In the synagogue the Torah is read aloud in a fixed annual cycle of fifty-four weekly portions (parashiyot), one each Shabbat morning, with certain adjacent portions doubled in ordinary years so the sequence fits the calendar. Each portion is named for a distinctive word near its opening and is paired with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets. The cycle closes and restarts on Simchat Torah. Vayera ('And He appeared', Genesis 18:1-22:24) carries the visit of the three messengers, Abraham's plea for Sodom, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the rescue of Lot, the birth of Isaac, and the harrowing test of the binding of Isaac (the Akedah), a passage read on Rosh Hashanah.
Abraham's plea for Sodom (Genesis 18:23-33), bargaining God down from fifty righteous people to ten before falling silent, is read by rabbinic tradition, including commentary attributed to Ramban, as establishing a model of moral advocacy even before the law of the Torah has been given, since Abraham argues explicitly from a principle of justice, that the judge of all the earth must act justly, rather than from any revealed commandment. Lot's rescue and his wife's transformation into a pillar of salt for looking back (Genesis 19:26) is read by classical commentators as punishment specifically for lingering attachment to the doomed city rather than mere curiosity, a reading that shaped later homiletic use of the episode as a warning against divided loyalty in moments requiring decisive break from the past.