Many
people have remarked that the recent presidential election is unprecedented. In
the past week I’ve heard: “I’ve never seen anything like it.” “This is
terrifying.” “We’ve never had a candidate or a campaign like this one.” “I’ve
never felt this awful after an election.” (I also heard many unprintable
comments.) Several people have reported that they are wondering if they should
move to another country.[1] This election is a first in many ways.
On the
Torah front, in contrast, you might be having a sense of deja vu: This
week’s parashah is Vayera and includes the Akeidah (the
Binding of Isaac). Yes, we’re reading Genesis chapter 22 again, just six weeks
after reading it on Rosh Hashanah. What can it teach us now, in the wake of the
presidential election, and in the face of the fear and despair gripping so many
and a political divide greater than any most people alive can recall in their
lifetimes?
The
harrowing and terrifying tale of the Akeidah is told in only nineteen
verses, yet it is anything but simple, and the many interpretations that have
been layered on top of it elevate it to one of the most complex biblical
stories of all. Scores of interpreters have sought to make sense of a deeply
troubling and frightening story.
The
bare bones of the story are: God instructs Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as
a sacrifice on a mountain God will specify. Abraham unhesitatingly complies and
surrenders the child for whom he waited and longed and who was born when he was
one hundred years old. In an act of complete self-effacement in the face of the
divine, Abraham binds Isaac to an altar and prepares to slit his throat to
please God. But God not only does not want this sacrifice, God forbids it. A
ram is sacrificed in Isaac’s stead. Isaac lives to inherit the covenant from
his father, and passes it on to his son, Jacob.
For
many of the Chachamim, the story is a paradigm for what they understand to be the
ideal divine-human relationship: Abraham completely subjugates his will, and
even his moral compass, to obey the divine command of God. Imagining the
thoughts and feelings of Abraham and Isaac, traveling together for three days
to Mount Moriah, the Rabbis introduce Satan, the prosecuting attorney in the
heavenly court, into the drama. Satan prods, pokes, provokes.
And rose up, and
went (Gen. 22:3). On the way, Satan ran ahead of Abraham, appeared
before him in the guise of an old man, and asked, “Where are you going?” Abraham:
“To pray.” Satan: “Why should one going to pray have fire and a knife in his
hand, and kindling wood on his shoulder?” Abraham: “We may stay there a day or
two, and we will have to slaughter an animal, bake bread, and eat.” Satan: “Old
man, do you think I was not there when the Holy One said to you, ‘Take your son’?
Old man, you are out of your mind. A son who was given you at the age of one
hundred and you are setting out to kill him!” Abraham: “Even so.” Satan: “And
should God test you even more severely, will you still stand firm?” Abraham: “Yes,
even more and more severely.” Satan: “But tomorrow God will call you murderer
for shedding the blood of your son.” Abraham: “Even so.”[2]
Satan’s
attempts to dissuade Abraham from obeying God and to convince him that God will accuse him of murder on the day
after he slaughters Isaac fail. Abraham is steadfastly determined to obey God.
Satan
next appeals to Isaac’s love for his mother, Sarah, and tells Isaac that he
will break his mother’s heart if he goes along with Abraham, who is a deranged
old man.
Seeing that his
efforts were in vain, Satan left Abraham and, disguising himself as a young
man, stood at Isaac’s right and said, “Where are you going?” Isaac: “To study
Torah.” Satan: “While still alive or after your death?” Isaac: “Is there a man
who can study after his death?” Satan: “O hapless son of a hapless mother! How
many fasts did your mother fast, how many prayers did she utter until at last
you were born! And now this old man has gone mad in his old age and is about to
slit your throat.” Isaac: “Nevertheless, I shall not deviate from the will of
my Maker and from the bidding of my father.” [3]
Like
Abraham, Isaac remains adamantly determined to comply with God’s command.
Casting morality aside, Abraham and Isaac follow a path of destruction. Only
God’s intervention prevents Isaac’s death. As dramatic as these midrashim are,
blind obedience does not seem to shed constructive light on our current
situation.
Another
rabbinic interpretation suggests that Abraham was either clueless, or a fanatic
who misinterpreted God’s command:
…take your son, your
favored son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moria and offer him up
(והעלהו ve’ha’aleihu) there. They recited a mashal (parable): It is like a king who said to his admirer, “Offer up
(העלה ha’alei) your son on my table.” The admirer, a knife in his hand,
brought his son. The king said, “Did I tell you to offer him so as to eat him?
