Vayeira, Vayera, or (—Hebrew for "and He appeared," the first word in the parashah) is the fourth weekly Torah portion (, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis 18:1–22:24. The parashah tells the stories of Abraham's three visitors, Abraham's bargaining with God over Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's two visitors, Lot's bargaining with the Sodomites, Lot's flight, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, how Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father, how Abraham once again passed off his wife Sarah as his sister, the birth of Isaac, the expulsion of Hagar, disputes over wells, and the binding of Isaac (, the Akedah).
The parashah has the most words (but not the most letters or verses) of any of the weekly Torah portions in the Book of Genesis, and its word-count is second only to Parashat Naso in the entire Torah. It is made up of 7,862 Hebrew letters, 2,085 Hebrew words, 147 verses, and 252 lines in a Torah Scroll (Sefer Torah). (In the Book of Genesis, Parashat Miketz has the most letters, and Parashiyot Noach and Vayishlach have the most verses.)
Jews read it on the fourth Sabbath after Simchat Torah, in October or November. Jews also read parts of the parashah as Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah. Genesis 21 is the Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah, and Genesis 22 is the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. In Reform Judaism, Genesis 22 is the Torah reading for the one day of Rosh Hashanah.
Readings In traditional Sabbath Torah reading, the parashah is divided into seven readings (, aliyot). In the Masoretic Text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Parashat Vayeira has four "open portion" (, petuchah) divisions (roughly equivalent to paragraphs, often abbreviated with the Hebrew letter (peh)). Parashat Vayeira has two further subdivisions, called "closed portion" (, setumah) divisions (abbreviated with the Hebrew letter (samekh)) within the first open portion. The first open portion, petuchah) spans the first five readings. The second open portion coincides with the sixth reading. The third open portion covers the binding of Isaac, which is most of the seventh reading, excluding only the concluding maftir () reading. And the fourth open portion coincides with the concluding maftir reading. Closed portion divisions further divide the long fourth reading.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, The Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2006), pages 86–115.
First reading – Genesis 18:1–14 In the first reading, as Abraham was sitting in the entrance of his tent by the terebinths of Mamre in the heat of the day, he looked up and saw God in the form of three men. He ran, bowed to the ground, and greeted them,. offering to wash their feet and fetch them a morsel of bread, to which they assented.. Abraham rushed to Sarah's tent to order cakes made from choice flour, ran to select a choice calf for a servant-boy to prepare, set curds and milk and the calf before them, and waited on them under the tree as they ate.. (In Genesis 18:9, there are dots above the letters , , and in "They said to him".)
One of the visitors told Abraham that he would return the next year, and Sarah would have a son, but Sarah laughed to herself at the prospect, with Abraham being so old.. God then asked Abraham why Sarah had laughed at bearing a child at her age, noting that nothing was too wondrous for God.. The first reading ends here.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 89.
Second reading – Genesis 18:15–33 In the second reading, frightened, Sarah denied laughing, but God insisted that she had.. The men set out toward Sodom, and Abraham walked with them to see them off.. God considered whether to confide in Abraham what God was about to do, since God had singled out Abraham to become a great nation and instruct his posterity to keep God's way by doing what was just and right.. God told Abraham that the outrage and sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great that God was going to see whether they had acted according to the outcry that had reached God.. The men went on to Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before God.. Abraham pressed God whether God would sweep away the innocent along with the guilty, asking successively if there were 50, or 45, or 40, or 30, or 20, or 10 innocent people in Sodom, would God not spare the city for the sake of the innocent ones, and each time God agreed to do so.. When God had finished speaking to Abraham, God departed, and Abraham returned to his place.. The second reading ends here with the end of chapter 18.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 93.
Third reading – Genesis 19:1–20 In the third reading, as Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom in the evening, the two angels arrived, and Lot greeted them and bowed low to the ground.. Lot invited the angels to spend the night at his house and bathe their feet, but they said that they would spend the night in the square.. Lot urged them strongly, so they went to his house, and he prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.. Before they had retired for the night, all the men of Sodom gathered about the house shouting to Lot to bring his visitors out so that they might be intimate with them.. Lot went outside the entrance, shutting the door behind him, and begged the men of Sodom not to commit such a wrong.. Lot offered the men his two virgin daughters, if they would not do anything to his guests, but they disparaged Lot as one who had come as an alien and now sought to rule them, and they pressed threateningly against him.. But the visitors stretched out their hands and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door and struck the people with blindness so that they were unable to find the door.. The visitors directed Lot to bring what family he had out of the city, for they were about to destroy the place, because the outcry against its inhabitants had become so great.. So Lot told his sons-in-law that they needed to get out of the place because God was about to destroy it, but Lot's sons-in-law thought that he was joking.. As dawn broke, the angels urged Lot to flee with his wife and two remaining daughters, but still he delayed.. So out of God's mercy, the men seized Lot, his wife, and daughters and brought them out of the city, telling them to flee for their lives and not to stop or look back anywhere in the plain.. But Lot asked them whether he might flee to a little village nearby.. The third reading ends here.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 97.
