This week’s parsha (portion of the Torah we read this week) is called Vayera.  It has a lot in it including the destruction of Sdome and Gemorah, and the roots of where King David.  However, none of those things are what I feel like talking about today.

Today, I want to talk about one of the lesser known things that I found interesting in our parsha:  The story regarding Abraham, Sarah, and Avimelech (which translates to, “My father the king,” btw).  When Abraham and Sarah journey down to Avimelech’s land, they both say that Sarah is Abraham’s sister.  Avimelech takes Sarah, but before he can sleep with her, god comes to him in a dream and says not to touch her for she is Abraham’s wife.  God further punishes Avimelech by preventing any of the women in his kingdom to get pregnant.  God tells Avimelech that the only way to fix this is for Abraham to pray to god to correct this.

Now the obvious place to focus is on why Avimelech is getting punished.  This certainly is not fair, as he is the victim.  One answer I’ve heard is that he did wrong and just because he was ignorant, ignorance is no excuse.  I personally don’t like this answer because it implies that asking all parties involved is not enough to ascertain truth.  Was Avimelech required not to believe both Sarah and Abraham, and delve more deeply into their past?

To answer this troubling question, I think we need to take a step back and look at the whole picture.  After all, we are in the middle of talking about Abraham’s life (we started reading about Abraham in last week’s parsha, and the focus of this week’s parsha is on Abraham as well), not Avimelech’s.  So, let’s try to see what is going on in relation to Abraham, and see if we can address the problem mentioned above at the same time.

Abraham is afraid, and so he lies to Avimelech.  Or to put it slightly differently, he sins against Avimelech.  The result of his sin goes beyond the hurt of the lie; Avimelech’s kingdom is effected.  This actually is no surprise.  When one hurts somebody, oftentimes the pain goes beyond what was said or done, and causes other problems in the hurt person’s life.  For example, if you call somebody a thief, even if it turns out he isn’t, people continue to look at him suspiciously.

When one hurts (sins against) somebody, they should try to correct the situation.  The obvious way to do this is to say, “I am sorry.”  However, often times, a person doesn’t realize they have hurt somebody.  So the hurt person needs to tell this to the perpetrator.  (This is one lesson we learn here btw.)  This we can see when Avimelech confronts Abraham with his lie.  Abraham does the obvious thing, and apologies and explains why.  But simply saying you are sorry does not fix all the hurt that once causes.  In this case, it doesn’t stop the lack of pregnancies in Avimelech’s kingdom.  Now comes the real teaching here:  In order to really make amends when you hurt somebody, apologizing is not enough!  One needs also to fix/correct any and all problems the hurt person has due to the hurt you caused!  In this case, Abraham must also fix the lack of pregnancies because it is due to his lie that it occurred.  And he does so by praying to god, and only now, is everything fixed.

I hope this has provided you some food for thought, and I wish you-all an amazing week full of learning, love, joy, and growth, and peace.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.