Below is the fourth and final post in my series on the relationship between Avraham (“Abraham” in English) with God. If you want to read one of my posts on this week’s Torah portion, you might try Toledot: Rebecca Gets It Wrong.

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The book of Genesis/Bereishit portrays both Avraham and God as complex characters, and their relationship evolves slowly. It begins when God tells Avraham to leave his home and go to the land of Canaan, making the first of many promises that Avraham will have a whole nation of descendants who own that land.¹ Avraham simply obeys. After that he makes his own decisions about where to live and what to do, while God repeats the promises about his descendants,² and makes sure that his wife, Sarah, is returned to him after Avraham scams two kings.³

At the third repetition of the promise of descendants, Avraham begins asking God for guarantees. (See my post Lekh-Lekha: Conversation.) The God character responds first with a treaty ceremony,⁴ then with a two-way covenant in which God gives Canaan to Avraham and his descendants, and Avraham and his male descendants will be circumcised.⁵ (See my post Bereishit, Lekh-Lekha, and Vayeira: Talking Back.)

Later, God takes their relationship a step further by telling Avraham ahead of time about the plan to wipe out the valley of Sodom.⁶ Avraham responds by making a strong ethical argument for pardoning Sodom for the sake of the innocent people living there, and God agrees to do it if there are even ten. (See my post Vayeira: Persuasion).

Many years after that, God tells Avraham to slaughter and burn his own son as an offering. And Avraham silently obeys. It seems as if both characters are seized by sudden madness. Why do they act this way?

Your only one, whom you love

The story, which Jews call the Akeidah (עַקֵידָה = “Binding”), begins:

And it was after these events, and God nisah Avraham, and said to him: “Avraham!” And he said: “Here I am.” (Genesis 22:1)

nisah (נִסָּה) = tested, evaluated, assayed.

From the beginning, we know the Akeidah is a test, but we do not know what result God is hoping for.

And [God] said: “Take, please, your son. Your only one, whom you love. Yitzchak. …” (Genesis 22:2)

Avraham has two sons. Hagar, his slave or concubine, bore him the elder one, Yishmael (“Ishmael “in English), and Sarah, Avraham’s wife, bore him the younger one, Yitzchak (“Isaac” in English). “Your only one” is a reminder that only Yitzchak is still part of Avraham’s household, and only Yitzchak is destined to have the descendants who inherit Canaan.  

Perhaps God also needs to remind Avraham that he loves Yitzchak. Earlier in the Torah Avraham goes to some trouble for his nephew Lot,⁷ and feels love and concern for his older son, Yishmael.⁸ But it does not mention Avraham showing any feelings or making efforts for Yitzchak.

Perhaps Avraham demonstrates no special attachment to Yitzchak because there is no occasion to rescue him or worry about him—until God orders him:

“Take your son … And go for yourself to the land of the Moriyah, and offer him up there as a burnt-offering on one of the hills, which I will say to you.” (Genesis 22:2)

Moriyah (מֺרִיָּה) = mori (מֺרִי) = my showing, my teacher + yah (יָה) = God; therefore Moriyah = God is showing me, God is my teacher.

The name of the land implies that God will be not only testing Avraham, but teaching him something.

Offer him up

Slaughtering one’s own child as an offering to a god was not unknown in the Ancient Near East, but it was a rare and desperate move. Within the Hebrew Bible, the king of Moav sacrifices his oldest son so that his god will help him defeat the Israelites.⁹ But Genesis 22:2 is the only time that the God of Israel asks for a human burnt offering.

Avraham does not question this shocking order from God. Although he used an ethical argument to persuade God to refrain from destroying Sodom, now he says nothing at all, even though Yitzchak is innocent of any crime.

Avraham’s silence also ignores the fact that Yitzchak is still unmarried and childless, and God promised him many descendants through Sarah’s son.

And Avraham got up early in the morning, and he saddled his donkey, and he took two of his servants with him and his son Yitzchak, and he split wood for the burnt-offering, and he stood up, and he went to the place that God said. On the third day, Avraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. (Genesis 22:3-4)

He does not tell either his servants or his son about God’s command during those three days. When they arrive, Avraham orders the servants to wait at the foot of the hill until “we will return to you.” (Genesis 22:5) As father and son are walking to the top, Yitzchak asks him where the lamb is for the offering, and Avraham says God will see to it. Perhaps he is lying, or perhaps he believes that at the last minute God will indeed provide a lamb to replace Yitzchak, and they will come back down together.

Once the wood is on the altar, Avraham can no longer conceal God’s command. And apparently Yitzchak accepts it, since at that time he is either 26 or 37 years old,¹⁰ and his father is 126 or 137 years old. Clearly the younger man is offering no resistance.

And Avraham reached out his hand, and he took the knife to slaughter his son. Then a messenger of God called to him from the heavens, and said: “Avraham! Avraham!” And he said: “Here I am.” (Genesis 22:10-11)

In the Hebrew Bible, a messenger of God (sometimes called an “angel” in English translations) may or may not be visible, but it always has a voice through which God speaks. The last words Avraham ever says to God in the Torah are his answer to the messenger: “Here I am”.

And [the messenger] said: “Don’t you reach out your hand toward the young man. Don’t you do anything to him! Because now I know that you are yarei God; you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” (Genesis 22:12) 

yarei (יָרֵא) = in fear of, in awe of, reverent of.

Perhaps God’s test is to find out how much Avraham is in awe of God.

Only then does Avraham see a ram caught in a thicket behind him. He uses it as the burnt offering in place of Yitzchak.

Then the messenger of God called to Avraham a second time from the heavens, and said: “By myself I swear, word of God, that since you did this thing, and did not withhold your son, your only one, from me, I will bless you and definitely multiply your descendants like the stars of the heavens and like the sand that is on the shore of the sea, and your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies. And they will bless themselves through your descendants, all the nations of the earth, as a consequence of your heeding my voice!” (Genesis 22:15-18)

This second speech repeats the promises God has been making ever since the call to leave home and go to Canaan, but now they are framed as a reward for Avraham’s obedience to God’s outrageous command.

