Genesis 18:1-22:24 | 2 Kings 4:1-37 | Luke 2:21-40
This week's edition of The Set Table contains:
Questions and Commentary on Shabbat Vayyera
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
Looking Ahead
Questions & Commentary on Parashat Vayyera
1. What connections are there between Parashat Vayyera (Genesis 18:1-22:24) and its accompanying haftara
reading (2 Kings 4:1-37)? What can we learn from them?
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan
For most of the year, the haftara readings,
which are drawn from the prophets and the writings in the Hebrew Bible, are
assigned based on verbal and thematic connections to the weekly Torah reading.
This week's reading is no different. The Torah portion (Genesis 18:1-22:24),
which details the birth of Isaac and his father's offering of him at Mt.
Moriah, contains a number of verbal links and thematic parallels to our haftara
reading (2 Kings 4:1-37), which details the prophet Elisha's role in the birth,
death, and resurrection of the Shunammite woman's son.
There are two significant verbal links that
connect our two passages and suggest that they should be read together. First,
both stories are the only places in the Hebrew Bible where the rare and
enigmatic phrase ka‘et chayya
(usually rendered as "next year"; Genesis 18:10, 14; 2 Kings 4:16, 17) appears.
Second, during the annunciation of the birth of a son to both Sara and the
Shunammite woman, they are each standing at a petach ("entrance" or "doorway"; Genesis 18:10; 2 Kings 4:15).
In these annunciation scenes both barren women are
promised children. The promise to Sara is the result of God's fidelity to his
covenantal promises to Abraham and Sara in Genesis 17. The promise to the unnamed Shunammite woman
is because of her generous hospitality she showed to Elisha. This hospitality
is analogous to that which Abraham and Sara showed to their divine visitors at
the beginning of Genesis 18.
The apparent loss of both Isaac and the son of the woman of Shunem and
their resurrection and return is another theme which connects our Torah and
Haftara portions. In our Torah portion, Isaac is offered up by his father
Abraham at Mt. Moriah (Genesis 22). Abraham's hand is staid by divine command
just as he is about to sacrifice his son. Jewish tradition, however, has
suggested that the command came too late and Isaac actually died only to be
resurrected immediately (for example Pirqe
de-Rabbi Eliezer 31, 33). In our Haftara portion, the son of the Shunammite
woman actually dies only to be resurrected at the command of the prophet Elisha
(2 Kings 4:18-37).
The presence in these two passages of the themes of sterility met by the
unexpected birth of a child and the death (and resurrection) of that child
highlight a connection between birth and resurrection that is often missed. Jon
D. Levenson (in Resurrection and the
Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life, p. 125)
reminds us:
Living, as we do, in an age that has seen great advancements in the
treatment of infertility, we are, of course, inclined to place these events in
categories completely different from those of the ancients. The birth of a
first child to a childless couple (one or both of whom is old or has always
been infertile, to boot) is surely a cause for joy and wonder, we are likely to
say, but not an impossiblity like the resurrection of a dead person.
As Levenson argues, this was not the case in ancient Israel, where the
gift of a child to an aged, infertile and childless couple was a sign of God's
capacity to work life in the midst of an insurmountable impossibility - just as
resurrection signals. So as we read both of our Torah and Haftara passages this
week, we a reminded of God's wonderous capacity to work life out of death, for
Israel and ultimately for the whole world.
2. In this
week's parasha, in the Aqedat Yitzchaq ("the binding of Isaac";
Genesis 22:1-18), God calls Abraham to "take your son, your favored one, whom
you love, Isaac; go to the land of Moriah; and offer him up there as a burnt
offering." What significance is there in God using the three-fold description
of Isaac - your son, your favored one, whom you love - when calling Abraham to
offer up his son?
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan
At
the beginning of the Aqedat Yitzchaq
("the binding of Isaac"), God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac on a hill
in the land of Moriah. Jewish tradition raises the question of why God did not
simply specify that he take Isaac and sacrifice him. Why did God tell Abraham
first that he was to offer his son, his favored one, the one whom he loved? A
tradition is recorded in Genesis Rabba
that offers an answer to this question:
Your son -
Abraham said to God "I have two sons. Which son?" God replied, "your only son."
He said to God, "each one is the only son of his mother." God replied, "the one
whom you love." He said, "Are there limits to affections?" [God replied,]
"Isaac." Why did God not reveal it to him immediately? In order to make him
[Isaac] more beloved in his eyes and to give Abraham a reward for each and every
word.
Genesis Rabba
55:7
This
midrash inserts a dialogue between Abraham and God in the midst of God's
command to Abraham. In this dialogue, we see Abraham posing a series of
questions to God as if Abraham is attempting to delay God's command. In his
questions, Abraham comes across both as understanding that he has two sons who
are the first issuance of their respective mothers' wombs and as having
affection for both Ishmael and Isaac.
