OUTREACH

Vayeirah 

This week’s Torah reading introduces us to two towering figures, Abraham and Isaac, the first two patriarchs of our people. Though father and son, their journeys of faith begin in entirely different ways and ultimately converge in a single, luminous truth: that faith is born not in thought alone, but in action.

Abraham was the first Jew, the seeker who chose G-d. Isaac was the first Jew born into that covenant. Abraham’s path began with discovery. As a child, he looked at the stars, the world, the complexity of life, and asked: Who runs this orchestra? He searched, studied, and reasoned until he concluded that there must be One Creator, the Master of all existence. But his greatest spiritual moment did not come through contemplation. It came through obedience. At ninety-nine years old, at the height of wisdom, knowledge, and intellectual refinement, G-d commanded Abraham to circumcise himself. It was an act that defied all reason, a command that no philosophy could justify. Yet Abraham did not question. He acted.

The Torah opens this portion with the words, “And G-d appeared to him.” But this was not the first time G-d had spoken to Abraham. Many times before, G-d had conversed with him — instructing him to leave his homeland, promising him descendants, assuring him of the Land of Israel. Yet those encounters are described as G-d speaking to Abraham. Only now, after the circumcision, does the Torah say that G-d appeared to him. Why? What changed?

Because something within Abraham changed. Until now, his relationship with G-d had been one of intellect and understanding, a dialogue between the human mind and the Divine word. But after the circumcision, Abraham no longer related to G-d only through thought or speech. He had sanctified his very body, making his physical being itself a vessel for holiness. The covenant of circumcision was not just symbolic; it transformed him. It made his faith tangible, embodied, alive.

For the first time, Abraham did not just hear G-d; he experienced Him. G-d was no longer an abstract truth to be comprehended, but a living presence to be seen. True revelation, the kind that permeates every part of life, comes only when faith becomes deed, when spirit enters the body.

A story from our Chabad tradition captures this beautifully. When Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber, the fifth Rebbe of Chabad, was a small child, only four or five years old, he went to his grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, on Shabbat Vayeira and burst into tears. “Why,” he asked, “did G-d reveal Himself to our forefather Abraham, but He doesn’t reveal Himself to us?” The Tzemach Tzedek gently replied, “When a tzadik decides at ninety-nine years old that he should circumcise himself, he deserves that G-d appear to him.”

The child was comforted, but the question lingers for us all. We, too, fulfill that same mitzvah of circumcision, but not after a revelation, rather, from pure faith. We perform it at eight days old, before understanding, before logic can agree. And we do so across generations, without hesitation or question.

What made Abraham’s act so exceptional was that for him, circumcision was not an inherited ritual. It was an act that shattered the limits of his own intellect. Abraham, the philosopher and cosmologist of his age, the thinker who had reached the pinnacle of human knowledge, was commanded to do something utterly beyond reason. And he did it, not because it made sense, but because G-d said so.

That moment, when intellect bows before faith, opened the door for G-d’s revelation in a new way. It was not G-d’s voice speaking to Abraham; it was G-d’s presence appearing within him. Abraham’s action made him capable of perceiving G-d with the totality of his being, mind, heart, and body. And that transformation became the spiritual DNA of the Jewish people: the readiness to act even before understanding.

Isaac, the son who inherited this faith, began life from that very place. His Jewishness started with action. He was circumcised at eight days old, before thought or reason. Only later did he learn to speak the words of Torah, and later still to contemplate their meaning. Judaism teaches this divine order: Naaseh v’nishma, we will do, and then we will understand. When we live as Jews, when we act even before we fully grasp the “why,” understanding eventually follows.

This is the foundation of Jewish continuity. Our Torah is not a book of theories but a guide to life itself, teaching us how to eat, dress, speak, give, love, and serve. It is through deeds, through mitzvot, that our faith finds its most enduring expression.

And then comes the laughter, the laughter of Sarah when she was notified she would bear a child in old age. It was not the laughter of disbelief, but of astonishing joy, the sound of the impossible becoming possible. That is why Isaac’s name, Yitzchak, means “he will laugh.” His very being reminds us that when we act with faith, even when reason says it’s too late, miracles follow.

We each carry that same laughter, the laughter of resilience, of redemption, of a people who keep walking forward in faith and joy even when logic fails. This week, as we live our faith through kindness, mitzvot, and community, may we each experience our own Sarah laughter, the joy that comes when we realize that miracles are not just promised; they are already unfolding. 

Let us take a step forward, as Abraham did, not waiting to understand before acting, but acting so that understanding and blessing will follow. In every mitzvah, in every gesture of kindness, in every choice to bring more holiness into the world, we create the space where G-d does not just speak to us, He appears.

G-d bless you and have a great Shabbos and good week.

Rabbi Zalman Lipskar

(adapted from the writings of my Father and Teacher, Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, obm)

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