Parashat Vayera: What does it mean to be present
Jen is with IfNotNow Philly.
While there is a lot — a lot — to discuss in parshat Vayeira, the two pieces I want to focus on are the stories of S’dom and Amorah (Sodom and Gomorrah) and akedat Yitzhak (the binding of Isaac).
In this Torah portion, G!d confides in Abraham that G!d is planning to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because they are full of wicked people. Abraham bargains G!d down: would G!d destroy a city of fifty righteous people? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? Ultimately, G!d chooses to destroy both cities.
Later on in the parsha, G!d calls to Abraham; Abraham responds, “hineni,” or “here I am.” G!d instructs Abraham to take his son Isaac, whose conception was revealed earlier in the parsha to an elderly Sarah, and to offer him up as a sacrifice. Abraham takes Isaac (who is unaware of the ultimate goal of the expedition) to a mountain, and gets as far as binding Isaac to an alter when G!d directs Abraham’s attention to a ram, and tells Abraham to unbind his son. The ram is sacrificed, Isaac is spared, and Abraham’s future generations are blessed.
And, that’s the last time G!d speaks directly with Abraham.
When provided the information that G!d will destroy an entire city, Abraham argues G!d’s judgment. It’s a risky move, to be sure, questioning an entity that has the power to create or destroy an entire city (or, well, the world). But does Abraham voice his morals? Yep.
Yet, when Abraham is given the ultimate test, given the power to take or spare a life, and a set of orders, what does Abraham do? Given this power, what does he do? He follows orders without question, nearly murdering his beloved son.
One of the pieces that I’ve always found so curious about this text is the persistence of “hineni” — “I am here.” Abraham says “hineni” repeatedly — to G!d, to Isaac — and there are other instances of “hineni” scattered in this portion as well. When the writers of the Torah repeat something, its authors mean to say, “pay attention to this — it’s important.”
Abraham acts in accordance with G!d’s wishes when he’s working at a remove, or acting under lower stakes. But in the moment when Abraham needs to be present of mind, to act with conviction, and to take a stance against the order of violence, he says “I am here,” and fails to condemn that which he must know, at some level, is wrong.
Saying “I am here” isn’t enough; being “here” isn’t just existing in a particular space. It isn’t enough to be a bystander, and to allow, and to therefore participate in violence, by actively engaging or by passively condoning it.
When we see violence, we are obligated to act out. We are challenged to say, “you know what, screw this” — and, it doesn’t matter who’s telling us to remain complicit.
So, what does it mean to be “here?”
I would posit that being “here” means being actively engaged. Being here can mean rejecting a command, protesting, cop-watching, intervening as a bystander when another person is being harassed or harmed, moving your body to block violence against another person, medicking, providing safer and supportive spaces to process trauma — it can be many things.
But sometimes, frankly, there’s not a whole lot you can do. There are times when it’s just too risky to put your body in between violence and another human being, because you cannot risk injury to yourself, because you may not have the skills or strength to effectively intervene and can endanger those who are actively resisting violence, or because your presence itself may worsen the violence you are encountering.
And, sometimes, we choose not to intervene, not because we are concerned, but because we fail to motivate ourselves to action. We are “just following orders,” or maybe we just walk away.
How might the Torah offer redemption to the bystander?
I would suggest that one of the ways in which we act with righteousness after witnessing violence that we are unable to stop — or that we choose not to stop — is to tell the story. We can’t know for certain why Abraham made the decisions he did; we can’t parse G!d’s reasoning with surety.
The writers of the Torah provide a measure of retroactive accountability for Abraham: we can get a sense for what happened, consider our cultural lineage, and consider our revulsion to the story we’re hearing. And, we can take those impressions and apply them to how we might wish to act when presented with unimaginable violence. That’s how I make meaning out of this deeply problematic parable, which has been held up as one of the most important stories in our religious canon.
This is how the Jewish community moves towards justice: we learn from our own or our predecessors’ failures; we empower ourselves to make decisions that interrupt violent actions; we actually do the things that interrupt violence; and, if we can’t (or don’t), we hold ourselves accountable, and support those who were impacted by the violence we couldn’t stop. We show up. We tell the story.
These are the actions that are praiseworthy in the image of the Divine and that we and our descendants can hold up as meeting Jewish ideals.
And, if we can’t do that, G!d might just make way for someone who can.
