Vayera

I spend a lot of time thinking about parenting. I imagine you do, too. Even if you don’t have children of your own we all have parents. Whether they met or fell short of our emotional and spiritual needs, they packed our emotional baggage and programmed the patterns that dictate how we live and love. Some of us are luckier than others but, like Tolstoy, I am not so interested in the happy fortunate few because they do not appear in today’s parsha.

Commentaries on Vayera often focus on the charms of hospitality, obedience to God and those terribly naughty people who are not us, rather than examine the dysfunctional dynamics of families who might be us. These stories are sugar-coated when taught in Hebrew school because they are pretty scary in a Grimm fairy tale kind of way: replete with violence, adult situations and explicit sexual material they plunge the deep waters underneath the family romance. There’s a Philip Larkin poem, which I cannot quote fully here due to its use of a particular epithet, about how mum and dad mess you up. The verse continues, “They may not mean to but they do/They fill you with the faults they had/And add some extra just for you.” Throughout this parsha there is a disconnect between parents and children, husbands and wives. Parental mishigos runs the gamut – they love too much and they love too little, they are unable to see when those nearest and dearest need their outstretched hand.

After Abraham haggles with God, it is determined that Lot and his family are the only decent people in all of Sodom and Gomorrah. If Lot is the guy worth saving, is it any wonder the whole place is burned by sulfurous fire? In a previous episode, Lot abandoned Abraham’s westward spiritual journey to go east, to the fertile plains, and chooses to settle in Sodom. The Zohar claims this land was well-watered everywhere and possessed all the luxuries of the world, yet its inhabitants were unwilling to share them with others. Even if he maintains a shadow of his uncle’s righteousness, Lot becomes spoiled by the easy life. Along with its pride and refusal to strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, Ezekiel claims that the iniquity of Sodom lay in its fullness of bread and abundance of idleness. This is the curse of over-privileged children: with everything handed to them, they never learn how to work; never having to struggle, they can neither grasp the difference between right and wrong nor develop a sense of compassion, the ability to see through another’s eyes.

Lot is lacking in regard, the ability to see and understand what really matters. Throughout millennia, Jews have suffered the fate of Lot, having to pick up and go, leaving behind homes, luxuries and livelihoods. It is our regard for family and God that has sustained us through this long history of exile, carrying within us what matters most. Lot is blind to this, even after being nearly trampled by his neighbors, he dilly-dallies until a divine messenger takes him by the hand and tugs him away.

Lot’s lack of regard is illustrated by two graphic incidents involving his youngest daughters: his voluntary offering of them to pacify the depraved townspeople and their incestuous acts with him following the calcification of their mother. As a woman and a mother, I am totally repulsed by the multitude of commentators who consider prostituting his daughters in lieu of his guests as good hospitality. Yes, offering strangers a safe house is the right thing to do and Miss Manners certainly frowns on handing the company over to a rapacious mob, but Lot seriously bastardizes the concept of women and children first. Even in a culture that undervalues women it is the natural order to put one’s own life on the line to protect one’s family, in fact, it is the primal role of the male in a patriarchal society. What use is a male lion that does not protect his pride from predators? Yet, unprompted, Lot immediately offers to exchange his daughters, treating them as a commodity to barter. He does not even attempt to negotiate or dissuade the Sodomites, let alone try to hide his guests, defend his homestead á la John Wayne or, the mark of an truly exemplary host, offer himself up instead.

Abraham makes a similar selfish blunder twice. Sojourning in foreign lands, he omits his marital status and reports that Sarah is his sister in order to avoid possible endangerment to himself. With Pharaoh, Abraham offers no excuse for putting Sarah in a position that might compromise her fidelity and safety or question the paternity of any future offspring. When Avimelech indignantly cries, “You have done to me things that ought not to be done. What was your purpose in doing this?” Abraham tries to vindicate his error by claiming, “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place.” He blames his behavior on the place in which he finds himself, justifying his lack of consideration for a loved one on circumstance, as if love and morality were conditional. Many commentators try to clear our patriarch of lying, pulling a Chinatown defense that she sort of is his sister, but Ramban states that Abraham sinned, his actions were unequivocally wrong.

We will never know if Abraham’s potential sacrifice of Sarah’s virtue had any repercussions on their relationship, although I wonder when Sarah says that God has brought her laughter that her life alone with Abraham was devoid of laughter, her lack not simply barrenness but something else missing. The Torah is explicit regarding the detrimental effects of Lot’s action on his daughters. A new bathroom book recently made its way into our house: How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career. I couldn’t help but think of Lot while reading the advice on family, “Ignore your kids. Specifically, dads, ignore your daughters. Nothing will ruin your life like surfing online one day and coming across a gonzo movie starring your little girl. Preparing for that moment, however, takes a lifetime of inattention. It’s best if you stay emotionally distant and start the verbal abuse at a very early age.”

Lot’s lifetime of inattention comes home to roost after he heads to the hills, to mix metaphors, where his daughters violate the ultimate taboo. Although they claim “there is not a man on earth to consort with us,” they did have a layover in Zoar. Later sources report that all the towns of the plain were destroyed and therefore their aim was true. Bereshit Rabbah even alleges that God left the wine in the cave as a divine endorsement of the daughters’ seduction. If God supported this violation of the Noahide laws, then I imagine God would have attached a note to the wine, “By the way, you aren’t the last people on earth. Skip that whole incest thing.” Regardless of what they naively believe, the daughters have a twisted and incomplete sense of morality. They know enough that they must get their father drunk, not that they ought not have sex with him. But I do doubt these stunted women had the power to make a grown man drink wine. At some point, a father should know when to say no. Although Lot does not remember when they lay down or when they rose, he got blindingly drunk two nights in a row. I am reminded of the commercial, “I learned it from watching you.”

