One Torah for All

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VaYera

Summary: This is one of the most complex parashiyot in the Torah. As it opens, Abraham is sitting at the opening of his tent, when he notices three "men" approaching. The men, who are actually messengers from Hashem, accept Abraham's offer of hospitality and then announce to Abraham and Sarah that Sarah will bear a child in her old age. Sarah (as would most 90 year old women) responds to this news by laughing. Afterwards, Abraham accompanies the three visitors as they proceeded on their journey. Two of the divine messengers make their way toward Sodom, while Hashem makes known to Abraham the plan to destroy the sinful city. Abraham debates with HaShem, earnestly interceding on behalf of the doomed city. But after protracted haggling, when not even ten righteous people are found in Sodom, HaShem proceeds with the city's destruction. Abraham's nephew Lot, who tried to protect the messengers from the Sodomites' abuse, escapes the destruction with his two daughters. Later, hidden in a cave, thinking that they are the only ones left in the world, Lot's daughter's ply him with drink and sleep with him, hoping to repopulate the world. Abraham then moves southward, and settles near Gerar. Here, with Abimelech the King of Gerar, there is a repeat of the earlier wife/sister deception with Pharaoh (Gen 20). Soon after this event, Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, who is now a hundred years old, circumcises his new son with great celebration. However Sarah now becomes deeply jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael, and insists that Abraham send them away. Abraham consults with HaShem, who assures him that Ishmael too will become the father of a great nation. Next, after a gap of many years, we see Abraham put to his greatest test. HaShem appears to Abraham and commands him to go and offer Isaac as a sacrifice. They travel together to Mount Moriah (later to be the site of the Temple in Jerusalem) where Abraham binds up Isaac and raises his knife to slaughter him. But he is stopped by HaShem, who provides a ram as a substitute. Abraham then returns to his home at Beer Sheba.

Chayei Sara - the "life of Sarah"- begins with Sarah's death. Abraham negotiates with Ephron the Hitite to purchase the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron as a place to bury her. Abraham then sends Eliezer, his trusted servant, to Aram Naharayim, to find a wife for his son Isaac. When Eliezer arrives at his destination, he rests by a well, and there he devises a test so that he will know the appropriate woman. Rebecca, Isaac's first cousin once removed, passes the test, and Eliezer presents her with gifts. The servant then goes to meet her family, who agree to the match, but only after confirming Rebecca's own agreement. Before she departs, Rebecca's family bless her, and then Eliezer brings her to Canaan. Isaac and Rebecca fall immediately in love, and are married. We are then told that, in his old ages, Abraham is married again to Keturah (some say she was Hagar) and has 6 more sons. At the end of the portion we are told of Abraham's death and that his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, bury him together in the Cave of Machpelah. As a postscript, we are also told of the descendants of Ishmael, and of his death.

My father never lived to see his dream come true of an all-Yiddish-speaking Canada.
-David Steinberg

I once wanted to become an atheist but I gave up. They have no holidays.
-Henny Youngman

Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.
-Mel Brooks

The time is at hand when the wearing of a prayer shawl and skullcap will not bar a man from the White House, unless, of course, the man is Jewish.
-Jules Farber

Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York, you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be a goy even if you are Jewish.
-Lenny Bruce

The remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
-Calvin Trillin

Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil!
-Golda Meir

Even a secret agent can't lie to a Jewish mother.
-Peter Malkin

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
-Benjamin Disraeli

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it.
-Sam Levenson

Don't be humble; you are not that great.
-Golda Meir

I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I had lost exactly two weeks.
-Joe E. Lewis

A spoken contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
-Sam Goldwyn

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
-Woody Allen

Whoever called it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.
-Groucho Marx

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.
-Oscar Levant

Too bad that all the people who know how to run this country are busy driving taxis and cutting hair.
-George Burns

A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.
-Milton Berle

I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.
-Sam Goldwyn

Television is a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.
-Ernie Kovacs

When I bore people at a party, they think it is their fault.
-Henry Kissinger

JEWISH WISDOM:

Fear builds walls to bar the light.  - Baal Shem Tov

Engage in Torah and charity even with an ulterior motive, for that habit of right doing will lead also to right motivation.  - Talmud: Pesahim, 50b

The sword comes into the world because of justice delayed and because of justice perverted.- Ethics of the Fathers 5:8

Ever since Rabbi Akiba used the Passover seder to plan a revolutionary struggle against the Roman occupiers, the Jews have used the seder to begin concrete work on tikkun (healing and transformation).

- Rabbi Michael Lerner, the Tikkun Magazine Passover supplement 2006

To work out ends of righteousness and love are you called; not merely to enjoy or suffer.

- S.R. Hirsch, "Nineteen Letters," 1836

“Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.”  Golda Meir

The worship of God, though desirable as an end itself, can somehow never be in the right spirit, unless it impels one to the service of man.  - Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan

Concentrate on three things and you will not fall into the grip of sin. Know from where you came, where you are going, and before Whom you will have to give account and reckoning.- Pirkei Avot 3:1

We cannot learn from general principles: there may be exceptions.  - Johanan, Talmud: Kiddushin

A truly generous man is he that always gives, whether it be much or little, before he is asked.- Orchot Tsadiqim

The best security for old age: respect your children.- Sholem Asch

 A Jew can be Jewish with God, against God, but not without God.- Elie Wiesel

He who promotes his own honor at the expense of his neighbor's has no portion in the world to come.- Judah b. Hanina, Genesis Rabbah

Even if all the world tells you, "You are righteous," consider yourself a sinner.  - Rabbi Simlai

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism and falsehood. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.- Abraham Joshua Heschel, "On Prayer"

Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.- Maimonides, "Tzavaah"

Seek the good in everyone, and reveal it, bring it forth.- Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1811), "Likutey Moharan"

Just as we love ourselves despite the faults we know we have, so should we love our neighbors despite the faults we see in them.- Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov

A man should never impose an overpowering fear upon his household.  - Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 6b

If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.- The Talmud

Love unaccompanied by criticism is not love....Peace unaccompanied by reproof is not peace.- Genesis Rabbah 54:3

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