“Gam zu l'tova. This too is for the good.” – Nachum Ish Gamzu, Talmud, Taanit, 21a
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Parsha Vayera: [Spoiler Alert!] Isaac Survives
The amount of pain we can carry with us on our everyday journeys is astounding. Everywhere you go, people are in pain -- physical pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, financial pain. For the past week I've had intermittent jaw/ear pain that makes me want to stab myself in the head with a screwdriver. (I won't.) Then I take some more ibuprofen, get out the heating pad, and it recedes to a dull ache. At times I even forget the pain unless I think about how the pain is gone. Thanks, brain, for that trick.
It's been six weeks since Rosh Hashanah, Day II, when we came together, stood in synagogue and literally knocked on our hearts, banging them open with our fists. We called out our sins, and our pain, and we were surrounded by others undergoing the same process -- releasing the same demons.
We also read "The Akedah," the near-sacrifice of Isaac, from the Torah. Our pain and their pain inevitably mix.
"The Sacrifice of Isaac" by VALDÉS LEAL, Juan de 1657-1659
Why?
For this post, I am not interested in the rabbinical, traditional reasons for including this story in the Torah or highlighting it in our High Holiday services. There are thousands of pages of explication of those ideas. Reading them is kind of like watching player interviews on sports channels:
We're really proud of Abraham. He knew what he had to do and went out and did it.
Abraham needed this adversity/reality check/loss in order to keep him on target/track/goal oriented/focused on what we’re trying to do.
Abraham and Sarah have overcome a lot of adversity. This team shows a lot of character. This team shows a lot of poise. This team shows a lot of pride. This team shows a lot of resiliency. This team shows a lot of heart.
Couldn't have done it without God, man. Could not have done it without God. All praises to Him
A Human Story
Boring lives make for terrible literature. If Adam and Eve never got kicked of of the Garden of Eden, would we care who they were? If Odysseus had a pleasant sailing trip and returned on time and happily to Penelope, would we still be telling the tale? What if Hamlet had just shrugged and said, "Meh. To be."
When we read Shakespeare and other works of literature, we put the characters to our own tests. We question motives, look for symbols, and rant and rave about inconsistencies and dismiss the works completely when they falter.
Torah complicates those interpretations because it contains the founding stories of us. Our people. Our God.
We are stuck with all of it, and there is no tossing it aside. Even if you try -- even if you're a "High Holiday Jew," The Binding of Isaac will come and find you.
Torah is greater than the sum of its parts and greater than us as well. There are prices to pay for holding a book in such esteem. We have to dig deeper.
2 And He said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'
3 And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he cleaved the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together.
7 And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said: 'My father.' And he said: 'Here am I, my son.' And he said: 'Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?'
9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.
12 And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.'
13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.
17 that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba. {P}
This story demands an active reader. I encourage you to engage with the it and the story on whatever level you can. Even if you don't know Hebrew. Even if you don't believe Torah is "true," and even if (especially if) it puts your current view or faith to its own test.
Isaac survived The Akedah...but
God never spoke to Abraham again.
Abraham never talked to Sarah again.
Isaac doesn't speak to Abraham or Sarah again.
Sarah died.
So much died.
"Old Man in Sorrow" -- Vincent Van Gogh
Abraham did what he was told, what he thought was the right thing, and he lost all he had gained -- his wife, his son, and his closeness to God.
Alone in the world, he is left to "Lech Lecha" all over again. Get up and go... to a new wife, a new family, and maybe even a new God, one he has not known before.
Try to see Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac as real people.
See them also as an amalgamation of all the Jewish forefathers and foremothers.
See them as us.
My Religious School students often asked me why Abraham didn't argue with God. I don't know.
Is it because Isaac had given his consent?
Is it because Sarah had given hers? Abraham was, after all, told to listen to all that she said, and she was a powerful woman. If she had said, "Abraham, don't do it!" would he have listened? Did she say, instead, "Abraham, you must do it."
Does Abraham have no argument to offer?
Sit with this family in their pain.
Sit with yourself -- the self who goes up to the top of the mountain and has to make a choice.
Think about who we have already tied to the rock.
Who have we sacrificed in service of the higher powers of money, success, work, popularity, peer pressure, and society's concept of "normal"?
What things have we done in the name of God that he would not want his name associated with?
The amount of pain we can carry with us on our everyday journeys is astounding. Everywhere you go, people are in pain -- physical pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, financial pain. For the past week I've had intermittent jaw/ear pain that makes me want to stab myself in the head with a screwdriver. (I won't.) Then I take some more ibuprofen, get out the heating pad, and it recedes to a dull ache. At times I even forget the pain unless I think about how the pain is gone. Thanks, brain, for that trick.
Boring lives make for terrible literature. If Adam and Eve never got kicked of of the Garden of Eden, would we care who they were? If Odysseus had a pleasant sailing trip and returned on time and happily to Penelope, would we still be telling the tale? What if Hamlet had just shrugged and said, "Meh. To be."