Parsha for Kids: Vayera 2022
Below is the transcript for this week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Vayera 2022.
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Episode 4:
Hello! My name is Chana, and this is Parsha for Kids. The Parsha of the week is Vayera. The word “Vayera” means “And He appeared.”
Who appeared? To whom? And why?
The answer is that God appeared to Avraham. Rashi explains that this was the third day after Avraham had given himself his Brit Milah, making a sign on his body showing that he was a Jew. He was recovering from that procedure and so God came to visit him. This is because there is a special mitzvah, good deed, called Bikkur Cholim, visiting the sick. Many times in the Torah, or in the commentaries’ explanations of the Torah, we will see that God does an action so that we can learn to do that action as well. Remember that each human being was created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. Since we were created in God’s image, we are supposed to act like God.
God came to visit Avraham because Avraham was still recovering from his Brit Milah. According to Rashi, God also made the day very hot so that no guests would be traveling and thus Avraham would not need to strain himself and his health in order to host them. Hosting guests, which is also a mitzvah known as hachnasat orchim, is important work, but it is also hard work! However, Avraham loved hosting guests and offering hospitality. When God saw that Avraham was saddened about not receiving guests, God decided to send Avraham three very special guests. They looked like men- but they were really angels!
TRANSITION SOUND
This is one of the first places in the Torah where we learn a very important lesson. What something or someone looks like on the outside does not show who or what it is on the inside. Earlier, you may remember that the first woman, Chava, looked at the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and saw it was good to eat. It looked good to eat to her, but in reality, eating from that fruit was a sin. Because of that sin, Adam and Chava became mortal, which meant that one day they would die, and they needed to leave Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden.
Similarly, when Lot, Avraham’s nephew, separated from him, he moved to a city called Sodom. Sodom is described as a place that looked like the Garden of the Lord and like the land of Egypt, but as we will soon learn, what Sodom looked like was not indicative of what it was REALLY like.
Here too three men seemed to be approaching Avraham in need of hospitality. In truth, however, they were angels! We can learn a very important lesson from all of these examples. In Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, a section of the Oral Torah that was written and published at a later date, we find the adage Al tistakel b’kankan, ela b’mah she’yesh bo- do not look at the vessel, but rather at what lies within it. Sometimes you might see a golden treasure box that looks really fancy, but all that is inside is a scrap of paper. In contrast, maybe sometimes you might see a plain cardboard box, but inside there is a special gift from a family member! What matters isn’t the outside, the container, but what is inside, the essence.
It’s important to know that Avraham treated the three men that he saw like royalty even though he did not know they were angels. In life, we should treat people with respect, even when they aren’t in a high position. Avraham thought that these three travelers were idol-worshippers. Avraham, in contrast, was a monotheist, which means he worshipped one God. He could have looked down on these idol worshippers, decided not to host them, or acted like they weren’t very important. In life, sometimes people make this kind of mistake. Maybe they are not nice to the waiter at the restaurant or the Uber driver who is taking them somewhere. Maybe they act that way because they think they are better than those other people. But that was not Avraham’s way. He treated everyone as if they were special- even when he thought they were doing something wrong, like worshiping idols.
TRANSITION SOUND
Avraham invited his guests to sit down beneath his tree, which provided shade, and asked them to wash their feet. He offered them refreshment, saying he would provide them with me’at mayim, a little water, and pas lechem, a morsel of bread.
But in reality Avraham quickly went to his tent and asked his wife Sarah (whose name had been changed from Sarai to Sarah in last week’s parsha) to knead and bake several ugot, loaves of bread. He also took a calf, slaughtered it and prepared its meat, alongside cream and milk, and brought all of it to his guests.
This was much more than me’at mayim, a little water, and pas lechem, a morsel of bread!
What Avraham did was once again immortalized in Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers. Later on, a sage named Shammai would say, ‘Emor me’at v’asei harbeh,’ meaning ‘Speak little, but do much.’
