Dvar Torah al haAqeda, by Helaine Minkus and Linda Clark, 5763

Helaine Minkus

This is the fifth year that I am doing a d’var Torah. It took this long to work up the courage to approach the Akedah as a topic. The Akedah is one of the most mysterious and troubling stories in Torah. It has been the subject of as much commentary as creation and the giving of the law at Sinai. Until recently, I just rejected the story and dismissed Abraham as deranged. As I have wrestled with the story, in discussions with Linda and with Yosi, in reading commentary, I can sympathize with Kierkegaard’s sleepless state. I have been increasingly fascinated, puzzled, repelled but not bored. Divrei Torah often strike me as a demonstration by a clever person of how clever (usually he) is, because he is able to find some point in the text that can be connected to something else. I am not feeling clever and decided instead to start out by speaking about how Jews approach the stories in the Torah. It is remarkable when you actually read Torah how very brief the stories are. The Akedah has been the subject of so many books, paintings, and other works of art and yet it is only 2 pages long. Only the most essential elements of the narrative are included. There is no indication of what any of the characters is feeling or thinking and they barely speak. It is left to the reader to interpret their motivations and reactions and to draw lessons from the text. Torah stories are not feature films which we can dismiss as merely entertaining or not entertaining. Torah is our guide to life and the stories resonate throughout the generations.

We can ask what the stories might have meant to people when they were first told as part of an oral tradition and then when they were written in a codified form. This is the approach a Biblical scholar might take. As Jews who actively participate in a living tradition, we are taught to seek meanings that will help to illuminate our lives in the present. Torah only remains alive if we bring to it our curiosity, questions and search for meaning.

The Sages of our past furthered their search for understanding by constructing midrash, elaborations of the text that filled in gaps, accounted for seeming inconsistencies and made the text more understandable. What makes this legitimate is the teaching that all interpretations that will ever be known were intended by God and known at Sinai. Revelation is a continuing process and we all are allowed to play a part.

The most common interpretation that has been given traditionally is that God tested Abraham to enable Abraham to prove to God, to himself, and to the leaders of the nations that Abraham was in fact a God-fearing person and his devotion was not simply based on the rewards he received. It is stressed that Abraham and Isaac walked for three days because that makes it clear the binding was preceded by days of reflection and was not a thoughtless, impulsive act. Abraham’s compliance to God’s command has been presented as commendable and a model of guidance for our behavior; we should similarly devote ourselves to doing the will of God.

The Torah story presents the dialogue of God and Abraham; Isaac is only allowed to ask one question, “My Father, behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Sarah is told nothing about this excursion. Isaac may be her son but this is a theological issue between males. But the Sages in their effort to comprehend the dynamics of the events looked at what took place from the standpoint of God, Abraham, Isaac and Sarah and also brought in Satan as a character.

Although the Sages commended Abraham, they were sensitive to the suffering of Isaac and Sarah. In one midrash, Isaac grasps the reality of what is to come and the likely aftermath and says: “Father, when you shall speak to my mother, when you shall tell her, make sure she is not standing near the well or on the roof, lest she fall and hurt herself.” Torah does not tell us the circumstances of Sarah’s death. The parasha that follows Va-Yera is called Hayyei Sarah “The life of Sarah” and opens by announcing her death and that Abraham mourned for her. Many commentators have connected her death to Isaac’s narrow escape.

It is midrashim which fill in this large gap and tell us how Sarah learned about the binding and the effect it had on her. In one of the stories, Satan appears to Sarah disguised as Isaac and tells her the true story that was taking place on Mount Moriah, that Abraham had nearly killed Isaac and was only stopped by divine intervention. The shock of hearing what Abraham had done to their only son, even though he had physically survived, was enough to kill her.

Eli Wiesel in Messengers of God reexamines Biblical tales and midrashim from a post-Holocaust standpoint. I found his account of the binding very interesting. God subjected Abraham to the test but Abraham simultaneously forced it upon God. Abraham did not argue back or refuse. And, in the end, God relented. Abraham won and God was so embarrassed that He sent an angel to revoke the order. But Abraham insisted that God had ordered him to sacrifice his son and so it was up to God to cancel the order. God gave in again. And finally Abraham extracted a final victory that we continue to draw upon, especially at this time of year. Abraham said: “I could have pointed out to You before that Your order contradicted your promise. I could have spoken up, I didn’t. I contained my grief and held my tongue. In return, I want You to make me the following promise: that when, in the future, my children and my children’s children throughout the generations will act against Your law, You will also say nothing and forgive them.”

(Coming soon:Linda Clark's portion goes here.)

Wiesel admits that he has always identified more with Isaac than with Abraham but his way of resolving the story allows him to view Abraham as charitable with God. During this period of initial contact between God and the people He would choose, Abraham’s compliance and God’s eventual cancellation of the order allowed God to become closer to His creation. This is the interpretation I am least upset by but I still find this apparent macho showdown between God and Abraham, each calling the other’s bluff, very alienating. I am offended that Sarah is so ignored. How can the sacrifice of her son be demanded without her knowledge let alone consent?

But the text in its terseness is ambiguous and we can question whether Abraham passed the test. Although the divine promise to Abraham that his descendants will prosper is repeated after the ram is substituted, the fact that God never speaks to Abraham again, that Sarah dies immediately, that Isaac is forever traumatized make us wonder whether Abraham had in fact done what was expected by complying.

We are all too aware of how people who claim to hear God’s voice can lead others to destructive acts: in Jonestown, among the Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, the World Trade Center. But in an age when God did speak, perhaps we should regard the story as a public relations attempt gone awry. God wanted to show off the devotion of his first disciple but didn’t adequately consider the consequences.

I am clearly no closer to viewing Abraham as heroic than I was a few months ago. But I cannot simply reject the story. For me, the real hook is the application to the historic trauma of the Jewish people. During the Crusades and many other periods of persecution, Jews have held up Abraham and Isaac as exemplars of faithfulness and loyalty to God. It is not God who was demanding the sacrifice but remaining faithful to God by continuing to be a Jew often resulted in death. And Israelis who stay in Israel must ask if they are all Abraham and Isaac.

Wiesel’s conclusion is that Isaac, whose name means “he who will laugh”, as the first survivor, can teach us, the future survivors of Jewish history, that it is possible to suffer an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.

(Coming soon:Linda Clark's conclusion goes here)

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