Then Avraham returned to his servants, and they got up and went together to Beirsheva, and Avraham stayed in Beirsheva. (Genesis 22:19)

The text does not say that Yitzchak returned with Avraham. In the next Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, Avraham sends his steward to bring a bride to Yitzchak, who is living on his own at Beir-lachai-roi. He evidently knows it is useless to try to summon his son to his own encampment. Father and son are not in the same place again until Avraham dies at age 175, and Yitzchak and Yishmael come and bury him.¹¹

Neither God, nor Yitzchak, nor Yishmael ever speaks to Avraham again. To me this indicates that even if Avraham passes God’s test, he does not earn flying colors.

The test

Jewish commentary is rich with theories about what God’s test is, and whether Avraham really passes it or not.

Does God want to know whether Avraham values obedience to God over love, reason, or ethics? (And if so, what does God want him to put first?)

Does God want to know if Avraham has enough compassion for Yitzchak to draw the line?¹³

Does God want to know whether Avraham believes that God would never expect him to do something evil?¹⁴ (And if so, does passing the test mean refusing to obey, or proceeding and assuming God will stop him at the last minute?) Or does God want to know whether Avraham can live with a clear contradiction—between God’s promises of many descendants through Yitzchak, and God’s command to slaughter Yitzchak while he is still childless?¹⁵ (And if so, does living with the contradiction count as passing the test or failing it?)

The silence

Why does Avraham revert to silent obedience when God orders him to slaughter Yitzchak as an offering?

He would never have argued with God about Sodom unless he believed in justice for the innocent. Yet he prepares to slaughter Yitzchak despite his ethical principles.

Is his compassion too limited? Does he feel more responsible for Lot than for Yitzchak? Is his heart too small to love more than one son?

Does he intuit that God’s contradictory command is a test, and decide to test God in return by silent obedience? If the divine messenger had not stopped him, would he have actually plunged in the knife?

Or is Avraham simply too old to figure out how to handle a radically new situation? The God character is able to try something new, but perhaps Avraham is no longer able to respond with anything but his usual obedience.

It would have been kinder if the God character had appreciated what Avraham had already achieved as the father of a new nation, and saved the ultimate test for one of his descendants.

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1. Genesis 12:1-3.
2. The promises occur in Genesis 12:7, 13:14-17, 15:1-5, 15:7, 15:18,17:1-8, and 22:17-18.
3. Genesis 12:17-19 and 20:3-7. See my posts Lekh-Lekha, Vayeira, & Toledot: The Wife-Sister Trick, Part 1 and Part 2.)
4. Genesis 15:7-21.
5. Genesis 17:1-27.
6. Genesis 18:17-21.
7. Genesis 12:5, 13:8-12, 14:12-16.
8. Genesis 21:11. See my post Vayeira: Failure of Empathy.
9. 2 Kings 3:26-67. Also see Jeremiah 19:5.
10. Yitzchak is old enough to carry a load of firewood for his aging father, and is called a na–ar (נַעַר), a boy or unmarried young man. He is younger than 40, because at that age he is living away from his father and marries Rivkah (Rebecca). The two most common opinions in the commentary are that Yitzchak is either 26 or 37.
11. Genesis 25:7-9.
12. See Marsha Mirkin, “Reinterpreting the Binding of Isaac”, Tikkun, Vol. 18, No. 5, 2003.
13. See David Kasher, ParshaNut: Parshat Vayera: “It’s Complicated”, 2104; and Elimelekh of Lizhensk, Noam Elimelekh, 1786. Also see Martin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy, 1957; and .
14. See Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, “Negative Capability: Vayera 5780”, 2019; and Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 1843.

(Below is the third post in my series on how Abraham speaks to God. If you want to read one of my posts on this week’s Torah portion, you might try Chayei Sarah: Arranged Marriage.)

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Avraham is the first human being to argue with God in the Hebrew Bible. Near the beginning of the Torah portion Vayeira (Genesis/Bereishit 18:1-22:21), after God tells Avraham that Sodom and Gomorrah will be completely wiped out, and Avraham boldly tells God what the “judge of all the earth” ought to do instead.

But near the end of that Torah portion, God orders Avraham to slaughter his own son and heir as a burnt offering, and Avraham does not protest. He reverts to silent obedience, his approach when we first meet him in the book of Genesis. (See my post Lekh-Lekha: Conversation.) Worse, he obeys the divine order regardless of the cost, like Noach (“Noah” in English). (See my post Noach: Silent Obedience.)

The Torah says that God is testing Abraham both times.

Teaching proposal

The portion Vayeira begins with three “men”, who turn out to be divine messengers. After Avraham has offered them hospitality, he walks with them to a lookout point to see them off. Below they see the lowland near the Dead Sea, including Sodom and its satellite towns.

And God thought: “Shall I hide from Avraham what I am about to do? Avraham must certainly become a great and numerous nation, and all the nations of the earth must be blessed through him. For I have become acquainted with him so that he will command his sons and his household after him, and they will keep the way of God: to do tzedakah and mishpat …” (Genesis 18:17, 19)

tzedakah (צְדָקָה) = right behavior, ethical behavior.

mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) = justice; law.

Whatever the divine plan is for Sodom, the God character anticipates a teaching moment. But what principle of ethics and justice does God hope to teach Avraham?

Then God said: “The outcry in Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their abundant guilt is very heavy. Indeed I will go down, and I will see: Are they doing like the outcry coming to me? [If so,] annihilation! And if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18:20-21)

Two of the divine messengers go down to Sodom to find out, while God (perhaps still manifesting as a man) stays with Avraham at the lookout.

