Avraham the Avatar

Avraham the Avatar

Oct 7, 2009 By Carol K. Ingall | Commentary | Vayera

Although many of us recognize the word avatar as a representation of the self in computer games (a “mini-me,” or so my granddaughter tells me), in fact the term originates in Hindu mythology. An avatar is a personification or embodiment of a divine principle. While we traditionally refer to Avraham as avinu, our father, perhaps we would get a more nuanced view of this biblical hero by imagining Avraham as an avatar.

Read More
In Every Moment, the Choice Is Ours

In Every Moment, the Choice Is Ours

Oct 16, 2013 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera

Sight and vision play an important role in the two opening narratives of Parashat Vayera.

Read More
Going Toward the Present

Going Toward the Present

Nov 11, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Vayera

Martin Buber, the great 20th-century Jewish theologian, observed a powerful literary connection between the beginning of Abraham’s life and the end. God first speaks to Abraham suddenly, seemingly without introduction, and commands: “Go forth (lekh lekha) from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). With these few words, God introduces God’s Self to Abraham and it is with these words that their relationship is founded.

Read More
Planting Trees, Planting Hesed

Planting Trees, Planting Hesed

Oct 31, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera

Just after the expulsion of Hagar and immediately before the binding of Isaac, a curious and somewhat cryptic episode appears in Genesis 21.

Read More
Prolepsis: How the Bible Tells Us the Future

Prolepsis: How the Bible Tells Us the Future

Oct 31, 2012 By David Marcus | Commentary | Vayera

Regular screen watchers know that if in an opening scene the camera pans in on a detail like a dagger or a bicycle, then that detail—the dagger or the bicycle—will somehow have an important role to play later on in the movie. Known as foreshadowing, this cinematic technique has its parallel in literature in the rhetorical device known as prolepsis, which indicates a future event that is presumed to have occurred.

Read More
A Hand to Hold

A Hand to Hold

Oct 16, 2013 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Vayera

Her beautiful 16-year-old Ishmael lying whimpering nearby from mortal thirst and her own death close at hand, Hagar—in Genesis 21:15–18—is about as pitiable as one might imagine.

Read More
An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the JTS Library

An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the JTS Library

Nov 7, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayera

The Hebrew Bible in which this engraved frontispiece is found was printed in Venice in 1739 at the request of a physician named Isaac Foa. In addition to the Hebrew text, it contains Italian explanations of difficult passages. The engraver, Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), illustrated many non-Jewish works as well as notable borders for megillot, and later became known for his scholarly writing on natural history.

Read More
Ultimate Values and the Akedah Story

Ultimate Values and the Akedah Story

Oct 30, 2015 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Vayera

Can there be anything left to say about the Akedah, perhaps the most discussed and analyzed story in the Torah? Clearly if this were simply the story of an old man who hears voices and travels to a nearby mountain with his son in order to kill him there, and who, at the last moment, sees a ram and kills it instead, we would not still be fascinated talking about the story more than two millennia later. No, this is an allegory. . . and therein lies it survival and its power, and our task is to find meaning in the story for ourselves and for our lives.

Read More