The
darshan then asks why God did not reveal the identity of Isaac from the start
and gives a two-fold answer. First, this three-fold description of Isaac - son,
unique, beloved - "makes Isaac more beloved in Abraham's eyes." This
description reminds Abraham who Isaac is in relation to him, heightening his
affection for his son and also the dramatic tension of the story. Second, God's
delay in revealing the identity of the sacrificial offering enables "Abraham"
to receive "a reward for each and every word." In other words the three-fold
description not only stirs Abraham's affections but also increases the cost of
the sacrifice for Abraham and the reward he will receive for passing this test.
The three-fold description of Isaac - son, unique, beloved - both increases
Abraham's affections and the gravity of the test.
In the besorot, Abraham's affection for Isaac and the gravity of Isaac's
potential loss serves as a model for how Yeshua's early followers understood
God's sacrificial donation of Yeshua. For instance in the synoptic besorot (Mark 1:11, cf. 9:7; Matthew
3:17, cf. 7:15; and Luke 3:22, cf. 9:35), a voice from heaven or the Holy
Spirit describes Yeshua as "my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
Likewise, Yochanan interprets God's gift of Yeshua in terms that evoke the Aqedat Yitzchaq. In John 3:16, it says,
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone
who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." The phrase "his
only son" evokes Abraham's offering of Isaac - son, unique/only, beloved - and
highlights the cost of God the Father's donation of his Son Yeshua for the sake
of Israel and the whole world.
Luke 2:21-40 - Living Torah - Seeing Messiah
Sean Emslie
In this week's besora
reading we come to the brit mila or
circumcision of Yeshua. In performing this act Joseph and Miriam showed their
commitment to walking in Torah-faithfulness and this made them to be people to
reveal the Messiah to those they came in contact. This can be seen in their encounters in this
reading with Shim‘on and Hanna.
We read first of Shim‘on in v. 25:
There was in Jerusalem a man named Shim‘on. This
man was righteous, he was devout, he waited eagerly for God to comfort Israel,
and the Ruach Haqqodesh ("Holy
Spirit") was upon him.
Shim‘on was a godly man, righteous, faithful to the
Torah, and was waiting for the Messiah.
His faithfulness to God was rewarded as he was in the Temple when Yeshua
was brought for his circumcision. It was his Torah-faithfulness that made him
ready to encounter and accept the living Torah, Yeshua, our righteous Messiah,
as the Redeemer of Israel and the one for which he had spent his whole life
longing to see. It was through Joseph and Miriam's Torah-faithfulness that
brought about the possibility of his encountering Messiah. This situation
reminds me of Paul's words in Romans 10:4, "The goal at which the Torah aims is
Messiah." It was by walking Torah that Messiah was made known to Shim‘on, and
it was his faithfulness to Torah that opened his eyes to see his Messiah in the
baby in his arms.
We next come to an encounter between Joseph, Miriam
and Yeshua with Hanna, a righteous woman who had devoted much of her life to
serving God in prayer and fasting in the Temple courts. She was committed to
God's service and to walking in his Torah and lived a life marked by this
devotion. She too saw in this eight-day-old baby her Messiah, the hope of
Israel come to bring God's salvation. She began thanking God and telling others
that the long hoped for Redeemer had come to Israel. Her lifelong devotion to
God was rewarded as she, like Shim‘on, saw her Messiah and rejoiced at his
coming.
It was through the faithfulness to God's Torah that
Joseph and Miriam were used as emissaries to make Messiah known, even in their
simple act of having brit mila performed on Yeshua and thereby
their actions made for an act of proclaiming the Messiah. Shim‘on and Hanna's
lives of faithfulness to God and his Torah made them open to recognizing their
Messiah when he was made know to them. It was these expressions of
Torah-faithfulness made possible the disclosure of the Messiah.
This besora
reading gives us some important lessons for making Messiah known to our Jewish
people. First, it is by us seeking to
live Torah-faithful lives and build Torah-faithful communities, we make
ourselves available to be ones to credibly make the Messiah known. Second, we can learn that it is important to
support all efforts of the Jewish world to seek to live Torah-faithful lives as
important acts of preparing those who are yet to see the Messiah in Yeshua, to
be walking on a Torah-faithful path. Hopefully like Joseph and Miriam we can be
the ones who in our acts of Torah faithfulness can make Messiah known to them
and see many more righteous people like Shim‘on and Hanna come to rejoice in
their Messiah.
NEXT WEEK'S READINGS
- PARASHAT CHAYYEI SARA
Genesis 23:1-25:18
1 Kings 1:1-31
Luke 3:1-17
|