Then there is Lot’s wife. The Talmud instructs any who see her to give praise and thanks. Is this because she is a monument to the miracles that God performs, or a memorial that a wicked place that is no more? Viewing her metamorphosis as a mere punishment, a sign that in looking back Lot’s wife shared the sins of Sodom, is an oversimplification implying that she was all bad. The Sanhedrin declared that the people of Sodom do not have a portion in world to come. Targun Yerushalmi states that Lot’s wife will remain a pillar of salt until the time the dead are brought back to life. Although she does not escape she is exempt from the decree of eternal damnation.

Attributing her backwards glance to her willingness to leave physically but not spiritually ignores that she left behind two daughters. I imagine Lot’s wife looks back not longing for hedonism but longing to see her other children behind her, escaping their doom. Perhaps she wonders if she had been a better parent would they have heeded the call to flee. There is the possibility that she chooses her destiny, unable to live with the knowledge that she failed her children. She cannot bear the thought that she won’t see them again or – like Orpheus glancing back at Eurydice – that they might think she no longer loves them in their fallen condition. Witnessing divine destruction is bound to have a transformative effect and, as we know from our Ovid, we transform into our essence – in this case, a preservative. A mother’s role is to care for her family and preserve traditions. Now she will forever be a guidepost reminding others to mind their children, to look forward to their futures as well as to the past. She is eternally stuck until the olam haba as a memorial to her ineffective love.

Hagar also loves ineffectively. Full of pride, she is unable to think of a way out of her predicaments, to stop her blubbering and grow up. She is boastful when pregnant and responds to harshness by running away, like a child rather than one with child. Cast out into the wilderness with Ishmael, she runs out of the supplies with which she was provided and is unable to clear her head enough to forage although water is right in front of her. Fatalistic, she lacks the maternal strengths of resourcefulness and maintaining clarity in life-threatening situations. She is unable to see the well for her tears. Until God literally makes her open her eyes, Hagar would allow herself and her child to die rather than take him by the hand and make her hand strong in his.

Sarah does provide a strong hand and a keen eye in her son’s life and destiny, pushing potential rivalry off the scene. Sarah conceived Ishmael’s conception, but the bond between them is more fairy tale step-parent than surrogate mother. Ishmael is a constant reminder of the sexual past between her husband and another woman. Even if it’s a thing of the past, as long as he is around Abraham has a connection to his baby momma. Sarah’s protective instincts are further aroused when she sees Ishmael and Isaac playing together. Rashi suggests this play had a sexual element to it whereas others believe that Ishmael was just a big bully and not a suitable playmate for Isaac. Another reading is that Ishmael was playing at being Isaac, acting as Abraham’s rightful heir. Even in make believe Sarah will not let this happen.

Sarah is the crucial player in the continuance of the covenant. Even if Abraham has parental feelings for Ishmael, God is clear that it is through Sarah that the promise of numerous offspring and everlasting covenant shall continue. God has a radical feminist moment: women are not interchangeable vessels. Maternity is as important as paternity.

On topics maternal, there is a midrashic tradition fixated on Sarah’s breasts. To prove that Isaac is not some foundling Abraham and Sarah are passing off as their own, or to share God given bounty, Sarah nurses all the noblewomen’s babies at Isaac’s weaning feast with, and I quote, “milk pouring out like two jets of water.” In The Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison describes mother’s milk as a thread of light. Here, too, milk is not just nutrition but an outpouring of love. After waiting nearly a century, Sarah is overflowing with laughter and with milk, is it any wonder she is overzealous in protecting her son? Someone has to be, since Abraham is not.

Isaac is the archetype of the submissive son, living his life overshadowed by his father. A parent seeking to dominate his child is in danger of sacrificing him to parental hopes and plans. There is a Hasidic saying that if your son has a talent to be a baker, don’t ask him to be a doctor; we have seen Dead Poets Society, we know the ending for unbendingly plotting a child’s life. Isaac’s independence is crippled, partly by an overprotective mother but more by a father who values him only inasmuch as he is the fulfillment of God’s promise or a tool for doing God’s will.

Contrary to Rav Zimmerman, when God says to Abraham kill me a son, Abe does not say, “Man, you must be putting me on.” He impassively agrees. All the tractates and midrash, novels and songs have not reconciled me to this story, nor will they ever, as the akedah is purposefully ambiguous. The story, like Abraham’s hand, remains suspended. We will never know if Abraham would have gone through with it, whether his faith overruled his fatherly love, whether he trusted God would come through with the promise of making him a mighty nation through this son, whether he was testing God as much as God was testing him. I am a mother, not a prophet, so if I am to share an iota of Abraham’s faith and obedience I have to believe that God set this trial because showing is stronger than telling. Cue Leonard Cohen, “You who build these altars now/to sacrifice these children/you musn’t do this anymore.” Thus, the binding of Isaac was proof that God is a different kind of god, a moral god who would never exact a price in worship, other than looking out for those we love and accepting the guidance of God’s hand.