Vayera: Near death experience

 

Vayera: Near death experience

 

The theme of rescue from (near) death by angels runs through this week’s parsha.  Lot is saved from the fire and brimstone that destroyed the four cities of the Jordan Valley, Hagar and Ishmael are saved from dying of thirst as they wander in the desert of their banishment. Isaac is saved, at the last moment, from his father, Abraham’s, religious zeal.

 

Rescue from death is a revelation.  It is related to the name of the parsha: Vayerah: and he appeared. Gd appeared to Abraham.  Abraham had a revelation. He is informed that Sarah will bear his heir. The impending inspection and probable destruction of Sodom and it neighbors is revealed to him.

 Abraham has nothing to do with Sodom.  When offered its riches, he turned them down, he divested.  His nephew (and ward) Lot now lived in Sodom, but Abraham does not plead for Lot’s life. Abraham asks for justice. This justice consists of the power of the righteous.  The righteous not only justify their own life, but they should also have the power to save the city - if their concentration is high enough, of there are enough of them.  Does this place an obligation on the righteous to redirect the city away from its evil ways; or does their very existence protect a broader population by virtue of their tolerance?

 

The requisite number of righteous is not found and Sodom is destroyed. But Lot and a portion of his family are saved, despite their ambivalence.  וַֽיִּתְמַהְמָ֓הּ  Still he delayed. With a shalsheleth cantillation. Lot manages to save one of the five cities scheduled for destruction… at least temporarily. Lot and his daughters become the founders of the Moab and Ammon nations.

 

When Sarah has her long-awaited son, Isaac, she insists that his rival half-brother, Ishmael be banished. Her nephew, Lot, had been banished and had kept the Divine protection through his connection with Abraham. Presumably Ishmael would also survive and flourish in his own way after he was sent away. That is what happens, but first Hagar and Ishmael nearly die of thirst because of their expulsion and, perhaps, because the well Abraham expected to be available to them had been destroyed by the Philistines. The water of rescue is revealed to them by an angel. Another rescue leading to the founding of a great people.

The story of Hagar in the desert may have weighed on the Israelites as they emerged from Egypt into that desert.  They would be relying on Divine guidance for life-sustaining water.  People had ides of thirst in that desert.

 

The life-threatening experience seems to be required for founding a nation. Ishmael and Lot had theirs, could Isaac become a link in the chain without one?  The necessity is fulfilled by the instruction to offer a sacrifice on the mountain of revelation, the place I will show you  הַמֹּרִיָּ֑ה .  The sacrificial knife is coming down upon Isaac’s throat when the angel calls out and saves his life … and the replacement ram is revealed.

וַיִּשָּׂ֨א אַבְרָהָ֜ם אֶת־עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ וְהִנֵּה־אַ֔יִל אַחַ֕ר נֶאֱחַ֥ז בַּסְּבַ֖ךְ

When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns.

The subsequent passage, naming the descendants of Milcah and Nachor, Abraham’s brother, culminates in Rivkah, the future wife of Isaac.  This juxtaposition reinforces the near-death experience as an element of nation founding.

 

The experience of mortal threat can reveal a person’s potential destiny. Special people move forward and fulfill that destiny. There is no easy way