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Rosh Hashanah 5768-2007 - On Akeda
by David Saphier
 

Today, as we approach the end of Rosh Hashanah  we start preparing ourselves for Yom Kippur and looking at ourselves.  On Yom Kippur we lists our transgressions, we show remorse and we promise to do better next year. However, I would guess that most of us find we keep making many of the same mistakes over and over again.  We fight with our spouses or our parents or our kids.  Maybe we cheat, maybe we tell  some lies.

So why today do we read the Akedah, The Binding of Isaac in preparation for Yom Kippur? What lesson does it hold?

The Akedah challenges everything we feel and know as human beings, about how we should cherish life and family.  It’s a test of faith between man and God that potentially rips apart the trust between father and son and husband and wife. It’s a grudge match between ethics and faith.

I’ve never really found the typical explanations of Akedah fulfilling.  Most of them seem to go like this traditional commentary:

Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God seemingly flew in the face of his life's efforts. In truth, however, it actually highlighted the essence of everything he believed, that the absolute obedience to God's command, regardless of its compatibility with human logic, is the right thing to do. If God can be ignored in one area, He can be ignored in other areas too, and the world eventually reverts to chaos.

I have two problems with this interpretation.  First, it requires a belief in a personal God.   There is no lesson to take away from this story that does not hinge on us believing that we

are here on earth to do whatever God commands us. 

Secondly, this interpretation has some unfortunate consequences which sadly and ironically do lead to chaos.  The story of Abraham has been co-opted over thousands of years by religious leaders, Christian, Muslim and Jewish, to justify immoral practices and killing in God’s name.  Doing evil in this world and justifying it by saying ‘I was following God’s commandments’ is no better than Eichmann’s defense at his trial when he claimed he was only following orders. 

This leaves me searching for some deeper understanding of this story.

Let’s examine the text. For me there is no portion of Abraham’s life story that puts us in the present; that makes us feel the immediacy of his situation, as this parsha. 

It starts:

And sometime later after these things had happened God tested Abraham

The narrator is telling us that ‘This is it’.  Everything that Abraham has done in his life has led to this moment in time.  God has been the patient teacher.  Now it is time for Abraham to prove himself. 

But I ask: Why is Abraham being tested?  Hasn’t he proven his loyalty to God? 

Let’s continue.  

God calls “Abraham”

Abraham answers “Hineni”, “I am here”.

And God said

Please take your son

whom you love

 dear as an only son that is, Isaac

 and go out to the land of Moriah.

There you will make of him a burnt offering

on a mountain of which I will tell you

when you approach.

Anyone reading this for the first time is left awestruck.

Abraham did not question God.  He apparently slept peacefully that night, awoke in the morning, saddled his donkey, gathered his supplies, two servants and along with Isaac set out for Moriah.

What are we supposed to make of Abraham’s reaction to God’s request?    Abraham had a comfortable relationship with God.  He negotiated with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  He questioned God about the casting out of Ishmael and Hagar.  God never showed anger at Abraham’s questioning.  But this time, no questions. 

Kierkegaard, the 19^th century philosopher, provides a Talmudic like parsing of the Akedah in his book  Fear and Trembling.    Kierkegaard believed that Abraham was being asked to choose between ethics and faith.  He believed that there must be something higher than the ethical, something higher than the customs and laws of society.  Ethics, by their very nature are relativistic. Faith is not.  For Abraham, faith requires a belief in what is logically contradictory.  He believes that if he does sacrifice Isaac, God will still fulfill his promises.  Faith is the willingness to sacrifice the whole of the finite world,  all that a person values in life, for the sake of the eternal, the infinite, for God.

This explanation is very close to the orthodox view, but there is an idea here that can start us on a path to understanding.  The idea that man has a paradoxical struggle between ethics and faith. 

Let’s move on for now.  Abraham, Isaac, the two servants and the donkey approach Moriah.  Abraham tells his servants to wait with the donkey.  He and Isaac will travel on foot; they will worship on the mount and then they will return.

As Abraham and Isaac are walking together Isaac says “Father”.

“Henini” answers Abraham,  “Here I am”

Isaac asks:

We have flint for the wood

to make the fire,

but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

“God will reveal his lamb, my son” Abraham responds.

Is Abraham just trying to pull the wool over Isaac’s eyes so to speak or is something else going on?

Abraham does not brush off Isaac’s question with a “Don’t worry?” nor does he says “We’ll find a lamb once we get there”.  What he does do is throw a challenge back to God!  He’s telling God, “I’m showing you my faith.  I’m showing you my trust but I do expect you to reveal to me your plan.”

When Abraham and Isaac reach the top of the mountain we get a blow by blow description of events:

Abraham prepared an alter

Set the wood upon it

Then bound his son, Isaac

And laid him there, on the alter

            Lying upon the wood

We are in the moment.

Then, like a close up in film. 

Abraham reached out

With his hand, taking

The knife, to slaughter

His son

Just as the tension reaches its apex:

            An angel of the Lord calls

From out of heaven

Abraham, Abraham

Hineni,, he answers  Here I am.

What are we to make of this resolution?  God asked Abraham to make the ultimate sacrifice but sends an angel to stop him.  This angel does not grab Abraham’s arm to stop him.  The angel calls out to him, almost in desperation, calling his name twice to get his attention.  We know from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that God had no problem having his representatives assume human form.  So why take a chance that Abraham would not be able to stop his action in time.  Why not physically stop him?

