Parashat Vayeraפָּרָשַׁת וַיֵּרָא

Vayera (“He Appeared”) opens as guests inform Abraham that Sarah will give birth. Despite Abraham’s attempts to convince God otherwise, God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sarah gives birth to Isaac, and Abraham sends away Hagar and Ishmael. At God’s command, Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac, but an angel of God tells Abraham to offer a ram instead. Vayera (Genesis 18:1–22:24) is woven from several episodes that explore the cost and meaning of covenant. It opens with a celebrated model of hospitality, as Abraham runs to welcome three strangers in the heat of the day, and it dwells on the tension between divine justice and mercy when Abraham bargains with God to spare Sodom for the sake of its righteous. The portion also confronts difficult, morally complex material, including the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's flight and the incident with his daughters, the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, and disputes over wells. It culminates in the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, traditionally counted as the tenth and most severe of Abraham's ten tests, which became a central paradigm in Jewish thought for faith, obedience, and the relationship between devotion to God and human morality.

In most Ashkenazi communities the Haftarah is II Kings 4:1–37, while many Sephardi communities read the shorter II Kings 4:1–23; exact verse boundaries can vary by community and chumash. The reading tells of the prophet Elisha and the hospitable Shunammite woman, who is promised and then bears a son despite her childlessness and aging husband. The thematic link is direct: just as angelic guests receive Abraham and Sarah's hospitality and announce that the elderly, barren Sarah will bear Isaac, so Elisha rewards the Shunammite's hospitality with the miraculous gift of a child. The Ashkenazi version continues the narrative arc through the boy's death and Elisha's miraculous revival of him, whereas the abbreviated Sephardi reading ends earlier, on a note of "shalom."

The portion's most famous passage is the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), in which God commands Abraham to offer Isaac and then stays his hand, providing a ram caught in a thicket instead. It is among the most frequently encountered narratives in Judaism: it appears in the weekly Torah cycle here, is read again on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and is traditionally recited daily in the preliminary portion of the morning service (Shacharit). The portion gives us Abraham's one-word reply "Hineni" ("Here I am," Genesis 22:1), an expression of immediate readiness to answer God's call, as well as his plea over Sodom, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?" (Genesis 18:25). Vayera carries no special-Shabbat designation.