The seven Aliyahs of Vayera
top right – Three strangers come to Abraham’s tent and he bows before them as he would in greeting new comers, he does not know they are angels, as we often don’t know who new people we meet might be. One, Archangel Michael in purple, tells him that he and Sarah will have a child. She laughs, being in her nineties.
top left – Abraham bargains with Hashem wanting to save lives. We should be so courageous in our time. He starts with saying if there are fifty good people would Hashem spare the Sodom and negotiates the number down to just ten good people.
top center – Lot houses those visitors who went to Abraham, now just two, as Archangel Michael had already accomplished his goal and was gone. The Sodomites custom was to sexually abuse newcomers, not wanting any immigrants in their city and here they demand to rape these new men, but Lot blocks them and even offers his daughters rather than have the strangers attacked.
bottom right – Sodom is destroyed. Lot’s wife turns back to see when told not to and becomes a pillar of salt. Sometimes we need to listen to the warnings. Lot’s daughters, thinking they are the only ones alive, get him drunk and have intercourse to produce more humans – their descendants become some of the most destructive tribes in the future. King Abimelech wants to have Sarah as a sexual concubine, but his women all become cursed with a plague, and he realizes this was the cause. Abraham circumcises his son.
bottom left – Sarah seeing Ishmael molesting young Isaac demands that Abraham have him and his mother Hagar leave, which they do, and an angel provides for them in the desert.
bottom center – Abraham makes a deal with Abimelech whose people have been stealing his water. Abraham offers seven ewes as part of the agreement to avoid conflict. A negotiation.
center center – Abraham is ready to sacrifice his son as commanded by Hashem to truly test him as to what is his greatest commitment, to Hashem, or family. A tough one! An angel stops him and cries for this challenge and the tears go into Isaac’s eyes and he had bad vision from then on and went blind years later. Isaac who was in his thirties, agreed to his sacrifice, but asked to be tied in case he resisted. A ram caught in the bushes becomes the substitute sacrifice. As animals often are.