Vayera
15 Cheshvan 5774 /
Oct. 18-19, 2013
In this week’s portion, Vayera, we find tons of action!
God visits Abraham 3 days after his circumcision (at age
99!), and Abraham leaves God in order to run and welcome strangers (hoping to
offer them hospitality) – a powerful statement about the value our tradition
places on welcoming others! Sarah laughs
when she hears these strangers (who are really angels) state that she’ll give
birth within the year to a son, Abraham negotiates with God over the lives of
innocent inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his family are rescued when
those evil cities are destroyed, Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt, Lot’s
daughters get him drunk on back-to-back nights and get pregnant by him, Abraham
again lies about Sarah being his sister to a foreign king, Sarah gives birth to
Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael are sent away, God tells Abraham to offer his son
Isaac as a sacrifice and Abraham is about to do so until a heavenly voice calls
out and tells him not to. Exhale.
As part of his negotiation with God, due to his concern for
innocents being killed along with the wicked, Abraham starts by getting God to
agree that if there were 50 righteous people in the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah, God would refrain from destroying them. After a bit more needling, Abraham finally
gets God to agree to 10. If there were
10 righteous people in the two cities, God would refrain from destroying
them. Ultimately there were not 10, and
the cities are destroyed (but, due to Abraham’s merit, Lot is saved along with
his wife and two unmarried daughters).
This number of 10 has continued to be prominent in our
Jewish tradition, as 10 is the number we associate with a minyan – in essence, a quorum.
There are certain Jewish rituals that can only be done when a minyan is present, further emphasizing
the tradition’s perspective that being part of a larger community is an
essential component in leading a full Jewish life.
What does this mean for us in an era of
hyper-individualization? For those of us
in the liberal Jewish community, where self-fulfillment is often heralded (“learn
about and then take on those mitzvot that you find meaning in”), how do we build
that a true sense of community if everyone is doing their own thing? Is homogeneity of practice a necessity when
building community?
What makes for a community?
Does a community require shared expectations? Can people really commit to communal
expectations if their own practices are constantly evolving and don’t necessary
mesh with the expectations of others, who arguably derive their expectations
from their own practices?
Or can a community be formed due to a shared communal value
of “trying things out and constantly seeking to learn and grow” – even if that
means that there might be disparate practices within that community?
I would argue that such a community can not only exist, but
has the potential to thrive, although it admittedly may complicate things at
times. I can imagine an amazing
community formed around the shared values of exploration, learning and growth.
What do you think?
What makes for a community?
Is like-minded philosophy enough, or must there be
like-minded action? What does such
action - if any - look like?
This Shabbat, reflect on what kind of community you either
are, or would like to be, a part of. Notice how some of our practices today (e.g. praying
with a minyan) are derived from our
holy texts, and seek to learn what other types of contemporary practices are
also textually rooted. Strive to be like
Abraham, standing against injustice and negotiating on behalf of those you don’t
know personally.
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