Fourth reading – Genesis 19:21–21:4 In the long fourth reading, the angel replied that he would grant Lot this favor too, and spare that town.. The angel urged Lot to hurry there, for the angel could not do anything until he arrived there, and thus the town came to be called Zoar.. As the sun rose and Lot entered Zoar, God rained sulfurous fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah and annihilated the entire plain.. Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.. The next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before God and looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw the smoke rising like at a kiln.. Lot was afraid to dwell in Zoar, so he settled in a cave in the hill country with his two daughters.. The older daughter told the younger that their father was old, and there was not a man on earth with whom to have children, so she proposed that they get Lot drunk and have sex with him so that they might maintain life through their father.. That night they made their father drink wine, and the older one lay with her father without his being aware.. And the next day the older one persuaded the younger to do the same.. The two daughters thus had children by their father, the older one bore a son named Moab who became the father of the Moabites, and the younger bore a son named Ben-ammi who became the father of the Ammonites.. A closed portion ends here with the end of chapter 19.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 100.
As the reading continues in chapter 20, Abraham settled between Kadesh and Shur.. While he was sojourning in Gerar, Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, so King Abimelech had her brought to him, but God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him that taking her would cause him to die, for she was married.. Abimelech had not approached her, so he asked God whether God would slay an innocent, as Abraham and Sarah had told him that they were brother and sister.. God told Abimelech in the dream that God knew that Abimelech had a blameless heart, and so God had kept him from touching her.. God told Abimelech to restore Abraham's wife, since he was a prophet, and he would intercede for Abimelech to save his life, which he would lose if he failed to restore her.. Early the next morning, Abimelech told his servants what had happened and asked Abraham what he had done and why he had brought so great a guilt upon Abimelech and his kingdom.. Abraham replied that he had thought that Gerar had no fear of God and would kill him because of his wife, and that she was in fact his father's daughter though not his mother's, so he had asked of her the kindness of identifying him as her brother.. Abimelech restored Sarah to Abraham, gave him sheep, oxen, and slaves, and invited him to settle wherever he pleased in Abimelech's lands.. Abimelech told Sarah that he was giving Abraham a thousand pieces of silver to serve her as vindication before all.. Abraham then prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and the women in his household, so that they bore children, for God had stricken the women with infertility because of Sarah.. Another closed portion ends here with the end of chapter 20.
As the reading continues in chapter 21, God visited Sarah, as promised in chapter 18, and she bore Abraham a son as God had predicted, and Abraham named him Isaac.. Abraham circumcised Isaac when he was eight days old. The fourth reading ends here.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 105.
Fifth reading – Genesis 21:5–21 In the fifth reading, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and Sarah remarked that God had brought her laughter and that everyone would laugh with her about her bearing Abraham a child in his old age. Abraham held a great feast on the day that Sarah weaned Isaac.. Sarah saw Hagar's son Ishmael playing, and Sarah told Abraham to cast Hagar and Ishmael out, saying that Ishmael would not share in Abraham's inheritance with Isaac.. Sarah's words greatly distressed Abraham, but God told Abraham not to be distressed but to do whatever Sarah told him, for Isaac would carry on Abraham's line, and God would make a nation of Ishmael, too.. Early the next morning, Abraham placed some bread and water on Hagar's shoulder, together with Ishmael, and sent them away.. Hagar and Ishmael wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, and when the water ran out, she left the child under a bush, sat down about two bowshots away so as not to see the child die, and burst into tears.. God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel called to Hagar, saying not to fear, for God had heeded the boy's cry, and would make of him a great nation.. Then God opened her eyes to a well of water, and she and the boy drank.. God was with Ishmael and he grew up in the wilderness and became a bowman.. Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran, and Hagar got him an Egyptian wife.. The fifth reading and the first open portion end here.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Bereishis/Genesis, page 108.
Sixth reading – Genesis 21:22–34