By: Rolando Kahn
Communications Director
In this flurry of short stories within Parashat Vayera, we see multiple instances where faith in G*d is tested. We see it when Sarah laughs at the idea of bearing a son at her age, when Hagar and Ishmael are lost in the wilderness on the brink of starvation, and when Abraham is instructed to sacrifice his young son, Isaac. Each character has a moment where they do not—or cannot—believe what G*d has instructed them to do, or that He and His divine messengers will show up. In the end, G*d and the angels swoop in at the last minute to help.
It seems that the people in these stories are a mirror. They reflect what many of us have been grappling with over the last few years: questioning whether help will come and if it will arrive in time, and sometimes even laughing out loud when faced with ideas we see as impossible. The stories contained in Vayera speak to a sometimes-wavering faith in what comes next, while still choosing to boldly move forward despite the apprehension.
Over the last two years (and beyond), we have all encountered doubt, and the experience of questioning whether the directions we were given (explicit or indirect) were the right thing to do. We worried about the consequences of our actions, and our minds were fraught with scenarios and predictions about the future that were in no way confirmed. We were trapped in a perpetual feeling of anxiety and unsure of where to put these feelings.
However, despite the lingering uncertainty, we made the conscious decision to keep moving forward. Like Abraham in the story, we went through the motions as instructed and braced ourselves for the worst while still maintaining hope for the best. We kept faith in our hearts as we performed our work, acknowledging the doubt while not allowing ourselves to become submerged in it.
This practice of moving forward while recognizing our own insecurity about the future is an incredible skill to hone. It’s crucial to understand that all of these thoughts can exist together all at once; we just need to make sure that we don’t get paralyzed by them. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to shelf fear, keep moving forward, and keep the faith that the outcome will be a positive one.
Shabbat Shalom.
Please email Rolando at rkahn@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.