I said, ‘Raise him up [exalt him] in love!’” Nimshal (application of the
parable): this is what is written: …it never occurred (עלי עלה לא lo alah alay) to Me (Jeremiah 19:5) – this verse refers
to Isaac.[4]
While “cluelessness”
and “fanaticism” have been applied to the recent campaign and election, this
doesn’t seem to be a constructive line of analysis. And it certainly does not
raise our mood, engender hope, or foster a constructive engagement with the
issues at hand.
Several
modern interpretations have criticized Abraham for failing to refuse God’s
immoral command. Abraham, who negotiated with God over the fate of the innocent
in Sodom and Gomorrah, betrays the very principles of justice and compassion
that God taught him when it came to his son. These interpretations suggest that
it is little wonder that God never again speaks directly with Abraham again.
While some political leaders have been condemned for betraying their values to
support their party, this interpretation does little to help us a chart a
course for the challenges facing our nation.
Given
so many dead ends, I turn in another direction, not toward a midrash or
interpretation of
An Arab shepherd is
searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite
hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and
a Jewish father
Both in their
temporary failure.
Our two voices met
above
The Sultan's Pool in
the valley between us.
Neither of us wants
the boy or the goat
To get caught in the
wheels
Of the "Chad Gadya" machine.
Afterward we found
them among the bushes,
And our voices came
back inside us
Laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat
or for a child has always been
The beginning of a
new religion in these mountains.
Both
the Arab and the Israeli are searching for those who have gone missing in the
same area around Mount Zion: the goat of the one and the child of the other.
Two people engaged in the same activity of searching and worrying, both calling
out for their missing one, both feeling vulnerable and frightened. One can
easily imagine that the Israeli father feels that the Arab poses a danger to
his son, and the Arab feels that the Israeli poses a danger to his goat. The
image of a father and his vulnerable son on the mountain evokes the image of
Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah—will Isaac survive and return home with his
father?
Both
the Arab and the Israeli fear the “Chad Gadya” machine, a reference to the
Aramaic song sung at the end of the Pesach seder about a cascade of devastating
and linked events: the goat is eaten by the cat that is devoured by the dog
that is beaten by the stick that is burned by fire that is doused with water
that is drunk by an ox that is killed by a slaughterer who is cut down by the malakh
ha-mavet (the angel of death). Finally, in the end, God destroys the malakh
ha-mavet—but by then everything is dead or has been destroyed. The Chad
Gadya cascade of violence and retaliation, reprisal and retribution,
becomes Amichai’s metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it also
evokes what has recently passed for public discourse in our own country
(political gut-punching is perhaps a better description): two sides talking
past one another, thinking the worst of one another, fearing one another,
demonizing one another.
In the
end, the goat and the child are found together in the bushes—evoking an image of the ram, caught in the thicket by its horns (Genesis 22:13). The search is over, and its conclusion comes with
insight and understanding between the Arab and the Israeli, who have shared
comparable experiences. Amichai’s commentary closes the poem: “Searching for a
goat or for a child has always been the beginning of a new religion in these
mountains.” This is a reference to the three “Abrahamic” religions: Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam[5] whose differences have led to hatred, atrocities,
and wars, overshadowing the much they share in common.
The
Arab and the Israeli, in their vulnerability and fear, have come to understand
something significant about one another. They have heard one another’s voice in
the valley between them, and this has brought them together to the spot where
the child and the goat sit under the bush.[6]
Each
side of our political divide needs to seek an honest and non-ideological
understanding of the “Other” that will allow us to chart a path forward that
addresses the needs of those whose vision and viewpoint we do not share.
Perhaps if we begin by trying to understand one another’s fears and
vulnerabilities—these brought the Arab and the Israeli together—we, too, can
meet in the valley. We need to listen, to learn, and to reflect on the
perspective of a great many people in this country whose experience is not our
own. And then we need to engage in every way we can to promote justice for
everyone and protect those who, in this new age, are most vulnerable.
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
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[1] You may have heard
that the Canadian immigration web site crashed just after the election results
were announced.
[2] From The Book of Legends: Legends from the Talmud and
Midrash, ed. by Hayim Nahman Bialik and
Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky.
[5] Abraham offered
Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, understood to be the same as the Temple
Mount. Jesus took his disciples Peter, James, and John to pray on a mountain
(Matthew 17:1ff). Muhammed is believed to have ascended to heaven from
Jerusalem (this is known as the Night Journey).
[6] Perhaps also an
allusion to Ishmael (viewed as the progenitor of the Arab nations), whom Hagar
left sitting alone under a bush so she wouldn’t see him die.
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