Kol Ramah

Parsha Talk with Rabbis Eliot Malomet, Barry Chesler and Jeremy Kalmanofsky - Parashat Va-yera [Genesis 18-22] begins with the arrival of the messengers of God to the tent of the recovering Abraham [he circumcised himself and all the males of his household at the end of last week’s parashah] to announce the upcoming birth of Isaac to the elderly Abraham and Sarah. It ends with Abraham sacrificing a ram in the place of his son Isaac on an altar the rabbis will later place on the Temple Mount. But the actual conclusion is a five-sentence coda announcing the birth of Rebecca, who will ultimately marry Isaac, in next week’s parashah. The Torah has a wonderful way of compressing time in the telling of its stories. The three of us, in our conversation, struggled valiantly to compress time so we could get in as much as possible in our allotted time. Please let us know if you think we succeeded! We receive e-mail at parshatalk@gmail.com. Shabbat Shalom!