Abraham’s Quarrel with God

In this week’s Torah reading of Vayera, Abraham forcefully expresses his objections to God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Their extended negotiation is, by the standards of the Hebrew Bible, a lengthy piece of dialogue. Through a close reading of the passage, Sruli Fruchter tries to uncover some of its significance. He also notes the interpretive problem that stems from Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook’s comment, echoed by other important sages, that “it is necessary that prayer be clean of any idea of changing will and affecting response in God’s law.”

What Rabbi Kook writes . . . unequivocally contradicts the story of Sodom. Abraham prayed for Sodom. He explicitly sought to change God’s will. He hoped to change God’s decree. Kook’s words apparently attribute his actions to the “destruction of the order of man’s perfection.” For Kook, to suggest that one can “better” God by proposing new suggestions or demanding new realities is tantamount to heresy, for it essentially depends on denying God’s omniscience: if one’s argument and plea is “new information” to God, then He cannot be all-knowing, and if God already knows one’s forthcoming words, then God already accounted for them. The first case denies God, and the second case denies prayer.

Prayer, then, as Samson Raphael Hirsch, Kook, and others write elsewhere, is an exercise of self-transformation, the realization of God’s highest ideals within the praying human.

While the face of Sodom’s trial appears a parry of equals, of God and human, its reality conveys a truth of human prayer. To face injustice and open the siddur is to yearn for God’s ideals of righteousness, compassion, and justice. Abraham’s grappling with God—his outrage over collective punishment, his indignation at divine wrongdoing, his recusal to humility, and his concession to reality—can be likened to the inner currents of one’s mind during prayer.

Read more at Lehrhaus

More about: Abraham, Abraham Isaac Kook, Genesis, Prayer, Sodom

After Taking Steps toward Reconciliation, Turkey Has Again Turned on Israel

“The Israeli government, blinded by Zionist delusions, seizes not only the UN Security Council but all structures whose mission is to protect peace, human rights, freedom of the press, and democracy,” declared the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Wednesday. Such over-the-top anti-Israel rhetoric has become par for the course from the Turkish head of state since Hamas’s attack on Israel last year, after which relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been in what Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak describes as “free fall.”

While Erdogan has always treated Israel with a measure of hostility, the past few years had seen steps to reconciliation. Yanarocak explains this sharp change of direction, which is about much more than the situation in Gaza:

The losses at the March 31, 2024 Turkish municipal elections were an unbearable blow for Erdoğan. . . . In retrospect it appears that Erdoğan’s previous willingness to continue trade relations with Israel pushed some of his once-loyal supporters toward other Islamist political parties, such as the New Welfare Party. To counter this trend, Erdoğan halted trade relations, aiming to neutralize one of the key political tools available to his Islamist rivals.

Unsurprisingly, this decision had a negative impact on Turkish [companies] engaged in trade with Israel. To maintain their long-standing trade relationships, these companies found alternative ways to conduct business through intermediary Mediterranean ports.

The government in Ankara also appears to be concerned about the changing balance of power in the region. The weakening of Iran and Hizballah could create an unfavorable situation for the Assad regime in Syria, [empowering Turkish separatists there]. While Ankara is not fond of the mullahs, its core concern remains Iran’s territorial integrity. From Turkey’s perspective, the disintegration of Iran could set a dangerous precedent for secessionists within its own borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Iran, Israel diplomacy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey