In the Fall of 2013 I wrote my first posting for the Huffington Post. It happened as a result of serendipity, as my daughter's best friend was dating a then young Huffington Post editor. When I mentioned to him the talk I was giving around the country, Breath in a Ram's Horn, about the relationship between classical music and Judaism, he thought it would be of interest to his readership, particularly as it would appear at the time of the Jewish holidays. And in such a small way began my many ruminations and musings since then.
It is the same time of year, and the Jewish holidays have just passed. It was an intense twenty-two days of introspection and many hours of praying. In the midst of all of this prayer are the usual biblical readings of the story of Abraham and Isaac, the father and son, and first two fathers of the Jewish people. I was asked to give a presentation this year and decided to focus on these stories. I had been reading and meditating for a long while on the book Inheriting Abraham by Jon Levenson. While his book is about Abraham as the father of the three monotheistic faith traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, I for obvious reasons focused on his comments about the Jewish understanding of these men and their stories. In the following all quotes are from Levenson's book, and my comments may be considered a midrash (commentary) on his understanding of Abraham, his story, and its meaning for us.
The Jewish Community is one of Law----or Faith, emotional connections, and a relationship established through mutual interaction in various proscribed ways- for example, through prayer, or celebrations, and the like. This is at least in part what a community is. We can of course add other aspects- meals, or humor, but these are to be understood as somewhat ancillary to the central nature of the enterprise.
We might say that the Jewish community is predicated on a tri-partite structure. It begins with Abraham, who provided us with faith and deed--- moves to Moses, and the revelation at Mount Sinai; and finally to us, the People, or the practitioners.
We can speak of the initial journey or preamble, that creates the Family, the Tribe, and the Promise, because the creation of this people was not without a purpose. This is followed by Revelation or the Sinaitic Experience, in which all of the people participated, with their consent, to take part in this grand journey, and for all time. It finds its fulfillment in the History of this Idea, and in the body of the History of the People. In this, it replicates our own unique life experiences. An idea is born, comes to, or as with Abraham, is thrust upon, one. We take it up with pleasure and joy, and even commitment, to see it through. It unfolds through time, until our lives are over, but there is a joy in knowing that it lives on for future generations and in others.
At the beginning of our story, Abraham is called to separate himself from his country and kinfolk, and sent into a kind of exile, like the expulsion from the garden of Eden. But the man without a country is told he will inherit a whole land; that the man with a barren wife will have plenteous offspring; that the man who has cut himself off from kith and kin will be pronounced blessed by all the families of the earth.
We must ask the question: Why did God single out Abraham and subsequently the people Israel? We are told that...the chosenness of Israel derives from an act of passion, God's passion for them or for their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom he swore an inviolable oath. Passion is not rational. It often creates or suggests actions, which may then have a rational reason for their performance. But like a primary directive of Judaism- do and you will then understand (in that order)- passion is an emotion that precedes understanding. This specialness and uniqueness was not initially predicated on our ancestors fulfilling any mission. Or was it? The people's existence is due to God's providence and not anything they do. Israel is a blessed nation. They might be punished for evil doing, but the relationship, or the Covenant, can never be torn completely asunder.
This new people comes into existence only through God's promise to Abraham, a childless man with a barren wife. The Bible consistently assumes a unique dependence of the special people upon God- as He takes the place of a lost or left parent.
Chosenness in this context and sense, is not genetic, or a matter of racism. It rests on a paradox--it is a community of shared faith and not descent. Yet, it is also not that, but based on the idea of a natural family, but with a supernatural mandate. Abraham shall become a blessing, and so will the Jewish people. The concept of Chosenness, and the concomitant notion of faith in, or to be blessed by- is the blessing of Abraham that becomes a blessing for all his descendants.
Does faith in God and his promises require in its beneficiaries a stance of quietism and passivity, or the opposite stance of human initiative and activism to help bring about the promised result? Foundational elements include the Preservation of Life, Freedom, Trust and Obedience to God. In the Covenant no obligations are imposed on the human partner. Is this so? Are we not specifically told how to behave? If we obey God's commands we will be blessed; if not, cursed. The problem or question is one about time and perhaps the existential relationship between the Jewish people and God. If the people misbehave, God will indeed punish, like any good parent. But unlike the parent-child relationship, in this case there is an omnipotent "parent" who doesn't die, so the relationship will always exist, and thus the people must always exist. God has obligations to the Jewish people for all time, even if we behave badly.
And thus we arrive at our first Biblical reading for Rosh Hashana. We given much of the back story. Abraham and Sarah, assuming that they themselves will not conceive, make the decision for Abraham to take Hagar as a wife, for her to conceive. And since she is Sarah's handmaiden, the ensuing child will in effect be Sarah's. This is very much an example of being proactive. God has determined, but since the result has not occurred, Abraham and Sarah take steps to make it happen. Hagar is truly a wife, having been raised to that stature. Thus lineage derives from her as well, and so she too is the matriarch of a great nation- but not a "chosen" or covenantal nation.
We then pick up with our story as "the Lord took note of Sarah as He had promised, and the lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the set time of which god had spoken." It is important to note here that God made this happen- namely it is an act of divine intervention, not exactly an immaculate conception, but done only with the hand of God. It is done outside the realm of the norm, the natural. In the birth of the son as promised, the child is born because of God's promise alone, and no human assistance is necessary or even permissible.