So what is this story all about?  There is no further explanation or reference to this event. Was Abraham, after all his trials an unquestioning servant of God or is there a deeper meaning? 

Before answering, let me return to the question of the human condition we are confronted with at Yom Kippur.  Why is it that we can say we will be good and then we’re bad.  Why can I wake up in the morning and say that I will be patient with my teenage son and then he rolls his eyes at me and I yell at him for being rude.  I immediately say to myself “I should not have yelled”.  I have this inner conversation.  I tell myself that next time I will either ignore the eye rolling or I will engage him.   I will try to be a teacher and a guide instead of a punishing parent.  I’m sure that we have all had the experience of doing something that is not right, that we know is not right and then we have this conversation in our heads about it.

But, and this is the big but – who are we talking to?

It’s as if there are two of us. There’s one of us that always seems to know the right thing to do and there’s the other self that does whatever it pleases.  Is there something here similar to the paradox of human existence that Kierkegaard defined. The contradictory nature of the infinite and the finite or rather between the divine and the earthly.

Another name for this ability to talk to ourselves is consciousness, being aware of ourselves.  Sometimes we are aware of our actions and we act with focus and attention.  But sometimes we act without awareness,  like when I yell at my son.

In contrast, let me now speak of God, because it is written that God created man in his image.

As opposed to man, God is singular.  In the Shema we chant Adonai echad, God is One. We don’t say God is our only God (we say that later); we don’t say we promise to obey God (we do that later also).  In this most important prayer that every Jew knows by heart we say “God is One”.  He is indivisible, singular, of one mind.  When Moses questions God about who he is, he answers that I am what I am  and nothing else.  Man is certainly not this! Man is a mess of emotions and contradictory forces.

The question is:  Can man ever be One?  Can man live a life in full awareness of his actions whereby both his minds are in agreement?

God created Adam and Eve and they failed miserably.  God waited ten generations and then picked Noah to be his man to take the world to a better place.  But Noah failed too.  He embarrassed himself and his children.  God waited another ten generations and then picked Abraham.

Abraham proved to God that man had the capability to achieve Oneness.  Here was the man that everyone could be. But as Kierkegaard wrote: “To be Abraham is to live a paradox”.

Hillel also spoke of the paradox of human existence:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

And if I am for myself alone, what am I?

And if not now, when?

Jacob Needleman in his book Why Can’t We Be Good says this:

 “To be for myself is to recognize that I am born with an exalted inner possibility that can be actualized only  with my own active permission – that is, with my own intentional struggle against the inclination toward evil.”

“When Hillel speaks of self he speaks of that self that knows the right thing to do.  The self that acts with awareness, not the self that acts without thought, not the self that simply attends to the ego.”

And if I am for myself alone, what am I?   Hillel is saying that if I do not love my neighbor and act justly toward him, I myself cease to be human.  Is this really enlightening to us?  No.  But the problem is that we don’t do this.  Most of us only act justly up to a point, that point being where it ceases to be comfortable or where it imposes on our own lives.  It is very often the case that we have a voice that whispers ‘you know the right thing to do’ but we do something else because it is more convenient or pleasurable. 

What does Hillel mean by And if not now, when?

I think what he means is that we can only be moral, loving beings right now, at this very instant in time.  We can’t do it in the past and we can’t do it in the future.  We can only do it NOW.  We must live with full awareness.  Through practice and study we can learn to listen to our goodness and act on it in the present.  We can’t change the past if we make a mistake and we know that simply making promises about what we will do in the future does not count for much. 

Returning to Abraham.

Why did God test Abraham? I think God knew that Abraham would pass this test, but Abraham needed to know.  He needed to find his Oneness.  God wasn’t testing Abraham, he was letting Abraham see who he could be.

What was Abraham’s state of mind as he journeyed to Moriah with his son?  He mostly traveled in silence but was fully aware.  Abraham’s answer to the question ‘Who am I?’ was  ‘hineni’, ‘Here I am’!  Much like the NOW of Hillel.  Abraham was occupying that space between his two selves, he was achieving Oneness.  His mind was empty but he was fully aware.

In answering the question as to why an angel stopped Abraham and not God and not a physical manifestation of God, the answer is that the angel was Abraham.  Abraham found the divinity within.  His Oneness.  His angel. His Godliness.  It’s a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz always having the answer but not knowing it.  The resolution of ethics and faith, the answer to the paradox of life can be found within each of us if we can just learn to live with total awareness. 

Back to my original question. How does this story prepare us for Yom Kippur?

The task of the High Holidays can be viewed as a spiritual practice to bring us closer to our own inner Godliness.     Rousseau wrote: “I am a slave in my vices; a free man in my remorse”. The purpose of t’shuva, repentance, returning to our self is to put ourselves into a state of awareness, to look at our two selves:  the self that knew better and the self that did wrong anyway.    If we can change the way we think then we can change the way we act. 

Our task as humans is to find the goodness in ourselves.  To understand our consciousness.  To align our thinking and behavior.  To find a better way of participating in the world.  To live with full awareness.  To be Abraham.

.L'Shana Tovah!