Vayera and the Importance of Inter-faith dialogue

Rabbi Miriam's sermon - delivered Kabbalat Shabbat 7th November 2025

I’m not sure about you, but I’m still waiting for the nice, quiet time beyond the two years of feeling tense. Don’t get me wrong, the news cycle seems better than the awfulness of even a few weeks ago. But that’s not a particularly high bar. 

I expect that some people here, along with some of my American colleagues, are feeling anxious about Mamdani’s appointment. Others among my colleagues voted for him, so the divisions among us Jews continue to be an extra source of confusion and tension. 

And closer to home, something that got to me this week was the LNER attack. The awful attack itself, but also the immediate responses to it that I saw online - instant assumptions that the attacker must be Muslim and the nature of the attack, terrorism. Even, I’m ashamed to say, on a Jewish Facebook group, I saw Islamophobic sentiments and anti-immigrant comments. As it turned out, the attacker was a British national. And the hero of the day, who put himself between the attacker and passengers, was a man called Samir with Muslim and Syrian heritage. His child is in the same class as one of my friend’s children, and he remains in a serious condition in the hospital following surgery on Tuesday.

My friend, who is also not Jewish, asked me to say prayers for Samir’s healing, and I’d like to say it today, along with you all, in the hope that our joint prayers will help Samir, who is nothing short of a hero and a mensch. Please join in with the words or with an amen. 

May the One who blessed our ancestors —

Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah —

bless and heal the one who is ill:

Samir 

May the Holy Blessed One

overflow with compassion upon him,

to restore him,

to heal him,

to strengthen him,

to enliven him.

The One will send him, speedily,

a complete healing —

healing of the soul and healing of the body —

along with all the ill,

among the people of all humankind,

Soon, speedily, without delay,

and let us all say:  Amen!

I’ll say it now in Hebrew and when I pause, feel free to add the names of others you know who are unwell, mentally or physically, along with Samir:

מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב, מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן, דָּוִד וּשְׁלֹמֹה — הוּא יְבָרֵךְ וְיִרְפָּא אֶת הַחוֹלִים __________ בְּנֵי / בְּנוֹת __________. הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא יִמָּלֵא רַחֲמִים עֲלֵיהֶם, לְהַחֲלִימָם, לְרַפְאוֹתָם, וּלְהַחֲזִיקָם. וְיִשְׁלַח לָהֶם מְהֵרָה רְפוּאָה שְׁלֵמָה — רְפוּאַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ וְרְפוּאַת הַגּוּף — בְּתוֹךְ שְׁאָר חוֹלֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. וְנֹאמַר אָמֵן.

Our parasha, Vayera, includes probably the most xenophobic, anti-immigrant story in the whole Torah. And it also includes what is probably the most stranger-loving story of the Torah too. 

Let’s start with the first. 

Lot, Avraham’s Nephew, lives in Sedom, a place characterised by hatred of outsiders. The midrash comes into its own with stories - they oppressed every wayfarer and stranger who entered Sedom with perverse judgment, and they sent them forth naked. They fenced in the trees so that even birds flying over wouldn’t benefit from fruit in the trees. They were wealthy, unthreatened by war and had plenty of food but issued a death penalty on anyone who helped a poor outsider. 

But even without the midrashim, the Torah story itself is a very uncomfortable one. Two men (we know they are angels) come to Lot’s home. He strongly encourages them to stay with him for the night rather than sleep in the city square. Soon we’ll find out. In the night, כּל־הָעָם, the entire people surround the house, demanding to rape the guests. Lot begs them to do no wrong. He doesn’t cover himself in glory either, offering his daughters to the mob. But the crowd specifically want to abuse and degrade the outsiders. And they say the following vile line: 

הָאֶחָד בָּא־לָגוּר וַיִּשְׁפֹּט שָׁפוֹט, עַתָּה נָרַע לְךָ מֵהֶם

“This one (Lot) came here as an alien, and already he acts the ruler! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.”

