stories of Abraham and Lot hosting angels illustrate one of the most renowned and cherished social values in Bedouin society, namely the practice of hospitality.

Dr.
Clinton Bailey
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Abraham Passes the Test of the Akedah But Fails as a Father

Abraham Passes the Test of the Akedah But Fails as a Father

The story of the Akedah appears to present Abraham’s actions in a uniformly positive light. However, Isaac’s absence at the end of the story, and Sarah’s death immediately afterwards, suggested to some traditional and modern commentators a criticism of Abraham.

Prof.
Aaron Koller
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The Book of Job and its Paradoxical Relationship with the Akedah

The Book of Job and its Paradoxical Relationship with the Akedah

The inscrutable story of the Akedah, can be better understood in light of its subversive sequel, the equally morally complex book of Job.

Judy Klitsner
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Tikkunei Soferim and the Ironic Emendation of Rashi’s Interpretation

Tikkunei Soferim and the Ironic Emendation of Rashi’s Interpretation

Do the rabbis believe that the scribes changed the wording of some verses in the Bible? A look at how the great medieval rabbi, Rashi, reacted to one “correction” sheds light on the history of the Jewish belief in the inviolability of the Torah text.

Prof. Rabbi
Marty Lockshin
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Is Sarah Old or Young When Kidnapped by Abimelech?

Is Sarah Old or Young When Kidnapped by Abimelech?

Set in between two stories that describe Sarah as old and withered is the episode of Abimelech taking Sarah. Why does he desire her?

Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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Lot and His Daughters’ Motives for Their Incestuous Union

Lot and His Daughters’ Motives for Their Incestuous Union

Genesis Rabbah surprisingly portrays Lot’s daughters and their choices in a decidedly positive light, while exacerbating Lot’s culpability.

Dr.
Shayna Sheinfeld
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Biblical and Greek Ambivalence Towards Child Sacrifice

Biblical and Greek Ambivalence Towards Child Sacrifice

A look at the the practice and prohibition of child sacrifice in the Bible and the ambivalence underlying the stories of Jephthah’s daughter, Agamemnon’s daughter, and the binding of Isaac.[1]

Dr. Rabbi
Samuel Z. Glaser
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The Sacrifice of Isaac in Context: Recovering a Lost Ending of the Akedah

The Sacrifice of Isaac in Context: Recovering a Lost Ending of the Akedah

The earliest version of the birth and sacrifice of Isaac account questioned the identity of the boy’s father and concluded with Abraham sacrificing him to God.

Dr. Rabbi
Tzemah Yoreh
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Akedah: How Jews and Christians Explained Abraham’s Faith

Akedah: How Jews and Christians Explained Abraham’s Faith

God promised Abraham that Isaac would be his heir, yet God asked Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. What did Abraham believe that allowed him to reconcile this divine contradiction?

Dr.
Devorah Schoenfeld
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Why Does the Sodom Story Parallel the Flood Traditions?

Why Does the Sodom Story Parallel the Flood Traditions?

A closer look at the thematic and verbal parallels between the accounts of the flood and the destruction of Sodom, as well as comparison with other ANE flood/destruction stories, helps us better understand the genre and function of the Sodom story.

Dr.
Baruch Alster
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Torah Narratives with Angels Never Actually Happened: Heretical or Sublime?

Torah Narratives with Angels Never Actually Happened: Heretical or Sublime?

Maimonides believes that any story in the Bible with angels is a prophetic vision. Nahmanides calls this position “forbidden to believe” and claims they are real occurrences. Must the Torah be historically true or just philosophically?

Prof. Rabbi
David Frankel
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What Does Sarah’s Expulsion of Hagar Signify for Abraham’s Descendants?

What Does Sarah’s Expulsion of Hagar Signify for Abraham’s Descendants?

Paul, in the 1st c., allegorizes the expulsion of Hagar to argue that his rivals should be expelled from the church, a lesson applied by later Christians to their own Jewish and Muslim rivals. Ramban, in the 13th c., uses the same biblical story to explain why Jews of his day are persecuted. Such readings highlight an assumption ingrained in Judaism and Christianity alike: Biblical stories speak to the present-day circumstances of their audience.

Dr. Rabbi
David M. Freidenreich
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The Shunammite Woman and the Patriarchy Problem

The Shunammite Woman and the Patriarchy Problem

Virtually all biblical scholars—even feminist biblical scholars—consider the Bible and ancient Israelite society patriarchal. But is that a valid designation?

Prof.
Carol Meyers
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Mitigating the Akedah

Mitigating the Akedah

Taking the edge off God’s command to Abraham that he sacrifice his son, and Abraham’s compliance.

Prof.
Isaac Kalimi
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The Expulsion of Ishmael: Who Is Being Tried?

The Expulsion of Ishmael: Who Is Being Tried?

The literary similarities between the expulsion of Ishmael account and that of the Akedah implies that a trial is taking place.

Prof. Rabbi
Rachel Adelman
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Isaac’s Divine Conception?

Isaac’s Divine Conception?

“The Lord visited Sarah” (Genesis 21:1) – When God (and his angels) appears to Abraham to announce the birth of Isaac, the text implies a hidden visit to Sarah. Does this mean, as both Philo and Paul claim, that Isaac was born from a divine conception?

Dr. Rabbi
Samuel Z. Glaser
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Vayera

וירא

Genesis 18:1-22:24

וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אִם אֶמְצָא בִסְדֹם חֲמִשִּׁים צַדִּיקִם בְּתוֹךְ הָעִיר וְנָשָׂאתִי לְכָל הַמָּקוֹם בַּעֲבוּרָם׃

בראשית יח:כו

And YHWH said, “If I find within the city of Sodom fifty innocent ones, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

Gen 18:26

Genesis

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