Avraham teaches

Avraham came forward and said: “Would you sweep away the tzadik with the wicked? What if there are fifty tzadikim inside the city? Would you sweep away and not pardon the place for the sake of the fifty tzadikim who are in it? Far be it from you to do this thing, to bring death to the tzadik with the wicked! Then the tzadik would be like the wicked. Far be it from you! The judge of all the earth should do justice!” (Genesis 18:23-25)

tzadik (צַדִּיק) = righteous, innocent. tzadikim (צַדִּיקִם) = people who are righteous or innocent. (Both words have the same root as tzedakah.)

This is a new thing in the world of the book of Genesis: a human being arguing with God and telling God the right thing to do.

Clearly God is “the judge of all the earth”; in the time of Noach, God judged the whole earth and drowned all the land animals, including humans, that were not on the ark. Avraham argues that since God is the ultimate judge, God should do justice. And justice requires discriminating between the innocent and the guilty, and not sentencing innocent people to death.

However, Avraham does not argue that God should pick and choose which individuals will live and which will die, instead of annihilating an entire population. Perhaps he recalls that it took a lot of advance preparation to arrange for Noach’s ark before God flooded the earth. Or perhaps Avraham has noticed that what we now call “acts of nature”, but the ancient Israelites considered acts of God, never distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.

So how can God save the innocent? Only by not annihilating a population at all! Avraham urges God to pardon everyone in the Sodom area, and refrain from annihilating the city and its towns, if there are a critical number of innocent people living there.

How many innocent people does it take?

Avraham starts with the number 50. According to Rashi,¹ he is thinking of ten tzadikim for each town. (Although the portion Vayeira does not specify any settlements except Sodom and Gomorrah, in last week’s Torah portion, Lekha-Lekha, Sodom and Gomorrah are two of five towns that lose a battle at the Dead Sea.)²

And God said: “If I find in Sodom fifty tzadikim within the city, then I will pardon the whole place for their sake.” (Numbers 18:26)

The God character does not question or argue with Avraham. Either God finds Avraham’s argument enlightening, or God was testing Avraham and is pleased that his human protégé is standing up for justice.

Avraham dares to speak up again, although this time he makes a parenthetical statement of humility, saying that he is dust and ashes. He asks if God would destroy the whole city if there are 45 tzadikim, or 40, or 30, or 20. Each time God says “I will not destroy” or “I will not do it”.

Then he said: “Please don’t be angry, my lord, but I would speak one more time. Perhaps [only] ten will be found there!” And [God] said: “I will not destroy, for the sake of the ten.” And God went, as soon as [God] had finished speaking to Avraham, and Avraham returned to his place. (Genesis 18:32-33)

It is not clear whether Avraham stops at ten, or God cuts off the conversation after ten. Two reasons why Avraham might have stopped at ten tzadikim are summarized by Bachya ben Asher:

“Eight people had entered the Ark. Had there been another pair of deserving human beings at that time the deluge might have been delayed or might not have occurred at all. Furthermore, Avraham had reason to believe that there were ten righteous people in Sodom. He counted Lot and his wife, his four daughters and their respective husbands (or fiancés) as making up that quorum. [But] Seeing there were fewer than ten good people whose presence could protect their town against impending doom, God departed as soon as He had heard Avraham speak about ten good people.”³

Motivations

Avraham might be standing up for justice and ethical behavior. Or perhaps his speech is a cover for an attempt to save his nephew Lot; after all, after the battle in Lekh-Lekha, Avraham staged an armed raid to rescue Lot, along with other captives from the Sodom area.⁴ And later, when God does not find even ten innocent people in Sodom, God knows how to do Avraham a favor:

And it happened, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, then God kept Avraham in mind and sent out Lot from the midst of the overturning … (Genesis 19:29)

Regardless of Avraham’s motivation, he might be teaching the God character how to turn over a new leaf. According to Aggadat Bereishit:

“God said to him, ‘No, no, may it never be that they should say, “This is God’s way, to subject His creatures to cruelty.” In the generation of the Flood, and in the generation of the Dispersion [after the Tower of Babel was built], I did not restrain My wrath, but with you, may it never be. … And if you think that I have acted unfairly, teach me and I will act fairly from now on.”⁵

Nevertheless, God might feel that pardoning the whole population for fewer than ten innocent people is simply going too far. However, the two divine messengers whom God sent down to the city do rescue Lot and his wife and two unmarried daughters, just before God annihilates the plain of Sodom.⁶

On the other hand, if God is teaching Avraham, God might feel satisfied that Avraham has passed the test and stood up for the concept that it is more important to save the innocent than to punish the guilty. Perhaps God leaves after the conversation reaches ten tzadikim because Avraham has already proved himself.

Given how passionately Avraham argues for God to pardon Sodom if even ten innocent people live there, many Torah readers are surprised at Avraham’s silence about two decades later, when God tells him to slaughter his own innocent son and heir. I will discuss that development in the relationship between Avraham and God in next week’s post: Vayeira: Return to Silence.

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1. Rashi is the acronym for 11^th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
2. Genesis 14:1-12.
3. Bachya ben Asher ibn Halavah,1255–1340, translated in www.sefaria.org. The Torah does not actually say how many daughters Lot has, though at least two of them must be married, since Genesis 19:14 refers to sons-in-law. Bachya assumes the two unmarried daughters living at home are engaged. We do learn that Lot’s sons-in-law are not innocent (Genesis 19:4).
4. Genesis 14:12-16.
5. Aggadat Bereishit 22:2, 9^th-10^th century midrash, translated in www.sefaria.org.
6. Genesis 19:15-26.

Abraham and God debate the fate of Sodom in this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira (Genesis 18:1-22:24).

The portion is called Vayeira, (וַיֵרָא) “And he appeared”, because in the first sentence God appears to Abraham—as three men.

