Heeding Sarah’s Voice

"For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Eternal by doing righteousness and justice (tzedakah u'mishpat)… some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test" (Genesis 18:19, 22:1) 

Traditionally, Parashat Vayeira is read through the lens of Abraham's faith: his welcome of strangers, his plea for Sodom, his binding of Isaac. But what if we placed Sarah at the center of this narrative?

In "Dirshuni: Contemporary Women's Midrash," Rivkah Lubitch imagines the Akeidah as God testing Sarah. An angel commands her: "Take your son, your only one, whom you have loved, Isaac, and offer him up. " Sarah refuses: "No. Because a mother does not slaughter her child ." She awakens to find Abraham and Isaac gone, and she prays: "I know that one who slaughters his son in the name of God will in the end be left without a son or God. Forgive Abraham, who was mistaken about this. Please remember that it did not occur to a mother to offer her son up to God and save the boy from him. "

Lubitch's Sarah reframes the covenant: not unquestioning obedience, but a refusal to follow an unjust command even if it is issued in God's name. Her resistance becomes the true act of tzedakah u'mishpat, righteousness and justice.

This re-reading resonates with the Hungarian story of Jewish modernity. In the 19th century, Budapest became a hub of Reform Judaism. Lipót Löw (1811-1875), a pioneering rabbi and scholar, preached in Hungarian; argued for full citizenship rights for Jews; and reshaped synagogue life with vernacular sermons, modern architecture, and even organ music. His influence is still visible in Budapest's Dohány Street Synagogue, which inspired the architecture of Manhattan's Central Synagogue. Like Sarah, Löw resisted the assumption that covenantal loyalty required submission. He insisted that Judaism's future depended on ethical renewal, education, and integration into Hungarian culture.

But history disrupted this trajectory. The Shoah devastated Hungarian Jewry and communism silenced religious expression. In many post-Holocaust European cities, displaced Orthodox survivors rebuilt Jewish life, shifting the mainstream toward tradition. Hungary was different: because religion itself was suppressed, the progressive Jewish movement there, Neolog Judaism, froze in place. Instead of evolving, as Löw intended, it became a caretaker of its pre-war form. Today, Neolog Judaism is affiliated with the Conservative Movement, aligning with a more traditional practice than Löw himself likely envisioned.

And yet, just as Sarah's voice rises to correct Abraham's mistaken zeal, progressive communities in Hungary-small but determined congregations such as Sim Shalom and Bét Orim in Budapest-have emerged since the fall of communism in 1989 to carry forward Löw's true legacy. They model inclusivity, equality, and justice. They refuse the idea that Judaism must be preserved by repeating the past. Instead, they insist that the covenant is alive, dynamic, and ethical, renewed through pluralism and openness.

Seen this way, Hungary's Progressive Jews are Sarah's heirs. Like her, they reject a covenantal reading that sanctifies sacrifice or freezes tradition. They declare instead that God's way is justice, that Judaism's task is renewal, and that obedience without ethics is no covenant at all.

Genesis 18:19 teaches that Abraham was chosen to instruct his children in tzedakah u'mishpat. Rivkah Lubitch's midrash reminds us that it is Sarah's refusal-and her ethical clarity-that secures Isaac's future. In Hungary, it is the Progressive community's insistence on justice and inclusivity that renews the covenant today.

To be children of Abraham and Sarah is to reject sacrificing the living on the altar of mistaken faith, instead embodying the covenant of righteousness and justice. Hungarian Progressive Judaism bears witness that even when history freezes tradition, renewal is possible.

And what about us? What would it mean in our lives to heed Sarah's voice of resistance? How do we ensure that our Judaism is not only about preservation but also about courageous renewal? When we face pressures to conform, when fear tempts us toward silence, do we remember that covenant demands justice?

The Torah's challenge is not only Abraham's test, but also Sarah's: to refuse violence done in God's name, to speak for life, and to insist that the covenant is measured by tzedakah u'mishpat. Each generation must ask: Will we simply inherit forms, or will we act with justice? Will we silence Sarah again, or will we heed her voice?