From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 1997 11:25 PM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Torah Weekly - Vayera 5758
From: "Ohr Somayach" <ohr@virtual.co.il>
To: " Highlights of the Torah weekly portion" <weekly@virtual.co.il>
Subject: Torah Weekly - Vayera 5758
X-To: weekly@virtual.co.il
* TORAH WEEKLY *
Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion
Parshas Vayera
For the week ending 15 Cheshvan 5758
14 & 15 November 1997
Overview
Three days after performing bris mila on himself, Avraham Avinu 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 give birth to 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 men in Sodom, He
will not destroy it. Avraham manages to "bargain" Hashem down to ten
righteous men. 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
Amora. 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
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. At Hashem's command, on the eighth day after the birth, Avraham
circumcises him. Avraham makes a feast the day Yitzchak is weaned. Sarah
tells Avraham to banish Hagar and her 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, 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 Parsha ends with
genealogy and the birth of Rivka.
Insights
Turning Over
"And He (Hashem) overturned these cities and all the plain and all the
dwellers of the cities and the vegetation of the earth." (19:25)
When we look at the situation today, it's easy to despair.
The strident metallic clang of materialism and selfishness seem to swamp
out the message of the Torah and its People. The sensuous siren call of
the media surrounds us all with a world whose reality is merely virtual.
Society at large seems almost deaf to morality, to modesty, to the values
that are rooted in the Torah. The motto of the time is "Let it all hang
out." In a world where there is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing brings
shame, and thus anything is possible. And what is possible... happens.
Those who stand for the eternal values of our people are despised as
fundamentalists and violent barbarians. Everything has been turned upside
down.
There is a strange thread of history that runs from this week's Parsha down
through the ages and climaxes in the end of history: Lot was rescued from
the overturning of Sodom. Why specifically was it necessary to overturn
Sodom? Why couldn't Sodom have just been destroyed with fire and
brimstone. Wouldn't that be cataclysmic enough? What are we supposed to
learn from the fact that Sodom was overturned?
After the destruction of Sodom, Lot's daughters thought that they were the
only human survivors of what must have looked like a global nuclear
holocaust. They surmised that the only way to perpetuate the human species
was to cohabit with their father. The Torah, however, ascribes no blame to
their actions as their motivation was pure.
>From this incestuous union came a people called Moav -- literally "from
father." From Moav comes the prototypal convert, Ruth. From Ruth comes
King David, and from King David comes the Mashiach. So it turns out that
the foundation of Mashiach is ultimately in Sodom.
There are two ways that society's spiritual landscape can be changed. One
way is by improving the situation bit by bit until the world is perfected.
The other is that things get so bad that they cannot get any worse. At
that point, everything reverses in an instant from the nadir to the zenith.
The prophets speak about the coming of Mashiach in terms of childbirth.
Someone ignorant of the process of childbirth who sees for the first time a
woman in labor would be convinced that she is about to die. And the closer
the actual moment of the birth, the stronger that impression would become.
And then, within a couple of minutes, seeming tragedy has turned into the
greatest joy. A new life has entered the world.
Immediately prior to the coming of Mashiach there will be a tremendous
confusion in the world. Everything will seem to have gone haywire. The
natural order will be turned on its head. Age will bow to youth. Ugliness
will be trumpeted as beauty, and what is beautiful will be disparaged as
unattractive. Barbarism will be lauded as culture. And culture will be
dismissed as worthless. The hunger of consumerism and the lust for
material wealth will grow more and more, and it will find less and less to
satisfy its voracity.
Eventually, materialism will grow so rapacious that it will become its own
angel of death. It will literally consume itself and regurgitate itself
back out.
But from this decay, the line of David will sprout, like vegetation that
springs forth from no more than dirt and earth. For vegetation cannot
flourish unless the seed rots. The second event is predicated on the
first.
It's interesting to note that Mashiach is referred to as the "tzemach
tzedek," literally the "righteous sprouting." For his coming is identical
to the growth of vegetation. First total decay and only then new life.
This is the way Mashiach will come. The worse things become, the more
painful the birth-pangs, the nearer is his coming. Until, like a mother
who had delivered, all the tears and pain will be forgotten in the great
joy of a new life.
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