Both Abraham and Sarah had laughed at the prospect of a birth of a son of their own. Is this perhaps the beginning of Jewish humor? Or did they laugh in joy? Isaac is circumcised and weaned. Previously it is made clear that both children, Ishmael and Isaac, will inherit the Abrahamic promise but only Isaac the Abrahamic covenant with God. This is important because the promise of the land to be inherited is within the covenant.
Later the relationship between Sarah and Hagar deteriorates, and the rivalry between them and their children escalates. Sarah asks Abraham to "cast out" Hagar and Ishmael, and Abraham is aggrieved at the thought. But God intervenes and tells Abraham to do as his wife says, assuring him that the boy and his mother will survive- but not just survive. God says "As for the son of the slave-woman, I will make a nation of him, too, for he is your seed." This clarification goes out of its way to stress Ishmael's rightful inheritance of the Abrahamic promise of blessing, fertility and great nationhood, if not covenant itself.
After initial difficulties in the desert, we are told at the end of the Hagar and Ishmael story that they thrive and "his mother got him a wife from Egypt." We might ask: Why Egypt? Remember that this ties together the scenes from the past, that include Abraham and Sarah's visit there, wherein Sarah ended up in Pharaoh's Palace, and to the future of Hebrew slavery.
We see in this story so far that " human actions and deeds are important for the divine-human relationship, but not exhaustive of it. The relationship transcends obedience or disobedience. There is a dimension of grace and mercy; the granting by God of a second chance." We see that "human effort and divine grace are not inevitably opposed to each other but can operate in tandem."
The binding of Isaac, also known as the Aqedah, is a story that shows Abraham to be a paragon of obedience and steadfast faithfulness in God, and love of God. Or---Orrrr- in the post-Enlightenment philosophical understanding, "Abraham is a paragon of unethical behavior, moral failure, religious fanaticism, and much else, all of it very bad."
Let us begin to try to "understand" the Aqedah. First and foremost to note is that it comes out of nowhere. The "Test" is unprovoked- it just happens. It is sprung on Abraham. He has no time to, or doesn't, think. No pondering occurs. He doesn't say- "Hey, what is going on here. This can't be part of the plan as I understand it." He doesn't argue with God as he did before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He quietly proceeds to act upon God's request. The key to interpreting the text is that Abraham is to give up somebody he loves. From the standpoint of inheritance and covenant, Isaac is Abraham's only son, his favorite son, the one he has promoted over his oldest son. Everything has now come down to Isaac.
"What is asked is not only an inexpressibly painful act of sacrifice: it is also an act of self-sacrifice. In the Aqedah God has in a sense made Abraham revert to the state in which he stood when he began his journey- alone with God, attentive to an unexpected and mysterious divine command, and prepared to leave home even for a destination that is as yet unspecified."
In biblical tradition there is abundant testimony to the idea that the first-born male belongs to God. Also, the burnt-offering or gift offering is central to sacrificial practice. So what is asked of Abraham is seen as the paradigmatic example of belief and trust in God- an example and story of ultimate faith, not one about ethics. Abraham doesn't know the outcome- or does he? Does he know through faith, knowing as an act of trust, what the outcome will be? Does he have faith in his righteous God, and in his relationship with Him?
God learns that Abraham is willing to sacrifice his only son. Does God need to "learn"? Apparently the biblical God can and does. Abraham so loves God that he willingly follows all that God commands. When tested he demonstrates his fear/love of God. I use these words because we often use them in the same context. My guess is that if any of us think about our relationship to God, we certainly don't fear him. What can God do to us? Does God really work us all over individually? Do we love God, and if so, what does this mean?
"God's amazing promise to Abraham and the Jewish people came as a kind of bolt out of the blue: there was nothing to merit it. The term of this situation in which undeserving people benefit is Grace. Abraham was graced. But whereas before, God's blessings were arbitrary, after the Aqedah, they are now earned. Abraham, and his offspring- us, the Jewish people have now gained their covenant through this act."
What are the ramifications of these two stories, for us, at this time?
The almost-sacrifice of Isaac becomes the paradigm of sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, which for a couple of thousand years, was the form of approach to God, along with music, of course. When the Temple was destroyed, and prayer took over as the means of accessing the Divine, prayer "re-presents and reactivates sacrifice, and then stands in for, or re-animates, the Aqedah, and thus the legacy of us as the chosen people."
In the Aqedah and the story of Passover, the ram that Abraham offers becomes the first paschal lamb. And so the stories of Abraham's departure from his home and people, his descent to Egypt, the Aqedah, and slavery in Egypt are all intimately connected. Is the binding of Isaac a foretaste of the binding of the Jewish people into slavery? Did faith in God's faithfulness, triumph in both cases?
During the Days of Awe, we stand before God, asking for forgiveness- an at-one-ment. Are we asking God to show us the same Mercy and Grace he showed to Abraham and Isaac, and to our ancestors coming out of Egypt on their way to the place of revelation? Are we asking God to give the same stay of execution, and the liberation of Freedom, that he gave to them-- to us?
These two stories are not presented as an act to be followed, but as a paradigm of faithfulness to God, as in the following of the mitzvot. These are Teachings that demonstrate the relationship of God and the Jewish people, as expressed in the Covenant. God resides over the ethical realm, which is not equal to, nor coterminus, with the human understanding of ethics. God, and our contract with Him, resides in the world of passion, faith, love, mercy, and grace--all states which supersede, or come before, the rational and ethical. They are in fact the qualities which we must acknowledge first to make sense of the rational and ethical realms in which we spend most of our existence.