I had a chance to stop by the new Beth Yeshua congregation in Bloomington for the first time this week. Nice facility, complete even with tv stands. It would be an honor to speak there someday. Here’s part 1 of my three-part commentary on Va Yera. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Today’s parashah is Va Yera, or, “He appeared.” It covers Genesis chapters 18 through 22, and is concerned with a large portion of the life of Abraham, from the destruction of Soddom and Gomorrah, to the binding of Isaac.
As I was studying through this passage, I began to take notice of a familiar pattern, one we’ve seen before and will see over and over again throughout the Torah. The pattern that emerges here focuses on the nature of Adonai’s goodness and mercy, and I believe that once you begin to recognize it, it can solve many of the theological questions many of us struggle with in the early years of our walk of faith.
Let’s begin our study a bit earlier in the book of Genesis, with a passage from the last Torah portion I taught on, Noach.
Genesis 7:1, 4 (CJB)
Adonai said to Noach, “Come into the ark, you and all your household; for I have seen that you alone in this generation are righteous before me. For in seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; I will wipe out every living thing that I have made from the face of the earth.”
Now notice what happens here. Adonai has seen how violent and evil the world has become and stands ready to judge the world righteously; he stands ready to destroy all life on earth, every living thing.
Yet does He? No. When he notices that Noach, alone among all the people of the earth, is living righteously by walking with Him, Adonai withholds complete destruction and offers Noach and his entire household a way out, a way to avoid being destroyed and suffering His wrath along with the rest of all flesh.
In the case of Noach, this meant building an ark by which a remnant could be saved, the building blocks of a new generation who will become a second chance for humanity to not make the same mistakes and, instead of embracing violence and wickedness, choose to follow Adonai and live a life of obedience.
So as we come into this parashah of Va Yera, what has happened in the world since the flood? Well, some time has passed. In fact, well over 350 years has passed since the flood of Noach’s time and now the descendants of his sons – Ham, Shem and Japheth – have spread out over the face of the Earth. From the time of the flood, two other things have happened as well.
First, lifespans have begun to shrink. While Noach lived for 950 years, his son Shem lived for only 600 years. The next couple generations lived around 450 years, and after that the next three generations lived a mere 250 years or so. By the time we reach Terach, the father of Abram, we see life spans coming closer to what we see possible on the Earth today; Terach lived for only 205 years, and Avram, 175 years. Yitzach 180 years, Ya’akov 147 years and Yosef only 110 years.
This shortening of lifespans is often thought to be due in part to the changes the Earth had undergone during the flood, and that is likely a contributing factor. But I also believe that Adonai allowed this as a lasting judgment against humanity because, in His wisdom, he knew that mankind could not, on its own, live up to any covenant He made with them; so he shortened our years to limit the amount of depravity any one generation could cause.
As lifespans are getting shorter in the time of Abraham, we also see people marrying and having children at younger ages. Prior to the flood, Noach waited until he was 498 before marrying and 500 before he had his first child with his wife. And it was not uncommon for a first-born son to be born when his father was over 100 years old – sometimes well over 100. But in this new post-flood world, all the descendents of Noach’s sons are having their first children when they are in their mid-thirties.
What would the result of this be? Well, a whole lot more people being born, for one thing. As God had commanded, Noach’s sons and their descendants were going out into the Earth and multiplying.
Unfortunately, even though the flood was only 350 years in the recent past, not all of this multiplying was producing new generations of people who feared and obeyed Adonai. In fact, as we studied last time I taught, it only took a couple generations from the flood to produce Nimrod, the ruler who sought to take Adonai’s place as the god of all humanity, and who commanded the building of the tower of Bavel, by which he sought to invade heaven and overthrow God Himself.