A BISSEL TORAH: VAYEIRAH: I HAD ONE OF THE WINNING TICKETS
By: Suri Davis
When I told my children last Shabbos that I had purchased a ticket in the $1.6BB lottery, they laughed and said, what does it matter Ema, you love work anyway. Yes it’s true. My office is a few blocks away from my home, so I can be home for my children when they leave for school and return, and anything in between, and there usually was, when the kids were young.
There were some reasons to purchase the lottery, chief among them is my desire to go back to school and get a Ph.D in an area in Judaic Studies, and I told this to my children, and they shook their heads knowingly.
I learned in response to the question of how was your day, that the really best answer was uneventful, i.e., we are bh all well, and there are no unexpected urgencies and emergencies. So I keep thinking about what it is that I wanted from the lottery ticket I bought, and I realized, I had the winning lottery ticket. Lo mehadvash, vlo mehaoketz/not from the honey and not from the stinger, let me remain under the radar.
This torah portion and haftorah are filled with life-changing events, for better or worse. Looking at Abraham’s life, there were times he was in his tent, and there were times he was on the move. Twice when he entered Egypt, his wife’s, Sarah’s, life was at stake. When the angels came to visit Abraham and they asked for Sarah, Abraham replied, she is in the tent. When she was told that in her old age she was going to give birth, she laughed, the angels were angered at her seeming lack of faith.
Let’s take a look at the other women in this week’s torah portion and haftorah. There was Hagar, who had a son Ishmael. Hagar was Sarah’s maidservant. When Sarah couldn’t give birth, she gave Hagar to Abraham so they could have a child together. After Sarah gave birth to Isaac, Ishmael was evil to Isaac and Sarah asked Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away into the desert. In there disagreement, G-d intervenes, and tells Abraham to listen to Sarah. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away, and Ishmael is dying of thirst, when an angel sees them and saves their lives.
There were the two daughters of Lot. Lot lived in Sodom, known for its brutal treatment of guests and each other. Lot defies the norm in Sodom, and invites two guests/angels into his home. When the community finds out, they storm his home looking to kill the guests. Lot pleads with the crowd to take his two maiden daughters instead. Lot had four daughters. Two were married. Lot had a wife. The two married daughters did not escape because their husbands laughed at the angels who said they were going to destroy Sodom. Lot took is maiden daughters and his wife and escaped. The angels warned them not to look back as they left, but Lot’s wife turned back and became a pillar of salt. We learn from Rashi that this sin befitted her in that she sinned in denying her guests salt for their food.
Lot and his two daughters are saved, and they hide in a cave. The daughters think that the whole world was destroyed, and that it was up to them to repopulate it, so they got their father drunk, and became pregnant. One gave birth to Moab and the other Ammon. Their births are paradoxically good and bad. When the Jews came out of Egypt looking for bread and water, Ammon and Moab did not give them any. Ironic how history repeats itself in that the daughters escape from a community that was destroyed because they treated others poorly, and Ammon and Moab continued in that tradition. On the other hand, G-d blessed the union of the eldest child in that from Moab will ultimately come the Messiah who will bring a complete redemption to the world.
The torah portion ends with the birth of Rivkah, whose body and soul enter the world, just as Sarah’s soul is leaving. We know nothing of Rivkah, other than her birth is mentioned, so it must be a significant event.
Looking at the Haftorah, there are two additional women. The wife of Ovadiah who is left penniless and is about to be enslaved for being unable to pay her debts. She asks the prophet Elisha to help her. He tells her to gather all the vessels in her home and take the small amount of oil she already has, and to start pouring it into all the vessels. She has faith in G-d and His prophet and she starts pouring until all her vessels are filled with valuable olive oil which she is able to sell and from the proceeds pay off her creditor and escape jail and poverty.
Lastly, we have Shunamis, a married barren women, who desperately wanted a child. She extended her home for the prophet Elisha, providing him with special quarters for his visits. To thank her, he blessed her with a blessing for a son. She had a son, but one day he had a headache and died in his mother’s arms. Without telling anyone else, including her husband, she went to Elisha and he saw that her son died, and went to her son and revived him.
From Sarah to Hagar to Lots daughters, Rivkahs birth, Ovadia’s wife and Shunamis these are women who were in the tent, not central figures in and of themselves, no books named after them, but they function to show real faith and insight, belief and strength. They had to be born and their stories told in Genesis, for we learn that all stories in Genesis are paradigms for all generations to come. They have brains and grit and faith and inner strength, whose merit carry us forth in our generation today and inspire us to see more than what is there. Like the story of a husband and wife on a farm. The rooster cockadoodles and they wake. The man sees darkness, says its still night and goes back to sleep, the woman can see the crack of dawn and the beginning of a new day. That is Binah Yesarah, a sixth sense, so to speak. It is within each one of us, especially after age 40, we just have to be in touch with it, and take it in hand to utilize in our daily lives.
Good Shabbos.
-Suri