Session 44: Parashat Vayeira

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" - Revisited. Ursula K. LeGuin, 1973

Parashat Vayeira includes the story of Abraham’s bargaining with God to spare the wicked city of Sodom from destruction for its sins, arguing that it should be saved on account of even ten innocent citizens. In Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” a city lives in a harmonious paradise in exchange for the suffering of a single child. Each of these stories confronts the reader with powerful questions about communal responsibility and our obligations to each other and to our. (When we looked at “Omelas” in the Daf for Parashat Sh’mot, we focused on the issue of invisibility. Now we return to the text from a different angle.)

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