Sacrificing Integrity: What Vayera Teaches Those Who Struggle with God

My dad and I study the Torah together each week. This year, we’re using It Takes Two to Torah, a book that compiles the debates of Abigail Pogrebin (a Reform journalist) and Rabbi Dov Linzer (an Orthodox rabbi), to guide our conversations.

In this week’s parashah, Vayera, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham is prepared to comply, only to be stopped at the last moment by an angel. It’s a story that’s deeply unsettling and challenging to grapple with.

In the book, Abigail Pogrebin asks whether this story has “something in it for someone who struggles with the concept of God.” Rabbi Dov Linzer responds that the takeaway might be about the meaning that sacrifice brings to life. Their conversation crescendos with Pogrebin suggesting that perhaps, at this point in the Torah, even God is figuring things out—realizing He shouldn’t have asked this of Abraham, just as He vowed never to flood the Earth again after the Noah story.

Her question lingered with me: What’s in this story for someone like me?

Here’s what I see: Abraham is someone we know has negotiated with God before (see the story of Sodom and Gomorrah). Yet here, he is silent. There is no mention of his internal state—no fear, no doubt, no anger. This silence feels striking. Was it trust? Or was it something else—an inability to articulate his resistance in the face of overwhelming pressure? This time, it wasn’t God revealing His intentions for destruction; it was God demanding Abraham himself commit an act of destruction.

To me, Abraham’s silence looks like a failure—not of faith, but of courage. He already had experience pushing back on God—why didn’t he do so here? His unquestioning compliance seems out of character and out of integrity for him.

While the angels intervene just in time, Abraham’s willingness to act leaves a trail of unresolved silences. God now communicates with Abraham only through a messenger. Abraham and Isaac don’t appear to discuss what happened. And still, we are left without any insight into Abraham’s inner dialogue.

For me, the lesson for someone who struggles with the concept of God is this: blind obedience, even in the name of the sacred, can strain or even fracture relationships—whether with a higher power, with others, or with yourself. Faith, like any meaningful bond, grows stronger through honest dialogue, resistance when something feels out of integrity, and negotiation that honors both parties. Abraham missed an opportunity here, and maybe our takeaway is to learn not to do the same.