Rosh Hashana Morning Sermon, 5768

by Student Rabbi Charley Baginsky

The binding of Isaac is possibly the most famous story from the Bible. Over the years it has inspired artists, poets, writers and sculptors all who aim to take the story and make it their own, who seek to understand the father or empathise with the son. Indeed every year I read this portion I am struck by its power, but I also struggle with why at the beginning of a new year, where we strive to start afresh we read a story such as this. A man takes his son, his only son, whom he loves, the son he has spent his whole life waiting for and takes him to the top of a mountain where he binds his hands and raises a knife above his head. The child is silent, the man is silent and in that moment history pauses waiting to be written and faith hovers waiting to be created. God stops the slaughter before blood is split but in many ways we already know the damage has been done and an irreparable division created between father and son, Abraham and Isaac, God and Abraham, humanity and the Divine. No father or mother in this room I am sure could begin to comprehend being the accomplice in act of violence against their child. What are we doing reading such a story today of all days. I can not believe that the only explanation is the link between the horn of the ram with which Abraham replaced Isaac as a sacrifice to God and the Shofar we blow on this momentous day.

Louden Wainright the Third sings in a song, loosely inspired by both his own life and the akedah, the Binding of Isaac of the battles between son and father:

Now you and me, are me and you

And it’s a different ball game, although not brand new

I don’t know what all this fighting is for

We’re having this teenage – middle-age war,

I don’t want to die and want to live

It takes a little bit of take and a whole lot of give

It never really ends though each race is run,

This thing between a father and a son,

Maybe its power, push and shove

Maybe its hate, probably its love

Maybe its hate, probably its love.

“This thing between a father and son”… an eternal story through the ages and while no father could imagine lifting a knife to his son, there is no question that as a child hits his or her teenage years the frustration between the generations has the potential to mount. This tension requires some sort of relief and release both physical and emotional. There is the potential for physical release in sports and play fighting but the emotional is more difficult. Often the emotional is released in literature, folk tales and poetry. Like folk tales and poetry the Biblical literature lies open and therefore, has the potential for each generation of philosophers, writers, poets and artists to personalise the text to project and intuit on to it their own understanding of the world and their own relationships.

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

Bob Dylan in his song Highway 61 makes Abraham question God, but the Abraham in the Torah says nothing. Remember this is the same man who bargained with God for the people of Sodom: what if there are 50 good people, God agrees if there are 50 righteous people he will not destroy it, 45 asks Abraham, 40, 30, 20 and finally 10, but when it comes down to his own son, nothing. Did Abraham talk to his wife? Isaac was surely her son too, perhaps she could have offered some sensible adivice as in the words Woody Allen gives her: “And Sarah who heard Abraham’s plan grew vexed and said: “how dost thou know it was the Lord and not Harry who loveth practical jokes”. But there is not mention of Sarah in this passage. Indeed, the reason so many people are able to find their way into this text, to write about their own complex relationships that they see within the text is the silence.

Indeed not only is the text filled with silence, unexplained actions and unexplained responses but the text is followed by silence. God never again speaks directly to Abraham, Isaac and Abraham are not together again and until Abraham’s death and the next parasha sees Sarah’s ultimate silence as she dies. The parsha named chaya Sara – the life of Sarah begins with her soul departing, as if she will forever be defined by the attempted murder of her son, by her husband.

You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my fathers hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word.

Sings Leonard Cohen, who dedicates his version of the Akedah to the perspective of Isaac. He paints the picture of a boy caught up in his father’s vision of God. The son of a powerful man which causes his alienation from others. It is easy to understand this vision it is difficult to be the son of a revolutionary, states Steve Reich in his play based on the Akedah, obedience, obedience, obedient son – to continue, to continue, what his father had done. One Midrash states that Isaac never came back. It suggests that he was unable to follow the man who raised his knife against him, that he lost faith in the life his father wanted to live. That instead he set off into the wilderness to find his own God, indeed God is often hence referred to as the Fear of Isaac instead of the God of Abraham. But yet another Midrash states that the boy Isaac was the spitting image of his young self and therefore Abraham was slaying himself.