Abraham provides lavish hospitality, as he would for any humans trekking across the sparsely populated hills to his campsite at Mamre (near present-day Hebron). Then one of the “men” tells Abraham his wife Sarah (who is 89 years old) will have a son. And without transition, the text reports God speaking first to Abraham, then to Sarah.¹ Often in the Hebrew Bible a man turns out to be a divine messenger or angel, and the transition between the messenger speaking and God speaking is seamless.

Then the men got up from there, and they looked down at Sodom. And Abraham was walking with them to send them off. (Genesis 18:16)

The “men” and Abraham walk to a hilltop from which they could look down at the Dead Sea and the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah near its shore.

Next comes a Shakespearean aside, in which God’s thoughts are expressed in words.

And God said: Will I hide from Abraham what I am doing? (Genesis 18:17)

Whenever the Hebrew Bible reports a character’s silent thoughts, the text uses the verb “said” (amar, אָמָר), but the context makes it clear that the character is saying something silently to himself or herself. Here, God continues thinking:

For Abraham will certainly become a nation great and numerous, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. (Genesis 18:18)

The God character is recalling the promise at the beginning of last week’s Torah portion, Lekh Lekha. There, God told Abraham to leave his home and go “to the land that I will show you”, which turned out to be Canaan.

“And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. … And all the clans of the earth will seek to be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

Abraham did indeed leave home and go to Canaan. But the future that God promised can only happen if Abraham teaches his people the right behavior. God thinks:

ForI have become acquainted with him so that he will give orders to his sons and his household after him; then they will keep the way of God to do tzedakah umishpat, so that God will bring upon Abraham what [God] spoke concerning him. (Genesis 18:19)

tzedakah (צְדָקָה) = righteousness, acts of justice. (From the root tzedek, צֶדֶק = right, just.)

umishpat (וּמִשְׁפָּט) = and mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) = legal decision, legal claim, law.

One way to translate tzedakah umishpatis: “what is right and lawful”. The way Abraham will become a great nation that is a source of blessing, God thinks, is by teaching the way of God—what is right and lawful—to his household, so they will pass on the information to the generations after him.

Why God is teaching Abraham

Naturally God wants Abraham to convey the correct information about the way of God. Now God is wondering whether it would be helpful to tell Abraham what is about happen in Sodom.

We know God switches from thinking to speaking out loud—or at least speaking so that Abraham can hear—because he responds to what God says next.

Then God said: “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their abundant guilt is very heavy! Indeed I will go down, and I will see: Are they doing like the outcry coming to me? [If so,] Annihilation! And if not, I will know.” The men turned their faces away from there and they went to Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before God. (Genesis 18:20-22)

The God character in the Torah sees and hears a lot from the heavens above, but not everything, so sometimes God or a divine messenger comes down to the earth for more information.² Abraham now knows that if Sodom is as guilty as God has heard, God will annihilate it. Why does God give him that information ahead of time? Perhaps God is testing Abraham, prompting him to think through what is right and lawful in a particular situation. If Abraham asks God a question about the divine plan for Sodom, they can discuss it—a subtle form of teaching.

Is Abraham teaching God?

Then Abraham came forward and said: “Would you sweep away the tzadik along with the wicked one?” (Genesis 18:23)

tzadik (צַדִּיק) = righteous, innocent. (Also from the root tzedek. The Hebrew Bible applies this adjective to men, nations, and God.)

Abraham probably knows already what God is about to find out: that rape and murder are rampant in Sodom. After all, his own nephew, Lot, lives in that city. And Lot knows that travelers are not safe in the town square after dark. Later in the Torah portion, after Lot has brought the two divine messengers who look just like men into his own house to spend the night, the other men in Sodom come to his door and order him to bring the strangers out to be raped. And Lot knows they will not take no for an answer.⁴

But so far, Lot has done nothing immoral himself, though he has tolerated the immorality around him. And as far as Abraham knows, there might be other innocent men in Sodom.

Abraham asks God:

“What if there are fifty tzadikim inside the city? Would you sweep away, and not pardon the place, for the sake of the fifty tzadikim who are in it? Far be it from you to do this thing, to bring death to the tzadik along with the wicked! Then the tzadik would be like the wicked. Far be it from you! The judge of all the earth should do justice!” (Genesis 18:24-25)

tzadikim (צַדִּיקִם) = plural of tzadik.

According to the commentary Or HaChayim, when Abraham said then the tzadik would be like the wicked, he meant that “if God applied the same yardstick to all creatures alike, the righteous would be deprived of every incentive to be righteous.”⁵ So the tzadikim in Sodom would give up and join their neighbors in doing evil.

However, not every man thinks raping and murdering other men would be fun if he could get away with it. So I think Abraham means that if God annihilates the whole city, God would be treating the tzadik just like the wicked man—which would be unjust.

And God said: “If I find in Sodom fifty tzadikim in the midst of the city, then I will pardon the whole place⁵ for their sake.” (Genesis 18:26)

Why does the God character agree immediately with Abraham’s request?

One answer is that God intended from the beginning to spare Sodom if there were enough tzadikim in the city; that is why God sent the two messengers down to find out how bad things really were. Abraham is merely suggesting a number.

Abraham answered, and said: “Hey, please, I am willing to speak to my lord, and I am dust and ashes. Perhaps the fifty tzadikim lack five. Will you ruin the whole city on account of the five?” And [God] said: “I will not ruin if I find forty-five there.” (Genesis 18:27-28)

Abraham’s reference to himself as dust and ashes is probably an expression of humility, intended to salve God’s pride. After all, Abraham is attempting to teach a being who could kill him in an instant.

Abraham asks if God would annihilate the whole city if there are forty tzadikim, then thirty, then twenty. Each time God promises to refrain from destroying Sodom for the sake of that number of tzadikim. Then Abraham says:

“Please don’t be angry, my lord, and I will speak just once more. Perhaps ten will be found there.” And [God] said: “I will not ruin, for the sake of the ten.” And God left, as [God] had finished speaking to Abraham. And Abraham returned to his [own] place. (Genesis 18:33)

Why does Abraham stop with ten? Perhaps he just assumes that there must be more than ten tzadikim in Sodom.

