Our tradition contains various perspectives on the role and importance of the angels.
And an angel of God called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” And the angel said, “Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest thing to him, for now I know that you are a God-fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me” (Gen. 22:11-12).
Who was this angel, and what are angels?
Parashat Vayera is brimming with angels – angels of good tidings, angels of destruction, angels of healing. At the beginning of the parsha, Abraham sees three angels in the form of men standing in front of him. Later, two of the angels go to Sodom to rescue Lot and destroy the wicked city. When Hagar is sent away into the desert, an “angel of God” calls to her to reassure her and show her the well. And finally, this angel comes to Abraham just in time to prevent him from carrying out the sacrifice of Isaac.
The role and importance of angels in Judaism
The Hebrew word for “angel” – malach – basically means “messenger.” In the Torah, an angel is a spiritual being sent by God to fulfill a specific mission. Indeed, it is said that each angel is given only one task. In the first episode in our parsha, the Talmud asks, “Who were the three men?” and answers, “The angels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Michael (‘who is like God?’) came to bring the tidings to Sarah of Isaac’s birth; Raphael (‘healing of God’) to heal Abraham; and Gabriel (‘might of God’) to overturn Sodom. But is it not written, ‘The two angels came to Sodom at evening’? Michael accompanied Gabriel to rescue Lot” (Talmud, Bava Metzia 86b).
Our tradition contains various perspectives on the role and importance of the angels. Rabbenu Bechaye, commenting on the cherubim in the Tabernacle, says that while the first positive commandment is to believe in the existence of God, the second is to believe in the existence of angels. Perhaps we can understand this in the sense that the angels are agents of a God who is not detached from the world but intervenes in its workings.
Sometimes the angels are depicted as disputing with God. There is a midrash (rabbinic literature) about how the tears of the angels disabled Abraham’s knife from killing Isaac. “When Abraham sent his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son, the ministering angels cried, and their tears fell on the knife, and the knife stood and lost its power over Isaac’s neck… Then an angel of God called to him from heaven…” (Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Ve’Yosha).
Another interpretation minimizes the role of the angel. According to the Midrash Vayikra Rabba, the angel called to Abraham, but after Abraham answered “Here am I,” the divine word spoke. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg explains that the angel called out – not to deliver a prophecy but simply to get Abraham’s attention. The actual command “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” was not spoken by an angel at all, but by God Himself. Several commentators note that calling Abraham’s name twice “Abraham, Abraham” was necessary to gain his attention because, as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch expresses it, “he was completely absorbed in carrying out the dread command of his God.” Once Abraham’s attention had been gained, God proceeded to speak. Again, it was God and not an angel who rescinded the original command to sacrifice Isaac.