The Dark Knight - We recognized that the two פרשות of אברהם, לך לך and וירא, are the equivalent of the two Avrahams that are separated by the פסיק (divider) at the end of the story, in which the first Avraham is still there until the very last moment, in which he can accept the ציווי of the מלאך not to touch his son.
We saw that the themes of דין begin not only in this parasha, but back with נח, because it was there that there was a ברית with מידת הדין של מעלה. What we are really coming to address here, is the way that that ברית needs to be subsumed in בריתו של אברהם, as a recognition that nature and God is not benign or beneficent in the ultimate sense of what is required to be יוצא from בריאה: something that is brought out so painfully in the חורבן הבית, in which הקב"ה says “I gave what I love the most into the hands of destroyers”. That is His עקידה.
And here we have now a description of a second אברהם אבינו, whose vision of a לך לך is seen as the ultimate לך לך; in the end, his most חביבות was his finally discovering the nature of עבודה that could actually still be לך, and yet become part of what it was that בריאה needed to achieve; that could touch on the original בראשית ברא אלוקים which was בתחילה עלה במחשבה לבראתו במידת הדין; and to be כולל in the nature of עבודה, not a willingness to live merely in the presence of דין, but to become an actual agent of a מזבח which is the predator in itself, it has to be בחלקו של טורף, the predator itself; as one who engages in the ongoing מלחמה which is the ultimate vindication of the original בראשית ברא אלוקים itself, of a בריאה whose narrative must include in it the discovery, once again, of what the process ofבריאה meant initially.


BW: Parsha Vayera continues Avraham’s lech lecha by incorporating Middat HaDin into the ish Chesed. Avraham finds that it is not enough to merely accept the presence of Din, but that he must also become its agent. The main requirement for his transformation is…learning how to take a joke! Perhaps the biggest joke of all is the notion that Nature is kind. Thus, Avraham’s lech lecha is a journey within a broader journey that begins with the brit Noach and culminates in the building of the Beit HaMikdash – a journey like the course of Nature itself, consuming and subsuming everything in its path. In the process, Avraham discovers the preciousness of an avodah that can truly be lecha – for you – without being a reflection of you (i.e., of one’s own projections). With many new insights that you won’t find anywhere else, this shiur is guaranteed to change the way you think about Avraham Avinu and the Akeidah, and that…is no joke!
Vayera continues the theme of “Lech Lecha” from the previous parasha, again emphasizing the aspect of “lecha” – for you. Here, Avraham, the lover of G-d, discovers the meaning of yirat Hashem. Avraham’s yirat Hashem in the Akedah is best understood when contrasted against Avimelech’s lack of yireh. The latter justified taking Sarah because (in the words of Paul Simon), “a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” On the other hand, out of the many ways he could have interpreted G-d’s command in the Akedah, Avraham rejected an easy solution that would have resolved the contradictions inherent within it, because he recognized that yirat Hashem requires a commitment to all possibilities. Ahavat Hasem alone risks making avodah a projection of the self; yirat Hashem alone has the ability to make avodah a crushing of the self. However, when yirat Hashem arises out of ahavat Hashem as it did with Avraham, we learn the makom of true avodah – an appreciation of external reality that is brought back into the experience of one’s self, so that avodah becomes an expression of one’s own care and love.

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