But according to S.R. Hirsch, God agreed to save Sodom not in order to keep the ten innocent men alive, but because a society that tolerated a certain number of righteous people was not totally evil, and so might someday reform. The number matters; “Only in the case of a medium number—where the righteous are too many to be inconsequential and too few to be intimidating—does the fact that the righteous are allowed to exist and are tolerated have full significance.”⁶

This explanation makes the God character more optimistic and forgiving than in the many Torah passages where God sends plagues to punish the Israelites for infractions in which not everyone participated, and arranges mass slaughters of non-combatants in war. Perhaps the God character does not fully absorb Abraham’s lesson.

What do God and Abraham teach?

The God character, by agreeing with each of Abraham’s proposals, teaches him that questioning God is acceptable and worthwhile.

According to Jonathan Sacks,⁷ “Abraham had to have the courage to challenge God if his descendants were to challenge human rulers, as Moses and the Prophets did. … This is a critical turning point in human history: the birth of the world’s first religion of protest—the emergence of a faith that challenges the world instead of accepting it. … meaning: be a leader. Walk ahead. Take personal responsibility. Take moral responsibility. Take collective responsibility.”

But Abraham also teaches God something, when he says: Far be it from you to do this thing, to bring death to the tzadik along with the wicked! … The judge of all the earth should do justice!”

According to Jerome Segal,⁸ “In arguing that justice requires that the innocent be treated differently from the guilty, Abraham is not only asserting a moral principle but also asserting that it is binding upon God. Thus, the independence of the moral order is again affirmed. Morality does not depend on God for its reality. It stands apart as something to which God must conform.”

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Thus God teaches Abraham what is right and just, and Abraham teaches God what is just and right. It takes both of them to advance the cause of morality.

Now it is our turn to consult our inner voices of conscience and reason and advance the cause further.

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1. Genesis 18:9-15. See my post: Vayeira: On Speaking Terms.
2. The first example in Genesis of God coming down to the earth for more information is in the story about the Tower of Babel: And God went down to look at the city and the tower that the humans had built. (Genesis 11:5)
3. Genesis 13:5-13.
4. Genesis 19:1-8.
5. Chayim ibn Attar, Or HaChayim, 18^th century, translated in www.sefaria.org.
6. Rashi (11^th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki) wrote that the whole place means Sodom and its satellite towns, such as Gomorrah.
7. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshis, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2002, p. 428 and 429.
8. Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, “Answering the Call: Vayera 5781”.
9. Jerome M. Segal, Joseph’s Bones, Riverhead Books, Penguin Group, New York, 2007, p. 63.

Direct speech, or visions, or dreams, or divine messengers—the Hebrew Bible portrays God as communicating with human beings through all these methods. In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira (“And he appeared”, Genesis 18:1-22:24), God speaks to Abraham both directly and through divine messengers, called malakhim; to Sarah directly; to King Avimelekh in a dream; and to Lot and Hagar through malakhim.

malakh (מַלְאָךְ) = messenger, emissary. (Plural: malakhim, מַלְאָכִים. While human characters in the Torah send fellow humans as malakhim, the God character sends divine malakhim. “A malakh of God” is often translated into English as “an angel”.)

One way or another, God speaks to more people in Vayeira than in any other Torah portion or haftarah reading. And Vayeira is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where God sends three malakhim at once. What does the God-character achieve?

Three “men”

Abraham is 99 when this week’s Torah portion begins. God spoke directly with him five times in last week’s portion, Lekh Lekha, both with and without accompanying visions.¹ The portion Vayeira begins:

And God appeared to him by the great trees of Mamrei, while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. And he raised his eyes, and he saw—hey! Three men were standing near him. And he saw, and he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them, and he bowed down to the ground. (Genesis/Bereishit 18:1-3)

When God appears in Mamrei, what Abraham sees is three men.² At first Abraham assumes the three men are ordinary human beings, travelers passing through. He rushes to offer them hospitality: water for washing their feet, shade to rest in, and food to eat. He waits on them under the trees. Then one of the strangers speaks like a prophet, saying:

“I will definitely return to you when this season revives, and hey! A son for Sarah, your wife!” (18:10)

Sarah, who is 89 years old, overhears from inside the tent, and immediately thinks of the sexual act necessary to produce a son.

And Sarah laughed inside herself, saying: After I am all used up, will there be pleasure for me? And my lord is old. (Genesis 18:12)

Then God said to Abraham: “Why is it that Sarah laughed, saying: ‘Can I truly even give birth, when I am old?’ Is it too extraordinary a thing, from God?” (Genesis 18:13-14)

Abraham expresses no surprise that now God is talking to him, though the three “men” are still present. Perhaps he knows that God sometimes speaks through malakhim who look human, at least at first.

And Sarah lied, saying: “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But [God] said: “No, because you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:15)

Sarah’s fear shows that she, too, knows that God is speaking.

Does God make three malakhim manifest in the grove of Mamrei only in order to test Abraham’s hospitality and/or to announce Sarah’s future child? I doubt it. A single malakh could have achieved both these objectives.³

Then the men got up from there, and they looked down at Sodom. And Abraham was walking with them to send them off.  And God said: Will I hide from Abraham what I am doing? … For I pay attention to him, so that he can instruct his sons and his descendants after him, so they will observe God’s path to do righteousness and justice … (Genesis 18:16-19)

After this thought, God addresses Abraham, saying:

“The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their abundant guilt is very heavy. Indeed I will go down, and I will see: Are they doing like the outcry coming to me? [If so,] Annihilation! And if not, I will know.” The men turned their faces away from there and they went to Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before God. (Genesis 18:20-22)

In other words, God sends two of the malakhim down to check out Sodom. The God in the Torah is not omniscient; in the story about the Tower of Babble, God  comes down from the heavens to look at the city and tower before taking action.⁴ The God of Torah is not omnipresent either, but always has a specific location in our world or in the heavens.

