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Chavurat Lamdeinu

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Akeida

Akeida D’var Torah
Henry Bassman
Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5769
September 30, 2008

When I discussed my d’var torah with Ruth a couple of weeks ago, she asked two
things: that I keep it short and that I give a personal perspective. I will try to comply
with both of the Rabbi’s request. But bear with me for a moment, because, as many
of you know, it sometimes takes a while for me to get to the point.

I spent considerable time over the past few weeks, studying and thinking about the
Akeida (binding of Isaac). I found a lot of background about the subject and was
surprised how much scholarly work had been done on it. I came up with three
observations.

The first observation was stimulated by a question from Stan Weiss a couple of
weeks ago. Stan asked, “After the Shoa, how we can believe God’s promise to
Jacob that his sons will be as numerous as the stars in the sky?”

At the time, I said that it is a valid question, similar to the ones this group has been
wrestling with since we began studying Torah together almost 14 years ago and the
kind of question we have continued wrestling with since the beginning of this
Chavurat about eight years ago. Without being overly fatuous, I would suggest that
The Akeida helps answer Stan’s question.

The Akeida is one of the first Bible stories I learned as a boy. (Show picture from
child’s book.) I received this book as a gift from my Great Aunt Annie and Uncle Phil
on my eighth birthday, in 1950. (I leave it to you to do the math to determine how old I
am today.)

As a child I accepted the threatened violence in the story much as I accepted the
violence in Grimms Fairy tales or the Western movies we saw on Saturday
mornings. To the extent I recognized the violence in this story, it was encouraging,
because I remember saying to myself, no matter how severe MY father was, no
matter how he intimidated me, I was reasonably certain that my father wouldn’t do
THAT. So next to Abraham, my fearsome dad was a pussy cat!

As an adult I became troubled by the story, especially when I became a father
myself.

This leads me to observation two. Rather than a miracle of God’s gentleness and
Abraham’s devotion. I began to see this story as a barely averted premeditated
crime with multiple participants – Abraham (the perpetrator), Sarah (an accomplice
who “remained silent”), two witnesses (the servants, who just followed orders), God
(the mastermind), of course Isaac (the willing participant), and some scholars say
Satan, who goaded God into giving Abraham a real test of his devotion.

When I started preparing this D’var Torah I started wondering, am I just a squishy
soft liberal in the 21st Century who has no appreciation for the wholehearted
devotion of the great patriarchs?

I was pleased to see that many others had real problems resolving this story. I did a
Google search and found many discussions of the Akeida that asked how could God
do this? I also found some other interesting speculation.

The Talmud tells us that Isaac went into the Garden of Eden for two years to recover
from the trauma of the Akeida. Certainly, Isaac is a different kind of hero for the rest
of his life. Maybe he is the first documented PTSD victim.

This leads me to my third personal observation. Rashbam – grandson of Rashi,
interpreted the Akeida that God metes out punishment for Abraham making a pact
over the Promised Land with Abimelech.

Somehow the interpretation of the Akeida as punishment for Abraham not taking our
covenant as seriously as he should, was more fulfilling to me than the explanation of
the Akeida as a test of Abraham’s faith. Because it implies that whatever
punishment a just god/universe/fate or whatever will impose, there is a measure of
mercy that will avert complete destruction.

And if the characterization of complete destruction sounds too grandiose, do a
“what if”. What if the Ram had failed to appear? The story would have ended. There
would have been no Isaac and Rebecca, no Jacob and certainly no tribes from
Jacob. There would have been no Joseph or Moses or Mt. Sinai. And no us – No
Chavurat Lamdeinu.

When you look at it this way, the Akeida was a barely averted disastrous end of the
Jewish people. You have heard me comment before that the Bible, particularly
Genesis, is a series of beginnings. And, rather than an end to the story of the Jewish
people, the Akeida is yet another beginning to our story.

So let me get back to Stan’s question and my first observation.

The Shoa was a disaster of huge proportions. I can’t even comprehend the enormity
of it, except to know that Jewish culture was eradicated from Europe in just a few
years.

But the Shoa, like the Akeida was not the end of the Jewish story. Thus far, we have
had 63 years of eventful history since the Shoa -- creation of Israel, Jewish
prosperity in the U.S., growing influence, even to the point where the Congress shut
down for TWO DAYS in respect for Rosh Hashanah. Unthinkable in our parents’ day;
unthinkable even just a few years ago!

So, the Akeida can teach us that when the end seems certain, there is always hope
that the story will continue. So it was with the Akeida, and let us hope, so it was with
the Shoa.

And let us also hope it will be so with all other challenges we face as individuals and
as a people in the coming years.

Kain Y’he Ratson

Henry Bassman