By Brady Winrob

this week we read parashat vayera. the parashah begins with three strangers visiting abraham and sarah. they come to deliver the news that sarah is going to have a son, and though sarah laughs at the thought of her and abe having a kid at her old age, they are very hospitable to the strangers.

afterwards, abe and the strangers go to sodom. in the meantime, god is intending to destroy sodom and gomorrah because it is filled with sin and evil. he and abe strike a deal: if there are fifty righteous people in the cities, god won’t go through with the destruction. abe haggles god down to ten people, and he agrees. looks like abe has his work cut out for him.

unfortunately, this doesn’t go as planned, and the people of s + d prove to be unworthy in the eyes of god. lot’s family is one of the families to be spared by god, and manages to escape before the destruction. god tells him and his family not to look back. when his wife indeed looks back, she turns into a pillar of salt.

lot and his daughters escape and end up in a cave, where some incestuous generation-building ensues. abraham is out travelling to king abimelech’s land. there is some drama but everyone is ultimately unscathed and sarah finally gets the kid she’s been dreamin’ of! they call him isaac.

sarah feels as though ishmael, the son of hagar and abe, is making fun of her and her son. she makes a request to abe that he get rid of both of them, since ishmael obviously doesn’t deserve to share the future inheritance even though he’s in the family. abe was not too stoked on this idea, but god insists that he listen to his wife’s desires because isaac will bring on the great nation they’ve been getting so excited about. god claims that he’ll make a nation for ishmael, too. abe sends them away and god helps them out.

at the end of the parashah, god tests abraham by insisting he sacrifice his son isaac on the altar. he doesn’t hesitate and is about to go through with it when an angel stops him and tells him of god’s intention. the angel assures abe that he will be blessed forever and his descendants will be plentiful because of his dedication to god.

there are so many important parts of this story to discuss, but alas it is midterm season, so i will touch on just a few. the first thing that stood out to me was the concept of strangers. we encounter a few different kinds of strangers in this parashah: the news deliverers, the residents of sodom and gomorrah, hagar and ishmael.. in their own ways, all of these people are strange to abraham and sarah.

when the news deliverers deliver good news, they are welcomed without hesitation and taken care of well. however, the residents of sodom and gomorrah don’t have the greatest reputation, and though abe insists on finding good people there, god destroys it. he tells lot and his family not to look back, that they will be destroyed if they do. a similar pattern is found in the the interaction between sarah and hagar, when she tells abe to send them away with nothing because ishmael is mocking her and isaac. god tells abe to listen to sarah; that he will make ishmael a great nation elsewhere.

when applying this to our own lives, i immediately thought of how we choose to perceive and treat others who are different from us, especially when considering what they have to offer. i don’t like god’s method here, a kind of ignorance of the issue at hand. when the angels come with good news, they are freely accepted and not considered to be

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