After God’s opening statement about the outcry about Sodom and Gomorrah (presumably coming from victims),

Abraham approached and said: “Would you sweep away the tzadik with the wicked? What if there are fifty tzadikim inside the city? Would you sweep away and not pardon the place for the sake of the fifty tzadikim who are in it? Far be it from you to do this thing, to bring death to the tzadik with the wicked! Then the tzadik would be like the wicked. Far be it from you! The judge of all the earth should do justice!” (Genesis 18:23-25)

tzadik (צַדִּיק) = righteous, innocent. tzadikim (צַדִּיקִם) = people who are righteous or innocent.

And God agrees to pardon the whole city if fifty of its residents are innocent. Abraham continues until God agrees to spare Sodom even if it has only ten innocent people.

As we will see, this encounter between God and Abraham could have changed Abraham’s life about 30 years later—if only he had remembered that he could argue with God. As it is, Abraham does succeed in establishing that God is supposed to be a god of justice.

Two malakhim

And the two malakhim came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw them, and he rose to greet them, and he bowed down with his nose to the ground. (Genesis 19:1)

Abraham’s nephew Lot emigrated with him from Aram to Canaan 24 years before. They parted when the pastureland around Bethel was no longer sufficient to feed the increasing flocks and herds of both men. Abraham stayed in the hill country, and Lot went down to the fertile valley and settled in the city of Sodom.⁵

Now, when he sees two strangers enter the city, Lot is as hospitable as his uncle Abraham. He, too, bows to the ground. He begs the men to come home with him for the night, and he prepares a feast for them. That night, all the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house.

And they called to Lot and they said to him: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and we will ‘know’ them!” (Genesis 19:5)

The men of Sodom believe that the two strangers in Lot’s house are ordinary men who can be degraded through rape. They do not care about other people; they only want to prove how powerful they are. Lot steps out, closing the door behind himself, and begs the men of Sodom not to do an evil deed. He volunteers to send out his own two virgin daughters for them to rape instead. (This offer indicates that he is not a tzadik, but his hospitality to strangers indicates that he is not wicked like the native Sodomites.)

The men of Sodom reject Lot’s offer.

And they moved forward to break the door. But the “men” [inside] stretched out their hands and brought Lot inside the house with them, and they shut the door. And the men who were at the entrance of the house, from small to big, they struck with a blinding light; and they were powerless to find the door.

The two malakhim urge Lot to collect his married daughters and their families, so they can all flee together before Sodom is annihilated. Although Lot believes the malakhim, he cannot persuade his sons-in-law to take the warning seriously. When he returns to his own house at dawn, the two malakhim urge Lot to leave at once with his wife and his two unmarried daughters. Lot hesitates, and the malakhim grasp the hands of all four humans and drag them out of the city.

Then God rained down on Sodom, and on Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from God,  from the heavens. (Genesis 19:24) 

We can deduce that God sends two malakhim to Sodom in order to confirm that all the men there (except Lot) really are evil, and to rescue Lot and his wife and virgin daughters. The rescue requires a magical power (blinding the Sodomites) and four hands with a firm grip.

The encounter with the two malakhim from God does save four human lives, but it does not redeem them. Lot’s wife ignores the warning of the malakhim not to look back, and turns into a pillar of salt. Lot gets drunk and has incestuous intercourse with his two remaining daughters, providing an excuse for the author to insult the kingdoms of their descendants, Moab and Ammon. (See my post Vayeira & Noach: Drunk and Disorderly.)

A dream

Abraham travels on to Gerar, where the Torah gives us a second version of the wife-sister story.⁶

And Abraham said about Sarah, his wife: “She is my sister.” And Avimelekh, the king of Gerar, sent for and took Sarah. Then God came to Avimelekh in the dream at night, and said to him: “Hey, you will die on account of the woman that you took, for she is the wife of a husband.” (Genesis 20:2-3)

In his dream, the king defends himself, protesting that Abraham and Sarah lied to him, and anyway he has not yet touched Sarah, so he is innocent. Avimelekh’s argument is successful.

And God said to him in the dream: “I also know that you did this with an innocent heart, and I  also held you back from doing wrong to her. That is why I did not let you touch her.” Genesis 20:6)

After claiming credit for the disease that caused King Avimelekh’s delay, God orders him to restore Sarah to her husband. He does so, throwing in some portable wealth to be on the safe side, and God heals him.

In this case, God participates in Abraham’s scam, but then sends Avimelekh a dream that gives him a chance to defend himself. When he does, God remits his punishment. As in the first wife-sister story, Abraham goes unpunished.

About Ishmael

After Abraham and Sarah return from Gerar, Sarah does indeed have a son at age 90. Several years later, at her son Isaac’s weaning feast, she is disturbed by the behavior of Abraham’s first son, Ishmael. Sarah orders her husband to cast out Ishmael and his mother, the slave-woman Hagar, in order to prevent Ishmael from sharing Isaac’s inheritance. (See my post Vayeira: Failure of Empathy.) Abraham is not happy about this order from his wife.

But God said to Abraham: “Don’t let it be bad in your eyes about the boy and about the slave-woman. Everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice! … And also I will set the son of the slave-woman as [the founder of] a nation, because he is your seed.” (Genesis 21:12)

Perhaps this promise makes Abraham feel absolved of responsibility for the adolescent boy. He sends off Ishmael and Hagar with only some bread and one skin of water, and nothing to give them a start on a new life. The mother and son run out of water in the desert.

