Va-Yera -- Domestic abuse??

Va-Yera is not easy. Again. Boy, when I thought about doing this blog, I hadn't really expected it to be so difficult...at least, not in the way it has been.
In this portion, Abraham haggles with God in an attempt to save Sodom and Gomorrah...and we all know how that turned out. But it's brilliant. Abraham convinces God that the cities should be saved if He can find 50 good people living there...oh, wait. Make that 45. Uh, no...make it 40. Okay, wait: 30. No, no, no...20. Ok, my final offer: 10. If You can't find 10 good people there, go ahead and rain fire and sulfur upon them. Yeah, so...fire and sulfur rained on them; but Abraham tried!!Just before the destruction, though, Lot, Abraham's nephew, who is now living in Sodom, is told by angels to take his family and get the hell outta Dodge before it all happens. They have a hard time leaving the place, but in the end, they do go...though Lot's wife turns around to watch and is turned into a pillar of salt (and I can't help picturing Dom Delouise in the movie "Wholly Moses" sneaking a couple scrapes off of Lot's wife onto his dinner plate when no one is looking).
Then there is a very disturbing scene wherein Lot's daughters get him drunk and "LAY WITH HIM," their father, and bore a son each by him...their father. Their father. Uncle Dad.
Then God tells Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son in a year. They, who are pushing a hundred years old each. The thought of this makes Sarah chuckle with doubt. God says "You WILL have a son, and you'll name him Yitzhak (anglicanized into Isaac)," which means "He laughs." Yeah, well...I don't think he was laughing when God told Abraham to bind and "offer him up" on an alter. Before that, though, Sarah sends her slave and the son she bore to Abraham away so that the son cannot inherit what is Isaac's. They are given some bread and a flask of water and sent out into the desert. They run out of bread and water and it gets to the point that Hagar (the slave/mom) sets the baby down under a bush and walks away so she cannot see her child die.
The portion ends with the very famous binding and offering up of Isaac, subject of much discussion and very popular amongst the Renaisance painters, which is halted at the last possible second by angels. In his place, a suddenly discovered ram is offered up.

I had planned on writing something completely different which would have allowed me to use Bob Dylan's "Highway 61" in the subject line. But I hadn't finished and I went to tonight's services and everything changed. The very brilliant Rabbi David Stern spoke eloquently and passionately about domestic abuse. It was very moving. He was clearly disturbed by his own words and had to pause for a moment to regain himself. If I had the complete text of his sermon, I would enter it here. Unfortunately, all I can do is say how much it moved me and made me realize AGAIN how lucky I am to have these clergy persons in my life.

But it also put this whole portion into a different light as I started thinking about why THAT sermon during THIS parsha? It got me thinking about Hagar and baby Ishmael forced out of their home because Sarah was so jealous of them. Lot having to flee his home while all his friends were killed in a rain of fire; then to be bizarrely raped by his daughters! Then, certainly, not least, Isaac being tied up and a knife being angled at him by his father.

By today's standards, these are all scenes of domestic violence. Terrible, terrible things inflicted upon people without their consent by people in their own households. We are taught that the akida, the binding of Isaac, is a lesson about devotion to God. Well, you know, bully for Abraham I'm sure, but what was going through Isaac's mind?? Later rabinnic writings try to assure us that, by the time it got to that point, Isaac knew what was going on and he went without a qualm. Isaac was, after all, 37 years old by that time...and Abraham was well over 100! It's doubtful Abraham could have done any of this without Isaac's approval. But still...what was it like after that? Were there anymore Father/ Son picnics? You know, I joke but really, how did this affect Isaac?
And Hagar, who was given to Abraham by Sarah specifically to conceive a son, now being driven from her home by that very same woman BECAUSE OF that son they wanted at first, now heart-broken, certain of her child's death, leaving him under a bush so she couldn't witness the inevitable?
Both stories have happy endings, though. God intervenes and all is made right. Through Isaac, Abraham's bloodline is carried on and the nation of Israel is born. God opens Hagar's eyes to a spring right over there which she hadn't seen before she cried out for help; and she and Ishmael go on to live happy and fullfilling lives.

In all honesty, I don't know what to say about Lot. That's a pretty vile scene they describe there, and I don't see any "happy ending" for him. But we can at least say he had to be drugged to do what was done. He would not have done it otherwise. It's a very disturbing scene of male rape...but, man, by his own daughters! Ugh.

But I am always driven to find the positive spin of Torah stories. This is a book to learn and live by. The lesson cannot be "Offer up your son and banish the woman with your bastard son to die in the desert."

Both stories end with sudden new sight. Rather than Isaac being killed, Abraham is stopped by angels and a ram is suddenly seen entangled in a bush; and that becomes the offering to God.
Hagar, crying, scared and alone cries out to God and her eyes are suddenly opened to a spring of water that she didn't see before.
What I see here is that, even when things are at their worst, one needs to just keep going and keep going. But, ugh, that sounds so Hallmark! And I should talk! Sometimes, all I can think is how tired I am of being the only person in my household. Sometimes, it's all I can do to go from moment to moment...especially on days off when I don't even have work to push me through. I guess maybe I SHOULD talk...because I guess I'm sort of a master at "keep going, keep going." Sometimes, all that keeps me going is knowing that the weekend will bring these magnificent times at the synagogue. Sometimes, that's all I have. The rabbi's sermon may have been disturbing but I am intensely grateful to have witnessed it.
But I am not a person who can say to an abused person, "Hold on, keep going." How terribly presumptious and egotistical of me that would be. I cannot possibly know what that is like or how deep the fear factor is. All I can do is hope that such a person will eventually find the courage to get out. That they'll eventually see that the abuser is always wrong and that there is help to be had. Maybe they'll get out and that's when they have to "keep going." Maybe when they're out, their eyes will suddenly open and they'll see their own worth and that there is never, ever any justification for what they went through. And if they have children, that they will grow up understanding that also and not propogate the abuse.
I am having a very hard time trying to wrap this up, so I'm just going to stop. I have read and re-read this entire post several times. Edited and re-edited and I still feel like it has gotten away from me. If you plowed through it and didn't hate it, I'm glad. I certainly tried.
And this is why I love Torah study so much!
Shalom rav!
Lev