Bob Hutkin's D'var Torah about Parshat Vayera...Featuring Humor and Irony

Parashat Vayera - What a Parasha.  It’s got everything – pop-in visits from strangers
delivering some surprising and perhaps laugh out loud news; God telling Abraham
about his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah and then Abraham actually arguing with God;
Lot offering his daughters to the mob in an effort to keep the peace; incest; Abraham’s
own deception, passing off his wife as his sister; the birth of Isaac; the exile of Ishmael;
and finally culminating in the very near sacrifice of Isaac.

There are indeed many themes one could choose to address.  I was most interested
however, in Ch 18; V 10 when the angel tells Sarah she will be a mother at age 90, and
in response, V 12 we read “and Sarah laughed”.  There are many commentaries on this
section, dealing with whether Sarah laughed to herself or out loud, whether this was an
affront to god, or whether this was a laugh of joy or mockery.

I would argue that Sarah’s’ laughter was the precedent for much of what we has
become the Jewish brand of humor.  Irony, sarcasm, looking to the heavens with
exasperation - aren’t these are the trademarks of Jewish humor.  You could almost hear
Sarah thinking “a baby at my age, Oy veh”

Given the other events that precede and follow these lines, it strikes me that the entire
parasha is full of ironies.  The negotiation between Abraham and God about the
minimum number of righteous men necessary to save Sodom and Gomorrah - 50, 40,
how about 30, reads like a Mel Brooks or Woody Allen routine.

Then there is the ultimate irony.  We are told in Bereshit a few weeks ago “to go forth
and multiply”.  There is a lot of begetting.  Then God destroys just about everything and
we have a do-over.  In the next parasha, God then tells Noah the same “Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth”.

Then we come to this parasha, and first God makes Sarah barren, then God makes
Abraham and Sarah wait until old age to finally deliver a son, and then the kicker, he
tells Abraham to sacrifice that son.  What Chutzpah!

There is also unintended irony - at the end of the parasha, God blesses Abraham and
tells him his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on
the seashore.  However, currently according to the 2013 Pew Study on Jewish
demographics, the fertility rate of Jewish women in the US is 1.9 children per woman. 
2.3 is considered “replacement level”.  We are clearly not even “replacing” ourselves!

And we see this especially in our own community.  In the past few months, we’ve said
farewell to two families (Miles and Sarah and the Kornbluhs).  Many of us have seen our
adult children move away from Lincoln, in some cases far away.  Of course, there are
many reasons for this situation - careers, life circumstances, and personal decisions.

Nonetheless, numbers aren’t everything. Our Shul, small as it is, is still a wonderful
place to share simchas and holidays, and of course, celebrate Shabbat.
Good Shabbas.