This is the most insane Torah portion ever. I feel like every Torah story I know is contained in Vayeira.  Vayeira encompasses Genesis 18-22.  We get Sarah and Abraham giving birth, the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, the sending off of Hagar and Ishmael, and of course the binding of Isaac.  Where else does the Torah move this fast? Goodness. Sometimes my eyes are burning with boredom as I try to read about specific parameters for ark making and then in 4 chapters we get all of this business.

Anyway, with such a dense portion, it was hard to settle on a topic for this post, but here we go…

Is anything too wondrous for the LORD? [Genesis 18:14]

This is God’s rebuttal when God hears Sarah laughing at the assertion that she will have a child in her old age.  The answer, of course, is no.  Nothing is too wondrous for God.  When I read this portion, I had actual tears welling in my eyes because I was so moved by the miracles possible.

Remember, I believe that God is the unification of all things, forces, everything.  So when you ask “Is anything too wondrous for the LORD?” the answer is of course not, because in everything you can find anything.  To clarify, it’s sort of like, if you have the numbers 0-9, you can form literally every single number.  How magical! That is what God is to me, that everything in which all things are possible.  I do not believe that God can be called upon to solve every problem.  If that were the case then disease, poverty, and injustice would be no more.  However, as fingers of God, as extensions of that everything, we can do extraordinary things.  It is all about trusting that divine potential.  Not doubting yourself.  Only we can truly limit ourselves.  In The Five Books of Miriam, Ellen Frankel describes Sarah’s laughter through first person, stating:

I denied my laughter not because I doubted God’s capacity for miracles but because I doubted my own.

How rich and delicious! This is what it’s all about. When we look for miracles, we do not need to look upward or outward but inward.  We are capable of so much.  By taking our potential and fulfilling it, we are uniting ourselves with the other divine sparks of creation and burning a little brighter.

I think the other important lesson from this story is that Sarah names her son Isaac, or the “laughing one.” Again in The Five Books of Miriam, Frankel cites an important phenomenon.  She explains that,

Sarah is naming not her son but herself as “Mother of Laughter.”  For in giving birth to Isaac, she changes from a laughingstock […] to matriarch of the covenant.  Isaac is her belly laugh, her way of ribbing and kidding God and Abraham.

How bold of Sarah.  She takes her own fate and reputation in her hands and names her son after the deed she is scorned for by God. She embraces it and changes her name.  Sarah teaches us an important lesson, that we are the makers of our own reputation and we gain that reputation through our actions.  It is what we do, what choices we make that determine who we are.  Not to nerd-out too hard, but I think of Harry Potter when Dumbledore patiently explains:

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Again, the message is that you have every choice, it’s just a matter of which ones you decide to make.  You can rise above or surrender.  Make choices to bring purpose to your life or flounder in uncertainty.  Your life can be meaningful regardless of what choices you make, it’s just your intentions that matter.

I want to close with a series of quotes that mean a lot to me right now in the context of this parsha, and of course this month’s middah of gratitude.

• The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. –e.e. cummings
• Our Matriarch, Leah, names her fourth son Yehuda which means I am grateful (Genesis 29:35).  As Jews, we are known as yehudim in Hebrew.  Our name literally means “those who give thanks.” –Rabbi Judy’s Middot Study Guide
• We are our choices. –Jean-Paul Sartre
• Let us be grateful to the ones that make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. –Proust
• your beliefs become your thoughts,
  your thoughts become your words,
  your words become your actions,
  your actions become your habits,
  your habits become your values,
  your values become your destiny. –Mahatma Gandhi