In the poem by Wilfred Owen, the parable of the Old man and the Young Owen presents a parable where Abraham becomes a representative of European nations and their governments. It is not that Owen blames any individual nation of person in this or any of his poems but rather he condemns all those in power who took their counties to war. In this poem the rulers of Europe are sacrificing their nations. This Ram of pride he believes is too high a price to pay. By choosing war over humility thy kill Isaac, the young men of Europe, with their own hands. The last two lines of the poem are the only ones that rhyme and they paint a chilling image, an old man methodically killing the seed of Europe:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

This passage from Torah is so powerful and so laden with pain that even a poet traumatised by the events of world war finds within it the space to express his hurt and anger. What is it about the relationships between fathers and sons, parents and children, sisters and brothers in our lives that can be so painful and so volatile and why is the Torah littered with the remnants of once close relationships now destroyed?  Noah and his family build an ark in order to keep safe the new world, forty days later he gets drunk curses his sons and is said to bring hatred back to the world. It is possible that we pass it down from generation to generation – l’dor vador. Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob is so desperate for his father’s approval he takes sibling rivalry to new heights and steals his brother’s birthright and has to flee Esau’s wroth for forty years, but more than never reconciling with his brother completely he never seems to reconcile with himself. And a father then Jacob prizes Joseph above his other sons replaying his father’s actions.

So I ask again why read the text of the binding of Isaac on Rosh Hashanah and answer that we read it because of the potential we find in it to find ourselves and our familiar relationships within it. On the surface the relationships within it seem extreme, following the inspiration of others’s readings however, we find ourselves and we have a chance to note our own patterns before we become part of the l’dor v’dor, the passing down of hatred and bitterness to the next generation.

Who here is the Isaac who never came back, who walked away from their family to find their own identity in the wilderness? Who here is the Isaac unable to follow the parent who raised their hand against them, in reality or metaphorically? Who here is the Isaac who lost faith in their father’s life? Who here is the Abraham who lost their child through well meaning blunders? Who here is the Abraham who forgot what was best for their child so blinded were they by faith in themselves?

Who here has seen fear in their parents eyes and considered them weak? Who here has seen themselves in their child and knocked it down? Who here has tried to make a parent smaller as they got older and failed to move out of their shadow? Who here has been a parent who is great on the big stage and not so on the smaller one?

Have we not all at one time or another felt alienated from others, from our family?

If the answer to any of these is yes, then we can find ourselves in the story we read today. Over the years for our ancestors of the Torah and for ourselves an emotional haystack has been building. I am sure we can all remember an event when the lifetime of our own family politics hit the fan and I am sure we can reconstruct the Biblical hitting the fan too. For Sarah, in the alternative portion to the Akedah, it was the weaning ceremony of Isaac when she sees Ishmael playing with Isaac, his half brother and orders Abraham to throw them out into the desert. Sarah wants them to die. And we ask again how can a mother do this? These are our role models, Abraham and Sarah. Robert Fulghum the author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten says to us- Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you!” We can blame our parents, ancestral and other for our present, past and future troubles; we can be the teenage Isaac. Or we can be the adult and on Rosh Hashanah stand up and say that we want this year to be different, not to blame but to reconstruct. The amazing story of the akedah can be an ancient reflection stone on which we can glimpse our own lives, admit that like Abraham and Sarah we are flawed imperfect. But that we have the chance to ask if we have this year done right by our families. Are our personal transgressions transcribed by prior generations or can we change them. This is the week to examine our personal baggage and be honest about it. 

Isaac was named for laughter, for his coming into the world brought joy. Some of what we enter this New Year with is wonderful and should be treasure and some of the past we know we must now leave behind. A final word on this text comes from Micheal Smith who sings: There are some ways I’m just like him

Some ways he was just like me

And sometimes when the mirror’s dim

His face is clear to see

Tonight the winds of heaven

Blow the stars across the sky

I brought my father with me

I couldn’t say goodbye.

May we all find a way to use this week to move on, taking with us the best of our past. May we all polish our relationships and learn anew to value our flawed yet loving and invaluable family and friends. Ken yihi l’ratzon may this be God’s will.

Student Rabbi Charley Baginsky

Kingston Liberal Synagogue