Vayera: Detection

 As the title suggests, this  parsha is filled with visions. At critical moments, characters become aware of things  they desperately need ... that are already there. 

In medical school I attended a lecture. It was one of the most memorable and enetrtaining experiences of mu life.  The lecture was given  by  Eric Kandell.  He would subsequently win a Nobel Prize.  The lecture was called "Seeing is believing; touching is the real thing." One  point I took away from the talk was that what we think we see is a combination of what is there and what we bring to the data. The brain is programmed to imagine edges and faces. Hints of these shapes are enough, our imagination supplies the rest in a systematic manner. 

The parsha deals with things that are not seen; they are overlooked. Awareness is a gift from heaven; in moments of need this cognizance is a miracle. When Abraham needs a substitute for his son Isaac as an offering he notices the ram caught in his horns.  When Hagar becomes certain that she and her son, Ishmael, will die of thirst. and angel has her notice a spring .. and they are saved. 

Two years ago, during an outdoor Neilah service on the Covid Yom Kippur, it became too dark to read the words.  Just then, the lights came on in the park. 

 A major theme in the parsha is how parents sacrifice children. Lot, Abraham's nephew, who has returned to Sodom after his rescue from capture by the four  kings, takes two strangers into his home, and the aggressive, violent people of Sodom want them. Lot offers his virgin daughters instead ( the offer is refused by the Sodomites).  He is willing to sacrifice his daughters for the safety of the strangers.  Lot has very strange values.  There may be some murky relationship to subsequent events in that family. 

Everyone sacrifices Ishmael. Sarah had given Hagar, her servant, to Abraham as a wife on the condition that she be the parent of the offspring, Ishamael. When she sees him as a competitor for the legacy, against the issue of her body, Isaac, she demands his exile.  Abraham, Ishamael's father ( on the direction of the Divine) allows the expulsion. When Hagar sees a terrible death by thirst looming, she separates from the boy.  Divine intervention, pointing out the overlooked spring saves Ishamael. 

Abraham's  zealous  obedience to his understanding of the instructions to  sacrifice Isaac, to kill him and burn his body, is a complex story. Abraham's obedience to the most heinous instruction becomes a lasting credit to his offspring. It is the identification of an alternative solution, the overlooked ram, that becomes our model. Keep the commandment, but don't sacrifice the child. 

Today, some friends are using our house as the venue to circumcize  their eight day old son. It was not until my grandsons were circumcized on my lap that I appreciated how crazy is this custom, and how wonderful it is to fulfill this commandment of the invisible  and inaudible  Gd.