a few thoughts on Vayeira

[cellio]

I'm working on learning to chant part of parsha Vayeira (November 15). I'm doing a relatively small part; the aliya is on the long side, too much for me to learn at my current skill level in the available time. Besides (she rationalizes), as the organizer of this stuff for the minyan I should occasionally set a non-intimidating example so we can get some new readers. :-)

The aliya begins in an odd place, or so it seems. I'm reading from the second aliya. The first aliya is where the three angels visit Avraham and they tell him and Sarah that they'll have a kid, which they both doubt. Sarah laughs. The second aliya begins with the final verse of that thought, where Sarah denies laughing and Avraham says "yes you did". (I'm paraphrasing.) After that single verse, our attention turns to S'dom and Gemorah.

What a weird place to break. There are no relevant paragraph breaks in the Torah text -- nothing to compel this particular division. So naturally, this leads me to speculate about why the sages made this decision. Without benefit of any actual sources here, I have a theory.

There are a few verses between the angels' visit and God telling Avraham about what is to come and Avraham bargaining God down on sparing the cities. What comes in the middle is a bit of God talking to himself, seemingly trying to decide whether to bring Avraham in on this. Essentially, it boils down to "look, I have big plans for Avraham; he's going to be a great nation. Should I trouble him with this?". (Gen 18:15-19, for the curious.)

In other words, we begin with Sarah concealing something and getting caught, and then to God considering concealing something and deciding better of it. I'm guessing that we're supposed to take a lesson about the efficacy of secrets from that.

In passing, I also note that while we get the definition of a minyan (quorum) from the story of the spies in Sh'lach Lecha, we also have in this parsha a community judgement being based on ten men. When Avraham bargains with God to preserve the cities, God won't go lower than ten -- if there are ten righteous men he'll spare the cities, and if not he won't. There turn out to be fewer than ten; he spares those individuals (so long as they follow directions) but not the cities. Fewer than ten and you don't represent the community. Given that, I wonder why the sages point only to the spies when defining a minyan.

Comments

[geekosaur]

Hm? I've seen the "ten righteous men" used far more often in defining a minyan.

[cellio]

Most of the times (that I've seen) where someone (or some text) is explaining why a minyan is a minimum of ten, they point to the ten bad spies. I don't think I've ever seen anyone cite ten righteous people in S'dom. Maybe that's because they turned out to be theoretical while the spies were real, but the principle appears to be the same either way. Just one of those things that makes me go "hmm?", that's all.

[goljerp]

Cool. I just volunteered to give the d'var torah at my minyan for that week... I'll be posting my musings as time goes on...

[goljerp]

When Avraham bargains with God to preserve the cities, God won't go lower than ten -- if there are ten righteous men he'll spare the cities, and if not he won't. There turn out to be fewer than ten; he spares those individuals (so long as they follow directions) but not the cities.

I don't think there are any righteous men in the cities. I think Lot is saved because he's related to Avram, not because he's righteous. Lot's daughters are problematic as well. Lot's wife may be the only righteous one we see.

[cellio]

The later actions of Lot's daughters certainly call their righteousness into question, yes. Whether, at the time of the destruction, they were worthy is an open question. But yeah, I was thinking of Lot's wife and daughters more than Lot himself.

[lefkowitzga.livejournal.com]

FYI, Va'yera (the first aliya) was the torah portion I learned for my bat mitzvah.

[cellio]

I thought this was your portion, though I didn't know which part. (Want to read haftarah that week?)

ooh

[lefkowitzga.livejournal.com]

Tempting, but I don't chant at all, and my reading is shockingly rusty. I don't think I would have time over the next 2 weeks to bring it up to speed.

Re: ooh

[cellio]

We have not had the luxury of having haftarah at all until recently, so we don't yet have a settled minhag. Some people read in Hebrew, some in English, and so far only the rabbi actually chants. I was going to read it in English. So no matter what you do, it won't be less "advanced" than what I would have done. Let me know if you want it; our rule is that the torah reader is in charge of populating the rest of the torah service (aliyot, haftarah, leading the prayers, etc), so I actually do have the authority to offer this. :-)