And God listened to the sound of the boy [crying], and a malakh of God called to Hagar from the heavens and said to her: “What is it, Hagar? Don’t be afraid. Because God has listened to the sound of the boy where he is. Get up, lift up the boy, and hold your hand firmly in his. Because I will make him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. (Genesis 21:17-19)

The words of the malakh might make Hagar feel more optimistic, but the important change is that Hagar now sees the water.

Abraham obeys again

Abraham hears from God for the last time in his life near the end of the portion Vayeira.

And it was after these things, and God tested Abraham. And [God] said to him: “Abraham!” And he answered: “Here I am.” And [God] said: “Take, please, your son, your only one,⁷ whom you love, Isaac. And go for yourself to the land of the Moriyah, and offer him there as a burned offering on one of the hills that I say to you.” And Abraham got up early in the morning and he saddled his donkey and he took two [slave] boys with him, and his son Isaac. And he split wood for the burnt offering and he got up and went to the place that God had said to him. (Genesis 22:1-3)

Abraham simply obeys. He does not argue with God. Apparently he does not remember the time when he debated with God about justice and the city of Sodom; he does not even mention that Isaac is innocent.

On the summit of the hill in Moriyah,

Abraham stretched out his hand and he took the knife to slaughter his son. Then a malakh of God called to him from the heavens, and said: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he said: “Here I am.” (Genesis 22:10-11)

In the Torah, when the speaker repeats the name of the person addressed, it means there was no answer the first time. Abraham is not even listening for God’s voice.

Once he has Abraham’s attention, the malakh from God says:

“You must not stretch out your hand against the boy, and you must not do anything to him. Because now I know that you fear God, and you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” (Genesis 22:12)

Abraham looks up, sees a ram caught in the bushes, and sacrifices it instead of Isaac.⁸ But as a result of his unquestioning obedience, he is estranged from his only remaining son for the rest of his life. And although Abraham appears in several more scenes in the book of Genesis, God does not speak to him again.

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What does God achieve in the portion Vayeira through all these conversations, speaking with Sarah, Lot, Avimelekh, and Hagar as well as Abraham?

Abraham argues in favor of sparing Sodom if it contains ten innocent people, but then he fails to argue for the life of his own innocent son. Sarah is unaffected by the annunciation of Isaac, though she defends him after he is born. God spares Lot’s life, but Lot does not appreciate it, and falls into immoral behavior. Avimelekh protests to God in his dream, and God heals him—of the affliction God caused in the first place. And God does not tell Abraham anything that motivates him to behave decently to Hagar and Ishmael.

We can see God’s involvement in the lives of all five people: Abraham Sarah, Lot, Avimelekh, and Hagar. But if God had remained silent and distant in the portion Vayeira, the five humans might have been better off. And although the generations after Abraham have benefited from his argument that God is supposed to do justice, this benefit has been undermined by the story of his unquestioning obedience to an unjust command.

But without God’s conversations, the stories would have been less entertaining.

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1. God manifests to Abraham as a voice only in Genesis 12:1-3, and 13:14-17; and as voice with an accompanying visuals in Genesis 12:7, 15:1-21, and 17:1-22.
2. God might be invisible, or manifest in a fire, or use a malakh; but nobody can see what God actually looks like. As God tells Moses in the book of Exodus, “No man can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Moses, Aaron, two of Aaron’s sons, and 70 elders do see God’s feet on a sapphire pavement in Exodus 24:10, but this does not count.
3. Cf. the single malakh who announces the coming birth of Samson in Judges 13:2-24.
4. Genesis 11:5 in the portion Noach.
5. Abraham and Lot separate in Genesis 13:1-13.
6. The first wife-sister story is in Lekh-Lekha, in Genesis 12:11-20. See my posts Lekh Lekha, Vayeira, and Toledot: The Wife-Sister Trick, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
7. We know Abraham has two living sons, so why does God call Isaac “the only one” (yechidekha, יְחִידֶךָ)? I believe here the word means “the only one remaining to you”, since Ishmael has been banished.
8. See my post Vayeira: Stopped by an Angel.

The story of Sarah and Hagar continues in this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira (“And he saw”). When Ishmael is 14 and Sarah is 90, Sarah finally gives birth to a son of her own. She nurses her miraculous baby for several years, and then Abraham holds a drinking-feast to celebrate his weaning.

Then Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham metzacheik. And she said to Abraham: “Cast out that slave and her son! Because the son of that slave must not inherit with my son, Yitzchak.” (Genesis 21:9-10)

metzacheik (מְצַחֵק) = mocking, acting crazy, engaging in foreplay, making someone laugh. (The piel participle of the verb tzachak, צָחַק = laughed.)

Yitzchak (יִצְחָק) = (Isaac in English) he laughs, he will laugh. (An imperfect kal form of the verb tzachak.)

Ishmael might be innocently entertaining his little half-brother by acting crazy.¹ Or he might be amusing himself at Isaac’s expense. He might be engaging in sexual impropriety with a toddler. Or Isaac might not even be present; Ishmael might be mocking the whole idea of Isaac as Abraham’s heir, telling some of the men at the feast that he, Ishmael, is Abraham’s firstborn son, so of course he will inherit twice as large a share of Abraham’s possessions as Isaac.²

We cannot judge the morality of Ishmael’s action when the Torah does not tell us what he is doing.  Sarah does not discuss Ishmael’s behavior with Abraham; she simply orders him to get rid of the boy so that Isaac will inherit all the family property.

Sarah still bears a grudge against Hagar, too. When she demands that Abraham “banish that slave”, she may be testing him to see if he retains any fondness for his erstwhile lover. Apparently he does not. But he is attached to his son Ishmael.

And the matter was very bad in the eyes of Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham: “Don’t let it be bad in your eyes about the young man or about your slave. Everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, because it is through Isaac your descendants will be identified. And the son of the slave, I will also make him a nation, because he is your seed.” (Genesis 21:11-13)

By speaking as if Abraham also has reservations about driving out Hagar, God implies that he ought to be concerned about her. Without a new master, where will Hagar live, and how will she get food, water, and clothing?