This is important life advice. When Avraham told his guests he planned to give them a little water and a bit of bread, they didn’t expect much. He then wowed them and defied their expectations by providing them with fresh baked loaves of bread, delicious meat, and milk and cream. In general it is better to under-promise and over-deliver rather than claiming that you will do a lot and then perhaps not live up to those expectations. Avraham told his guests the minimum he would do but then exceeded it, offering the maximum instead.
Have you ever gone above and beyond to do something important to you? Maybe you decorated the house for a sibling’s birthday, or you turned in a wonderful project to your teacher? People are always amazed and impressed when they expect one thing but you create something even more special that shows you really cared about them or the assignment. Avraham similarly showed his guests how much he cared about them when he went out of his way to provide them with such delicious food.
TRANSITION SOUND
Avraham and Sarah were very old at this time, too old to have children. But one of the angels informed Avraham that he, the angel, would return at this time next year and that Sarah would have a son! Sarah was in the tent when this happened and she laughed to herself because this seemed so unbelievable. But God is able to do anything, including bring about miracles, and He reassured Avraham that this would really happen, and that Avraham and Sarah would have a child.
While Avraham and Sarah must have been overcome with joy and excitement about the birth of their baby, God decided to reveal some bad news to Avraham. You see, Avraham’s nephew Lot had gone to live in a city called Sodom. But God had decided that He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrarh because of their wickedness.
What did the people in Sodom do?
Before we even look at the commentaries, we can figure it out by ourselves. Remember what we learned in our previous parshiot? There are sins that are just against God, like when people build a tower to fight a war against Him, but at least they are all cooperating and working together. But then there are sins that are against man and God, like when the generation of the Mabul, or Flood, stole from one another.
If God was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in their entirety, what kind of sins were the people committing?
You guessed it! They were committing sins against man and God. The way they acted was the antithesis of practicing chesed, kindness. Instead, they practiced selfishness and cruelty. The people of Sodom believed that “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.” They also forbade people to help others.
Our Sages share vivid stories of what the people of Sodom were like. The laws of the people of the city included:
Any stranger found in the city may be robbed of his money and treated badly
It is the duty of judges in Sodom to make sure that every stranger leaves their land without any of their money
Anyone found handing food to a poor person or a stranger will be put to death
In the Talmud, the Oral Torah, Sanhedrin 109, we learn about a girl in Sodom who noticed a starving beggar and had pity on him. She hid some bread in a jar which she used to take to the well to draw water. On the way to the well, she would hand the food secretly to the poor person. The people of Sodom wondered how the poor person was still alive so they secretly watched the girl and caught her in the act. Because she had been kind, they punished her harshly.
TRANSITION SOUND
God decided to tell Avraham that He was planning to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Once he found out, Avraham had several choices.
He could have ignored what God said, instead focusing on his happiness that he would soon have a baby boy.
He could have decided that God obviously knew best, so if God was planning to do this, there was nothing Avraham could do about it.
But Avraaham did something else instead. You see, Avraham cared about people. We know this because of how he went out of his way to invite the angels who looked like men and to feed them a large and sumptuous meal. So Avraham decided to argue with God in an effort to save Sodom.
He said, “God, will you put the righteous to death along with the wicked?” In other words, Avraham was arguing to God that it would be unfair for the good people in Sodom to die just because there were also bad people.
God said “If I find 50 righteous men in Sodom, I will forgive the entire place for their sake.”
Avraham asked, “What about 45 righteous men?”
God agreed He would not destroy the people if there were 45 righteous men.
Avraham then argued for forty, thirty, twenty and finally ten. God agreed He would not destroy Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people.
Avraham then finished speaking with God. It is not clear from the pesukim, or verses, whether Avraham understood that there were not even ten righteous people in all of Sodom, or whether he thought that surely there must be ten, and thus his efforts had saved the city.
