This week's Torah portion is called Vayeira (And He Appeared) and recounts part of Abraham's life after his Brit Milah, or circumcision. Among the events narrated, the Torah tells us about the birth of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah. But Abraham already had another son, Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant. Ishmael was thirteen years older than Isaac.<\/p>\n
When they were both older, Sarah saw that Ishmael was a bad influence on her son Isaac, both spiritually, since his behavior included theft, murder, and other perversions, and in terms of safety: Ishmael would "play" at shooting arrows at Isaac. So Sarah decided to ask Abraham to send Ishmael and his mother Hagar away so they wouldn't affect Isaac. After consulting God, Abraham decided to listen to Sarah and send them both away.<\/p>\n
Our sages tell us that Ishmael was paralyzed, so his mother had to carry him, and when their water ran out, she left him lying in the shade of a tree, simply waiting for him to die. She moved away from him so as not to see him die and began to pray. He also prayed (see Genesis 21:17), God heard Ishmael's voice, and an angel showed Hagar a well of water for them both to drink from, and in the end, they both survived.<\/p>\n
We learn from this that God listens to the prayer of a sick person more than the prayers of others on their behalf. In this case, Ishmael's prayer was heard, but not Hagar's. However, there is another very important teaching: our sages relate that when God was about to show Hagar the well of water, the angels complained that Ishmael's descendants would cause the Jewish people to die of thirst when they went into exile (see Rashi on the relevant section), so it was not appropriate to save them from their thirst now. God responded to the complaint by saying that each person is judged by their present state, that is, by the level they are at in the moment of judgment, not by what they will do in the future (this is learned from the final words of the quoted verse, "because he is there," meaning he is judged "where he is").<\/p>\n
This raises a question: if Ishmael and his descendants had free will, how did God know that his descendants would cause the Jewish people to die of thirst? One explanation is that, based on Ishmael's life, his beliefs and upbringing, and the choices he had already made, if history continued as it had been unfolding, his descendants would fall into that sin. It's like a game of probabilities: given certain initial values for certain variables and with the current rules of the universe, Ishmael was bound to do that. The thing is, at any moment, it's within a person's power to change those probabilities\u2014in other words, to do Teshuvah, to draw closer to God in a way that "changes" the future. That is, Judaism doesn't believe in determinism, but, in any case, God "knows" the future as if it were a matter of probabilities.<\/p>\n
The novelty of our story is that Ishamel was not judged according to that Divine Knowledge of the future, but according to where he was now. This leaves us with a message of encouragement and hope: it doesn't matter (to a certain extent) what we will do tomorrow, but rather the present moment. When we make a resolution to improve and grow spiritually, we shouldn't be discouraged if we might fail, as our sages say: "Whoever comes to be purified, we help.".<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La secci\u00f3n de esta semana se llama Vaier\u00e1 (Y se mostr\u00f3) y relata parte de la vida Avraham luego de haberse hecho el Brit Mil\u00e1, la circuncisi\u00f3n. Entre los eventos que son relatados, la Tor\u00e1 nos cuenta sobre el nacimiento de Itzjak, el hijo de Avraham y Sara. Pero Avraham ya ten\u00eda otro hijo, Ishmael,… Read More \u00bbThe now<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[1008,1010,996,979,1033,960,942],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editoriales","category-vaiera","tag-avraham","tag-educacion","tag-itzjak","tag-judaismo","tag-libre-albedrio","tag-teshuva","tag-tora"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/libre-albedrio.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/avatar1400.jpeg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"castbox":{"key":"castbox","url":"","label":"CastBox","class":"castbox","icon":"castbox.png"},"rss":{"key":"rss","url":"","label":"RSS","class":"rss","icon":"rss.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/en\/feed\/podcast\/rabino-tuvia-serber","embedCode":"El ahora<\/a><\/blockquote>