But Abraham washed his hands of any responsibility for Hagar long before. Now he fails to choose the ethical action of providing for Hagar’s welfare after she leaves.

There are no laws in the Torah about freeing a foreign slave like Hagar, or the foreign slave’s child. With the sole exception of the concubine captured in battle,³ the Torah considers foreign slaves as property to be sold or inherited. Yet Abraham obeys God by doing exactly what Sarah demands: instead of selling the mother and child, he frees them by banishing them from his household.

And Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a goat-skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulder and with the boy, and he sent her away. And she went astray in the wilderness of Beersheba. (Genesis 212:14)

Sarah says nothing about what her husband should give Hagar and Ishmael when he casts them out. It is Abraham’s decision to send them off with only a goat-skin of water and as much bread as they can carry on foot. He is a rich man; he could afford to give them several donkeys laden with food, water, clothing, and silver or trade goods. But he does not.

Abraham might assume Hagar would refill the goat-skin at every spring or cistern on the road south. It does not occur to him that as a woman protected only by a single adolescent boy, she might worry about being raped, and avoid the roadside places where trade caravans stop.

Since she takes a different route, Hagar gets lost in the wilderness.  She and her son drink the last of the water. Ishmael lies down under a bush, and Hagar sits a bow-shot away because she does not want to watch him die. They both cry in isolation.

And she went and she sat herself away from him, the distance of a bow-shot, because she said [to herself]: Don’t let me see the death of my boy! So she sat away from him, and she raised her voice and cried.  (Genesis 21:16)

Hagar can be excused for not following the trade road. She can be excused for not noticing the well when she is suffering from dehydration. But her decision to leave Ishmael to die alone is harder to excuse.

Like Abraham, she has not learned Cain’s lesson and acts as if she is not her own son’s keeper. She might find it painful to watch Ishmael die, but what about him? Ishmael would be comforted if his mother held his hand or said a few loving words as he faded away.

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the goat-skin with water and she gave a drink to the young man. And God was with the young man, and he grew big and he settled in the wilderness and he became an archer with a bow. (Genesis 21:19-20)

Why do Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar all make choices that betray a lack of empathy?

Sarah

Sarah’s choice to use Hagar as a surrogate mother, then discard her and her son once she has her own child, is callous but understandable. Her original idea was that Hagar would remain her devoted slave after giving birth. But Hagar becomes self-important once she is pregnant, and Sarah blames Abraham for encouraging her. (See my post Lekh-Lekha: Belittlement.) Sarah does not adopt the baby after all.³

She feels estranged from both Hagar and Ishmael for fourteen years. It takes only a small incident at Isaac’s weaning feast to remind her that unless she gets rid of Ishmael, he will threaten her own son’s inheritance. She lacks empathy for Hagar and Ishmael, but in her society they are only slaves. At least she only tells her husband to banish them, not to sell them or punish them. And she places no limits on what supplies he can send with them.

Abraham

Abraham’s lack of empathy is more puzzling. Even if he is not interested in Hagar, the Torah states “And the matter was very bad in the eyes of Abraham on account of his son.” He is attached to his son Ishmael. Rationally, he might assume that since God promised Ishmael would have descendants, his son would survive being sent out into the desert with inadequate supplies. But if he felt empathy for Ishmael, his natural reaction would be to give him ample food, water, and gifts upon saying goodbye.

In the years before this episode, Abraham was much more generous with his nephew Lot. He gave Lot first choice of pasture land, fought the armies of four kings to rescue his nephew when he was captured, and argued with God about God’s plan to wipe out Sodom, where Lot lived.⁴

The difference might be that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, never expressed any objection to Lot. Abraham is not really hen-pecked; in this week’s Torah portion he banishes Ishmael only after God has told him to do what Sarah says. When Sarah asked him to impregnate Hagar in last week’s portion, Abraham cooperated, but he expressed no reluctance.

In two earlier episodes Abraham passed off Sarah as his sister in order to scam two kings out of bride-prices for her.⁵ Sarah cooperated, but her feelings about it must have been complicated, and caused complications in their marriage.  Perhaps Abraham’s troubled relationship with Sarah causes an inner denial of his feelings about Ishmael.

Hagar

And Hagar? She probably feels empathy for her son Ishmael when she believes he is dying, yet she leaves him alone and waits for his death at a distance.

Hagar expresses her empathy by sobbing.  Either she too self-centered to realize that she could comfort Ishmael at the end of his life, or she is not accustomed to overcoming her personal anguish to do the right thing. As a slave, she merely obeyed orders—except for the one occasion when she ran away from Sarah’s abuse, and God told her to go back.⁶

Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar all treat someone close to them callously. Sarah’s lack of empathy for her own son’s rival is an understandable fault. Hagar feels empathy for her son, but she is psychologically unequipped to do the right thing. Abraham is harder to excuse, since he goes out of his way to act on his empathy for his nephew Lot. His suppression of empathy for his son Ishmael leads to an ethical failure.

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1. One suggestion is that Ishmael got drunk at the drinking-feast. Pamela Tarkin Reis, Reading the Lines: A fresh Look at the Hebrew Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Mass., 2002, pp. 75-76.
2. Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, p. 103.
3. Jacob adopts Joseph’s first two sons for inheritance purposes in Genesis 48:5-12 through a declaration followed by holding them on his knees. Earlier in Jacob’s life, his wife Rachel tells him: Here is my slave, Bilhah. Come into her and she will give birth on my knees and I will be built up, even I, through her.” (Genesis 30:3) But the Torah never reports that Sarah holds Ishmael on her knees.
4. Genesis 13:5-12, 14:11-16, and 18:20-32.
5. See my posts Lekh-Lekha, Vayeira, & Toledot: The Wife-Sister Trick, Part 1 and Part 2.
6. Genesis 16:6-9.