This one line has dark echoes throughout history.

“You came as an outsider, and now you’re acting high and mighty”.

“We’ll turn all of our anger now on you”. 

Chizkuni translates the line as:

“You are a guest here like they are, yet you conduct yourself like a native (citizen).”

In his instinct to protect others, Lot is outed for his otherness himself. 

We Jews need to remember that there but for the grace of God go we. We are almost all the grandchildren, or great or great, great, great grandchildren of immigrants. We cannot be seduced by the idea that immigrants are the source of all that is bad in this country, because that kind of scapegoating has in the past been levelled at none other than us. I’ve recently become acutely aware of the way people use the words “us” and “them”. “Us” can be such an incredibly positive word, full of identity, culture and pride. But when it becomes too dominant, it is expressed in distinction to a “them” - the others who threaten, who need to be kept in check or put in their place. The people of Sedom represent this at an extreme, and they give us a stark warning of where othering can lead. 

Time for the nice story. The most stranger-loving story in the Torah. Avraham, despite pain after his brit mila, spots strangers - three complete strangers - on the horizon and runs, rushes, hurries; numerous verbs describe his enthusiasm to host them. 

We mention hachnachsat orchim, welcoming guests, in our morning prayers.

“Greater is hospitality than receiving the divine presence!”

says the Talmud (Shabbat 127). Judaism undoubtedly teaches us hospitality as a core value. But despite our beautiful Shabbat meal culture, I can’t help but think that we don’t take hospitality far enough. Avraham teaches that we should welcome complete strangers. How many of us would invite someone off the street into our home? We sadly live in a world where a certain amount of stranger danger is wise, but I wonder if we could push ourselves a bit on this, to invite someone new, not just those who are familiar to you, into your home. 

And I have a beautiful opportunity to practice this, not in your own home, but in this bayit, this shul. This coming Thursday morning, 13th, starting at 10am, the Mayor of Borehamwood, Cllr Alpha Collins, is leading an interfaith walk around Borehamwood. This building will be a stop on the route and I plan to open our doors and share refreshments and some words of welcome with the group. Everyone here is welcome to join, and welcome people we’ve never yet met into this home with some Abraham-like hospitality. 

As someone who worked in inter-faith dialogue for seven years, I want to share that even I feel a little resistance to inter-faith encounters at the moment. I know I’m not alone and have spoken to others who just feel they are too bruised by the past two years to talk to someone of another faith beyond the superficial. I even know two separate people working on initiatives to prepare Jews for re-entry into inter-faith conversations, such is the reluctance. 

It’s understandable. But we, as individuals and as a community, need to overcome our resistance and make inter-faith work a new community priority. It is essential - not just to repair some of the harm done between communities in the past years - but because this parasha gives us a clear instruction to love and welcome the other, the stranger, like Avraham did, and to turn far, far away from the xenophobia of Sedom, which led to such violence and which quite literally imploded. And in my experience, when you take the risk of speaking to someone different, it’s a lot easier than you might have expected. The similarities between you come rushing out. Or perhaps you just discuss your favourite food or share photos of children, and that has its own simple beauty. 

So I hope some of you will be able to join me here on Thursday morning for the Borehamwood inter-faith walk. Then, a couple of weeks later, on Sunday 23rd November, I’ll be having an evening of conversation with The Revd Catriona Laing, Vicar of Emmanuel Church in West Hampstead, which you’re all also invited to. I hope this is just the start. No doubt on hundreds of more informal levels, you have opportunities for inter-faith interactions with your own friends, colleagues and neighbours. 

A closing thought - when I worked in the world of inter-faith dialogue. We actually used the language of… hospitality to describe what we were doing! It’s the Avraham-like move, whether literally or figuratively, to open your tent, invite someone in to look around and make them comfortable. And almost always this leads to reciprocal hospitality and becomes a virtuous cycle. 

Shabbat shalom.

Forthcoming interfaith events: