Weekly Shabbat parsha thoughts - Vayera - 11.6.2009

This week’s parsha gives us a fascinating set of bookends.

We start with Abraham talking with HaShem – stopping the conversation to go welcome guests, taking them in and finding out that they are caring for heavenly visitors and are promised a son. The end of the parsha tells the infamous story of the binding of Isaac. This is still amongst the most disturbing and memorable stories in our torah.

These stories both talk about faith – but their juxtaposition speaks of the importance of placement of faith. The binding of Isaac talks of the importance of faith and belief in HaShem – but the blind nature of it and the unspeakable act always sits uncomfortable.

The placement of blind faith at the beginning of any journey will always lead to a great deal of discomfort. In the opening story Abraham puts proper treatment of people and behavior before faith and is welcoming to his earthly guest – does not ignore them and he is rewarded with the gift of a child.

Faith while important must be placed as a backdrop of our interaction. It must always be there but not driving us at every step. What our faith teaches us is that faith is a powerful tool and statement. But its placement within our lives leads us to very different places. Faith, common sense and reason must work together.

When put inside a context of the world in which we live it gives us great rewards and figuratively (or in this story literally) brings HaShem and blessing into our house and into our lives. When that is not in balance we lead ourselves to the precipice of disaster where only something extraordinary can save us.

So as we interact with the world as Jews we must remember the very important and very powerful impact of faith. Without faith we of course have nothing. All of our lives and anyone’s belief has a component of faith. Even an atheist takes it on faith that there is no god (they can no more “know” than a believer – it is taken on faith) – faith is omnipresent in our lives. It is a truth of being a finite being within an infinite world. Faith allows us to understand the edges of reality that go beyond our finite existence.

Given its unavoidable reality we must be aware of how it can be used. If you ignore it you are closing your eyes to the reality of the world and will be stepping through the world with danger. If you put it first and only you will (by the very nature of faith) be living on the edges and always risk falling off. Faith gives us structure and borders between that which we know and that we can never know – reason, common sense and the rules of how we treat each other is grounded center our faith protects. If we live in that center and we are surrounded by faith we are following in the footsteps of our forefathers, learning from their lessons and will have invited HaShem into our lives.

Shabbat Shalom