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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayera Genesis 18:1 – 22:24
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel – If one had to choose a biblical
moment that evokes awe, confusion, inspiration, fear and terror all at the
same time, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, the akeda, stands unique. For
thousands of years, commentators have grappled with this unsettling,
disturbing event which, with one stroke of the knife, threatens to
dissolve Abraham’s world as well as his world order.
Abraham has been continuously promised that the nation which shall emerge
from his own loins will, against all odds, survive and declare the name of
one G-d, to the entire world. And Isaac’s very birth to aged parents was
a miraculous confirmation of G-d’s promise. Is Abraham now expected to
destroy that very miracle? Moreover, Abraham’s message to the world was
one of ethical monotheism, of a G-d who created the human being in His own
image, who deplored immorality and bloodshed. Hasn’t his very ministry
been the exact antithesis of Moloch’s blood-thirsty parts of child –
sacrifice?
Tragedy, however, is halted. The verdict of biblical commentaries is that
by subjugating his own will before G-d’s will, Abraham proves to be the
ever-faithful servant whose immense faith in the face of this 10th, and
final, test is rewarded. A ram trapped in a thick grove suddenly appears,
and Isaac, as well as Abraham’s dream, is saved.
Most commentators approach this difficult story of the akeda from Abraham’s
point of view. Maimonides, for example, sees it as a fundamental
confirmation of the truth of prophecy. Upon hearing G-d’s word, Abraham
does what he does because he has heard the divine command.
Soren Kierkegaard , in his masterpiece “Fear and Trembling,”
understands that Abraham is being taught the essential lesson in religious
worship, the “teleological suspension of the ethical,” and, the more
contemporary Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz who extracts from the akeda
that the human being is not commanded by the Torah to be ethical; he is
rather commanded to serve G-d.
But perhaps we ought view the akeda story from G-d’s perspective, from
the very complex lesson (or lessons) that G-d was trying to communicate to
the first Jews. The command is, after all, an ambiguous one: “lift him
up as a dedication (olah)”, literally a lifting-up. As Rashi correctly
notes, G-d never said: slaughter him!
Of course, olah certainly means a sacrificial offering in the context of a
system of animal sacrifices. And in the light of subsequent Jewish
history, tear-stained and blood-drenched, with parents who had to see
their children immolated on the pyres of anti-Jewish tyrants from the Nile
River of Pharoah to the gas chambers of Hitler, - Abraham’s willingness
to sacrifice Isaac provides Biblical precedent for superhuman acts of
faith which have paradoxically ensured and enshrined our national
eternity.
But what if G-d’s ambiguity reveals another message – and a second
kind of test. After all, the Biblical punch-line is that Isaac lives, that
G-d’s angel – a true deus ex machina – pushes back Abraham’s hand
at the very last moment.
Perhaps G-d expected Abraham to have pleaded for Isaac, to have taken a
firm stand against child sacrifice, to have resisted, pleaded and begged,
on behalf of Isaac just as he resisted on behalf of Sodom. Is that not how
Moses reacted in a later generation when, after the Israelites sinned with
the golden calf, G-d tells Moses to leave Him alone and He will destroy
the entire nation and begin anew with Moses alone. Moses categorically
rejects the offer, debating with the Creator effectively and convincingly
on behalf of His eternal covenant with Israel, His divine promise to the
Patriarchs (Ex 32:11-13). Were not G-d’s initial words to Moses a test
of the prophet’s commitment to and love for his nation, a test to which
Moses reacted differently from Abraham?
We find evidence for this reading in the text itself. After the akeda ,
G-d never speaks to Abraham again. Indeed, it is actually an angel and not
G-d Himself, who prevents Abraham from the act of slaughter according to
the Biblical narrative.
And the Bible reiterates the necessity of sometimes challenging G-d. Job
suffers abject pain and bereavement and is comforted by his friends, who
urge him to accept his plight as a just punishment from G-d. Job
challenges G-d, insisting to be shown where and how he sinned. And in the
end, G-d accepts Job’s challenge and rejects the simplistic “piety”
and acquiescence of his friends. Indeed, it was Abraham’s earlier
remonstrations with G-d on behalf of the wicked Sodomites as well as Moses
and Job which served as a model for one of the great religious heroes of
recent times, the Hasidic leader and saint R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.
He once rose in the midst of the Yom Kippur synagogue service, before
Kaddish, and cried out to G-d, “Enough! What have Your people done that
You continue to make them suffer? Have we not suffered enough? I refuse to
leave this place until you forgive Israel! Yisgadal Ve YisKadash Shmey
Rabbo.”
In effect, after the binding of Isaac, Abraham’s career is over. We
never see him directly encountering or being encountered by G-d again. And
indeed, the Sfat Emet interprets the words in our Biblical akeda narrative
“And he (Abraham) saw the place from afar” to read “And he (Abraham)
saw G-d from afar,” taking the Hebrew makom in this context to refer to
G-d, as it is used in the blessing we convey to mourners (Gen. 22:4). The
Sfat Emet suggests that this was a test of Abraham’s fear of G-d; had
the patriarch been in the mode of love of G-d, he would have realized that
the “Merciful, loving Rahum” could never have requested child
sacrifice of him.
And this interpretation is not very different from that of Rashi, who
suggests that G-d’s initial intent had only been for Abraham to bring
Isaac up the mountain, and then to take him down from the mountain. And
the probable source for Rashi is Babylonian Talmud Taanit (4a), which
cites Jeremiah’s (19:5) critique against Israelite idolaters who set up
altars for burning their children to Baal, something which “I (G-d)
never commanded, never spoke of, never imagined: “I never commanded
Mesha to sacrifice his son, I never spoke to Jefta to sacrifice his
daughter; I never imagined that Abraham would sacrifice Isaac.”
Our Bible is eternal, speaking to its generation as well as to all
generations. For all generations wherein Israelites would be called upon
to sacrifice their children “al Kiddush haShem,” the command to
Abraham was a call to faith and Abraham remains a beacon of commitment
unto death. At the very same time – and especially for the generation of
the Bible with its Moloch idolatry – the entire story comes to teach
that our G-d of ethical monotheism would never expect a parent to
slaughter his son in His name!
Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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