Will the real Abraham please stand up?
I know, it sounds like the TV show, “To Tell the Truth.”
There may not be just one Abraham, so to speak, in the Torah
In the portion we read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, God told Abraham to accede to the demands of his wife Sarah to send away her maidservant Hagar and his son by Hagar, Ishmael. On his own, he made sure they had water to take with them.
In Genesis Chapter 18, Abraham was informed by three angelic messengers that Sarah would have a son. Her laughter upon hearing that promise gave YITZCHAK his name, “He will laugh.”
In that same chapter, Abraham challenged God on the proposed destruction of the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham claimed that there must have been enough righteous people to warrant saving those cities.
There weren’t, but Abraham gained accolades throughout the centuries among Jewish and Christian biblical commentators for his questioning of the divine..
There were other dilemmas that Abram and Sarai faced separately and together before receiving their new names of Abraham and Sarah.
Today, we come to Genesis Chapter 22, which we read here for many years on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.
I have been studying with my Friday interfaith discussion group Bruce Feiler’s book, ABRAHAM: A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THREE FAITHS.
We recently explored a chapter about Isaac.
Bruce Feiler’s examination of this tale from Genesis offers a wide range of insights to the story.
Most of the time, the binding of Isaac episode is seen as test of Abraham’s faith.
Or was it?
Is it possible that, because Abraham knew that his generational line of monotheistic leaders would go through Isaac, the first Patriarch went along with this challenge to his future in order to test God? Was he daring God to stop him? Some believe so. One midrash suggested that Abraham went through the test and, at the end, protested against God for promising a future through Isaac and then seemingly trying to take it away. Because he faithfully fulfilled God’s commands, Abraham demanded that when his descendants would, in the future, ask God for forgiveness for their sins, God would show them mercy. God said yes, and that is one reason why this tale might be tied to the Jewish New Year.
Another interpretation of the story suggested that Isaac was actually killed and brought back to life. Christians see in Isaac a foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion, and often call this episode “the sacrifice of Isaac” rather than “the binding of Isaac.” In the Jewish tradition, Isaac’s death and return to life might support the notion of Abraham’s unwavering faith in God.
Jews in the Middle Ages, facing frequent attacks from people in the communities around them, whether during the Crusades or at other times, saw Isaac as a martyr. They felt that there must be a reason for what was happening to them, suggesting, with sadness,that the violent deaths of their fellow community members had a purpose. That explanation leaves me empty. We don’t face such threats now on a large scale. But the recent shootings at Jewish congregations and the attacks on individual Jews in cities in America and Europe may provide us with some sense of the tragic past of the generations of Jews that preceded us.
For me, having spoken about this portion now for most of my years as a student rabbi and a rabbi, I always try to find something hopeful and even positive in this tale.
While my interfaith study group was discussing the chapter on Isaac in Bruce Feiler’s book on September 20, my cell phone started ringing. It said, “ADAM KAROL.” I was an active participant in the discussion at hand, but it was more important for me at that moment to turn aside and speak to our son. I walked out of the room and answered the call. I said to Adam something like, “How appropriate it is, Adam, that I am leaving a conversation on the binding of Isaac to speak to you!”
I believe, after all these years, that one lesson I have learned from this perplexing tale in the Torah is that sometimes we may be so focused on what we consider to be our primary mission that we may fail to turn aside to notice the needs of people around us, especially our family. In this tale, Abraham gave full attention to demonstrating his faith by fulfilling what he thought God had commanded him. In the end, it took an angel to remind him that his relationship with his son took precedence over what God had told him to do. And even more important, it was imperative that Abraham realize that his love of God should be reflected and demonstrated in his love for his son.
So a ram caught in a thicket nearby took Isaac’s place on the altar. And the shofar that we sound on Rosh Hashanah reminds us of that ram that Abraham saw only after hearing the call of an angel to return to the reality of his life and family.
Sometimes we do need other people, who know us well, to bring us back to who we really are. So may we be angels for each other, calling us back to what is important to us, supporting each other in our work, but, when necessary, redirecting our attention to the pressing needs of our family and our community. When we hear the angel’s call, through a still, small voice inside of us, or through the gentle presence of people close to us, may we always return to love and to hope, and may those calls enable us to rediscover our truest selves. So may it be - and let us say amen.
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