A D’var Torah for Parshat Vayera by Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt
There are moments when we want to close our eyes, to stop listening, and to take a break from what ails the world. The last four years have felt like an absolute barrage of xenophobia, racism, a flouting of the rules that were built to protect the institutions of this country. We are tired. We have protested, we have spoken out, we have donated our money to resist the corruption of this time, but we are tired. This week it feels hard to breathe as we wait for the election results and pray for the dawning of a new time.
One of the things I have been thinking about a lot lately is what our legacy will be. What will the generations after us learn about how we spoke up during this time? They will see films of the rivers of protests that filled our streets declaring justice for all, they will see how we stood up for refugees, for women, for Black lives, and for a free and fair election.
In many ways, we have done what our ancestors taught us to do when injustice rears its head: We have to speak up. It feels fitting that this week’s parshah is Vayera, which contains the story of Abraham speaking up to God to save the innocent in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God asks the question, “Should I hide what I am about to do from Abraham? Since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves through him.” (Genesis 18:17-18) Abraham needs to know what God is about to do — his eyes, ears and heart must understand what God is about to do. Why? God reveals the divine plan to Abraham precisely so that Abraham will fight for the righteous, and that is exactly what he does. “Abraham came forward and said, ‘Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?’” (Genesis 18:23)
The verb that is used here, “came forward,” is vayigash. This is the first of four times vayigash is used in Genesis, and each time we learn a new aspect of the verb’s meaning. In Genesis 27:22, vayigash is used to describe the moment when Jacob comes close to his father to get the blessing from Isaac. It focuses the reader on the risk that Jacob must take to secure the blessing that both Isaac and Esau expected Esau, the firstborn, to receive. In Genesis 29:10, the verb vayigash appears when Jacob comes close to roll the stone from the mouth of the well to help Rachel and her sisters water their flock. This time the verb conveys a surge of strength that Jacob receives that is motivated by love. Perhaps my favorite of all of the examples in Genesis is when Judah approaches Joseph to save Benjamin from enduring the same ordeal that the brothers perpetrated on Joseph. This time the verb is used to convey reconciliation and teshuvah (repentance). The moment that Judah comes forward, vayigash, is the moment when Joseph can finally reveal to his brothers his true identity.
To “come close” to injustice requires being wide awake and ready to act. To “come close” also requires taking risks, building strength from love, and reconciliation. In one single word, we have an incredible formula that has the potential to lead us closer to redemption. Abraham is praised by our sages for standing up to God and hearing the cries of injustice from the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. Though Abraham was not able to save the cities (there were not enough righteous people), the act of speaking up and coming forward is exactly why God chose him as the person through whom every future generation would be blessed.
The qualities that we inherit from Abraham are dogged persistence for justice and the obligation to move in close, to come forward toward the injustices in the world. 
We may not always win every fight, but the obligation to speak out, to use our words, our hands, our votes, and our prayers, to build strength through love is how we move toward holiness and how we heal this broken world.
Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt is Co-Senior Rabbi of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. Rabbi Holtzblatt hosts a weekly podcast called Awake: Finding the Holy in the Everyday. Rabbi Holtzblatt is proud and honored to have served as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s (z”l) rabbi.