On the Weekly Torah Portion of Vayera
This week’s weekly Torah portion, vayera (Genesis 18:1 – 22:24), continues to focus on the patriarch Abraham, whose epic life can be seen as a metaphor for the ideal spiritual path. It is in this week’s parashah that Abraham is undergoing the most demanding spiritual test that anyone can possibly undertake: the sacrifice of his son Isaac.
On the face of it, this is a cruel and inhuman story. There are few things more barbaric than human sacrifice, and one wonders why such a story is part of Abraham’s life. In his book, The Weekly Parashah in Human Language, Avraham Burg, a practicing orthodox Jew who served as a Speaker of the Knesset and Chairman of the Jewish Agency, writes: “It cannot be that Judaism, which is a religion of humans as much as it is a faith in God, would turn Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his sons into evidence for the right faith. If this is faith, it is not my faith. If this is success, I wish to fail. My children! Your life and your longevity, my beloved, are the very essence of my faith. For you the world was created and for you I wish to change it and repair it.” (Burg is talking about “sons” in the plural, because earlier in the parashah Abraham banishes his other son Ishmael, along with his mother, Hagar).