As a side point, you may have noticed that nowadays, it is ideal to come to synagogue and pray as a member of the community. There is a special word called minyan, or quorum, that refers to ten men gathered together to pray. One of the places where we learn that we need a minimum of ten men to gather in order to pray in community is from this week’s parsha, where ten righteous men would have saved the city.
TRANSITION SOUND
Two of the angels who had visited Avraham went on to Sodom, where they encountered his nephew, Lot. Lot hosted them, but things turned nasty. The men of the city gathered around Lot’s house and demanded that he hand over his guests so that they could hurt them the way they hurt all strangers in the city. Lot did not want to do this, so he offered to send out his daughters to be hurt instead. This was the wrong thing to do, even though Lot was trying to be good, and trying to protect his guests.
The angels caused the men who had gathered around Lot’s house to be struck with blindness. They were unable to find the door and thus could not come in to seize the strangers and hurt them. The angels turned to Lot while this was happening and told him that he and his family needed to leave right away if they wanted to be saved because God would be destroying the city shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately several members of Lot’s family did not believe him when he told them the news. They just laughed at him. So the angels told Lot to take his wife and his daughters and leave the city before it was utterly destroyed.
They took hold of his hand and told him to flee - and this was important- they had exactly one rule for him and his family. The rule was: don’t turn around and don’t look back.
This rule was important. You see, while Lot had lived in Sodom, he had been influenced by their cruel behaviors. Rashi explains that he did not really deserve to be saved on his own merit, and was only being saved because he was Avraham’s nephew, and in Avraham’s merit. It would not have been right for Lot or his family members to turn around and watch as everyone else died. Even Noah, who had been righteous, was placed in a Teivah, and ark, and was not allowed to simply watch everyone else drown. It would be cruel and callous to watch people die.
God caused fire and brimstone to rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah. He overturned the cities and all the people within them died.
Lot’s wife decided to turn around and look back, and she was punished because she had broken the one rule. So God turned her into a pillar of salt.
TRANSITION SOUND
Later, Avraham and Sarah did indeed give birth to a child, called Yitzchak. Avraham was 100 years old when he was born, and Sarah was 90.
The child grew up, but all was not peaceful in their home. Remember that Sarah had asked Avraham to marry another woman named Hagar, and she had had a son as well, whose name was Yishmael. Yishmael was older than Yitzchak and he teased him. But what was worse, according to Rashi, his games became dangerous. He would shoot arrows at Yitzchak, pretending like he was only joking, but in truth he wanted Yitzchak dead. You see, as the firstborn, Yishmael believed that he was the one who ought to inherit all of Avraham’s wealth, not Yitzchak.
Sarah watched what was happening and realized that Yitzchak needed to be protected from Yishmael. She told Avraham that he needed to send Hagar and Yishmael away. Avraham was not happy about this at all, but God told him to listen to Sarah. Avraham gave Hagar water and bread and sent them away. They drank up all the water and Yishmael became thirsty. Hagar cast him aside under one of the bushes because she did not want to watch him die. She went far away from him and cried. But God spoke to her and revealed a well of water to her. Yishmael grew up in the desert and became an archer, someone who shoots arrows very well.
TRANSITION SOUND
Some time later, God came to Avraham and told him, “Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak, and go to the land of Moriah and raise him up as an olah on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
The word olah typically refers to a whole burnt offering.
After everything that Avraham had been through, how was he supposed to react to this? God had promised him a child who would inherit everything Avraham had. God had promised him that his child would grow up to have children who were as numerous as the stars. And when Avraham finally had that child in his old age, here was God demanding that Avraham kill his son.
We would expect Avraham to be angry, to fight, to argue with God, to say something. But that’s not what happens. Instead, Avraham woke up early, took two young men with him, took Yitzchak, brought along wood for a burnt offering and went to the place God told him about.
