Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal

The story of the binding of Isaac is about the trust that we should have in God. That no matter how bad the situation seems to be, we know that we are under God’s protection.

One of the most important lessons we can learn from the Torah is that we are not entitled to leadership. It has to be earned through our hard work and diligence.

Lot’s daughters thought that the world had been destroyed. They took action to repopulate the world. If they had waited a little, they would have discovered that they were wrong. We forget that humans have seen worse that what we are experiencing.

When the angels came to save Lot, he refused to go with them. He could not believe that Sodom was about to be destroyed. This is an oft repeated story. When faced with the truth of their situation many refuse to believe the obvious.

Abraham does not accept God’s judgement concerning the destruction of Sodom. He argues with God. In the end he loses the argument, but an important principal is laid down. God wants us to think about His judgement. He does not want us to accept it on face value.

When Abraham welcomed strangers, it was to teach them about God and what God wants us to do. You have to expose yourself to society to make it better.

The way to fix the world is to work on ourselves. If we become better people, then we will influence the world. It has nothing to do with government.

Abraham brought ethical Monotheism to the world. That is that our ethics and morality come from God. This is the guide to our behavior. They are not made by men and cannot be changed by men.

One of the lessons of this week’s portion is that, while we have to have faith in God protection, we should prepare as if it is not coming.

Abraham enters the War of the Kings because Lot was taken prisoner. It did not matter to Abraham that Lot was not on his level spiritually. Lot had to be saved. This is a lesson to us. We do not ask about a fellow Jew’s spiritual level, we do everything to save him.