Justice for All?
Parashat Vayera
October 24, 2015

THIS week's parashah opens with Abraham's hospitality to complete strangers, the promise that Sarah will conceive and bear a son. It then goes immediately to Abraham negotiating with God to protect any innocent people in the wicked city of Sodom. The parashah concludes with Abraham immediately fulfilling God's command to sacrifice his own son, which God does not do when Abraham demonstrates his faithfulness. What's the connection?

The parashah sets the tone with Abraham's complete hospitality to total strangers. The midrash says that Abraham and Sarah's tent sat at a crossroads and was open in four directions, immediately welcoming any passerby to enter, eat and rest.

God shows similar kindness to Sarah and Abraham and gives them a child when they previously could not conceive.

The Torah follows with Abraham's defense of any innocent people in Sodom, that the innocent would not be slain with the guilty. Abraham aggressively importunes God to reverse course and leave all alive if even 10 innocent people are found in Sodom.

A few chapters later, God commands Abraham to slaughter his only son, the gift he received in Chapter 18, as a sacrifice at God's command. Abraham immediately complies. Why does Abraham so defend complete strangers in Sodom when he is so ready and willing to sacrifice to God the most beloved relationship he possesses?

To understand we must compare Abraham to the story of Noah which we read two weeks ago. Noah was commanded to save himself and his family and allow the entire world to die. He complies without uttering a single word of complaint. He never questions whether the innocent will be slain with the guilty, as Abraham does. The name Noah means comfortable or complacent, and indeed, "as is his name so is he."

But the covenant is struck with Abraham, who asks that God comport with God's own laws of justice. What chutzpah to remind the Creator of the rules of Creation: the innocent have a right to life and may not be forced to bear responsibility for the sins of their neighbors.

Abraham's son, on the other hand, is guilty of nothing. But, as Bruria will later explain to Rabbi Meir when their two sons die on the same day, "Someone left us a security for us to keep for him, and now he has come to reclaim it. Shall we return it to him?" In other words, Isaac was a gift that did not belong to them, and could be reclaimed at any time. Abraham demonstrated his faith in God's justice and allowed the return of the gift without question.

The man who argued so arduously for justice when it was not on his own behalf, turned around and demonstrated the willingness to be hurt when the proper owner of his most precious article came to retrieve it. Such is the nature of God's first servant through the covenant.

I cannot understand how the descendants of Abraham can punish the innocent with the guilty, when the progenitor of the Jewish people demonstrated so clearly that God demands justice. We cannot lump everyone in a national or racial group together. Each person has the right to be charged with his/her own actions, and we cannot punish the innocent with the guilty.

When the Zionists first debated a Jewish State, they debated what the nature of the State would be. Will Jews be able to govern others better than they were governed? Can Jews rise to the responsibilities, challenges and inconveniences of sovereignty?

Israel claims to be a Jewish State. But it cannot ignore Jewish ethics as they apply to the stranger and claim to be Jewish. It's one or the other. Either we act as Jewish ethics demand, or there is no truly Jewish State. That means that everyone who lives within the State must be treated with justice for all, and judged according to their own actions.

Genesis teaches us how the Founder of Judaism treated the stranger. Modern Jews can do no less.