Avraham and Yitzchak went walking towards the mountain together. Yitzchak said, “My father,” and Avraham said “Here I am, my son.” Yitzchak asked, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Avraham replied, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”
Avraham’s answer here is fascinating. Is he simply trying to spare Yitzchak’s feelings, and not worry him by telling him that Yitzchak will be the sacrifice? Or did he truly believe that God would never harm a human being who had done nothing wrong, and so God really would make a lamb appear?
They came to the place that God had told Avraham about. He built the altar, arranged the wood, tied up Yitzchak and placed him on top of the wood. He then stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
Why was Avraham doing this? We know he was a kind person and cared about people. So why would he be willing to slaughter his son?
This goes back to the original lesson in Gan Eden. Remember what Adam and Chava were supposed to understand, that God was the Host and they were simply guests in the world? That’s why, when God told them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they should have listened- because they should have understood God was the Host and he was in charge and this was not their house. They had not created the world and they did not own it.
What Avraham understood on a very deep level was that God owns the world. He created the world. He created all humanity. And everything that we receive in life is a gift from God. God can give us gifts and He can take away those gifts. He is the host, and we are the guests, and that means we're allowed to use the things in the host’s house as long as He permits us to do so. But if He decides it is time for us to leave, or that we are no longer allowed to use them, we need to follow those rules.
Avraham understood that he and Sarah did not own Yitzchak. Yes, Yitzchak was their son, but he only existed because of God’s miracle. In the natural order of things, people do not have children when they are 100 and 90 years old. And so Avraham realized that God had allowed him to have this son for a little while, but now God was saying it was time to give him back to God. Because, as you may remember, Adam was created out of earth and a soul. And when people die, their body goes back to the earth- it is buried there- and their soul goes back to God. So Avraham believed that God was telling him that it was his job to give Yitzchak back. By killing Yitzchak, he would be showing that he understood that Yitzchak, along with everything in the world, belonged to God- not to him.
And so when Avraham stretched out that knife, that is what he believed. He was willing to do what Adam and Chava could not do. He was willing to accept that he was not the Host, not the Creator of the world, not the one who made the rules. He was a guest in the world, and so was Yitzchak, and if God said it was time to give Yitzchak back, then it was time.
But at the last moment, God stopped Avraham. He told him, “Now I know that you are a God fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.” But a ram was caught in a bush nearby and Avraham saw it, and he offered up that ram to God instead. And so what Avraham said came true and God did provide the lamb for the offering, just as Avraham told Yitzchak.
TRANSITION SOUND
So here’s what we learned today!
God shows us how to behave based on His own behavior. He went to visit Avraham as Avraham recovered from his Brit Milah, which shows us the importance of practicing Bikkur Cholim, visiting the sick.
It’s important to look at the essence of a person, not at their outside. The people who looked like men turned out to really be angels! At the same time, it’s also important not to judge someone by their outside appearance. We should be kind to all people, even those who do jobs we might not think are as important.
It’s a good idea to practice the adage of emor me’at v’asei harbeh. Often, saying less and doing more, just like Avraham, is a better way to behave.
The people of Sodom were cruel to one another, committing sins against God and each other. Because of this, they were killed in a horrible way. Lot was saved, but only in Avraham’s merit.
If we can, it is good to show we care about other people and to stick up for them. This is what Avraham did when he argued that God should save Sodom if there were even ten righteous people who lived there. This is also where we get the idea of a minyan, a prayer group being comprised of ten men.
Sometimes people have to make difficult choices to protect others they love, which is what Sarah did when she decided Hagar and Yishamel needed to leave.
When Avraham was willing to sacrifice Yitzchak, he showed that he understood his role within the world in a way that Adam and Chava did not. Adam and Chava did not understand that God was the Host and they were the guests, and thus they needed to follow God’s rules. Avraham understood that on a very deep level, which is why he was even willing to give his beloved son Yitzchak back to God.
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids (at) gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos!
