Nov 19/05 - Parshat Vayera

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

“And it came to pass, after these things, that God put Abraham to the test, and said to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham replied, “I am ready.” And God said, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love—Isaac. Go forth to the land of Moriah, and sacrifice him there, on one of the mountains that I will designate.” So Abraham awoke early in the morning, saddled his ass, and took two of his servants with him, along with Isaac, his son. He split the wood for the sacrifice. Then he arose and went towards the place that God said. On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and, off in the distance, he saw the place.” (Genesis 22:1-4)

This week’s Torah reading contains what is probably the most disturbing of all the encounters between God and man in the Bible: AKEDAT YITZCHAK—the binding of Isaac—in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac—”your only one, whom you love,” the text emphasizes poignantly. No, this is not meant to be an easy experience.

There is an echo here of Abraham’s first encounter with God in last week’s Parsha. Both here, and there, God commands Abraham to “LECH L’CHA”—literally, to “go to yourself.” Both cases involve a physical journey—last week, “to a land that I will show you,” and this week, “to the land of Moriah, on one of the mountains that I will designate.” That the destination is left indeterminate emphasizes that in both cases, the journey is far more important than the goal.

Significantly, the land where the sacrifice of Isaac will take place is MORIAH—which means, “God is my teacher.” This is clearly intended to be a learning experience—an encounter with the Divine One masked by His most uncompromising, demanding persona. God says to Abraham, in so many words: “Which is more important to you? Love for your son, or love for Me? Make your decision!”

It’s an impossible dilemma. Yet we would expect the one who so eloquently appealed on behalf of the wicked cities of S’dom and Amorah would do the same, or more for an innocent Isaac. On the contrary! Abraham responds to God’s commandment with alacrity. “Abraham awoke EARLY in the morning,” apparently to do the deed as quickly as possible. Abraham seems to put his love for God far above love for his son.

Most of us would judge this to be a terrible decision. For how could we possibly respect or trust a God that made such a demand of us, even if He didn’t allow us to carry it through? So it could well be that Abraham failed this most difficult test. Perhaps he was supposed to stand up to God in the way that he had before, and refuse to carry out this blood-soaked commandment.

In Abraham’s defense, we could say that child sacrifice was perfectly normal behaviour in the societies of the ancient Fertile Crescent. Of course it was hard! But in that civilization, what wouldn’t a person do to propitiate his or her gods? If an all-powerful being demanded the ultimate gift from its worshippers, why shouldn’t they give it?

Therefore, God’s last-second intervention was the most powerful possible object lesson to Abraham, to all future generations of the Jewish people, and by extension, to the future generations of the entire human race: that child-sacrifice has no legitimate place in the worship of the Divine Parent, or indeed, in any other kind of human activity.

Yet today, we recall the rhetoric of the Vietnam War in which sixty thousand young men were sacrificed on the altar of “defending” the US position in the world. In that case, it was also children who were helpless victims offered up to the gods of senseless aggression and violence. We also recall the rhetoric of parents who, though they may doubt the educational efficacy of the schools to which they send their children, send them off nevertheless, so that they may be properly “socialized”.

This is the modern version of AKEDAT YITZCHAK. We bind our children to an educational paradigm designed to ensure that they succeed in a society that has turned the worship of consumerism, financial success, and sports and media celebrity into a dubious fine art. And while it may well be that our educational choices are far from physically dangerous, too often, they turn our children away from the values of God and Spirit in a way that damages the “Pintele Yid”—the essential, inner point of Jewishness that is the source and goal of all Jewish life.

SHABBAT SHALOM.