Religious Pluralism | Parashat Hashavua-- The Weekly Torah Portion

SACRIFICING OUR CHILDREN

Parashat Vayera: Genesis 18: 1 -- 22: 24
15 November 1997, 15 Heshvan 5758

By Rabbi Amy Levin

The story of the Binding of Isaac (Akedat Yitzhak) is one of the most theologically challenging and passionately debated passages in the entire Bible.

I still retain a childhood memory of holding my breath until the angel swoops down and stops Avraham at the last possible moment. When I chant the passage on Rosh Hashanah with the especially evocative melody of the high holiday Torah trop (cantillation), I find my free hand reaching out to wield the knife and feel it arrested in the air along with Avraham himself. I've literally gotten goose bumps every single Rosh Hashanah since I became a mother (that's 17 years of goose bumps!).

At first, we feel baffled at God's role in this drama. Throughout Parashat Lech L'cha we witnessed God promising Avraham both land and generations of progeny* -- even to the point of rejecting the line of Ishmael as the people of His covenant, and insisting that it would be Yitzhak whose seed would produce the covenanted people. Now, when Yitzhak is still unmarried, still childless, God has commanded Avraham to take Yitzhak up a mountain and sacrifice him.

Or has He?

Rashi (Provence, 11th century), the quintessential commentator of p'shat (plain meaning), makes the following comment to the second verse of chapter 22: The verse reads as follows:

And He said take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and raise him up there to sacrifice on one of the mountains which I will show you.

Rashi focuses on the ambiguity of the word "v'ha'alei-hu" which could mean raise him as a sacrifice, or bring him up to the mountain. In Rashi's words: "raise him up" -- He [God] did not say to him [Avraham] to slaughter him [Yitzhak], because the Holy One Blessed be He did not desire him to be slaughtered, rather that he (Avraham) should go up the mountain to have the sacrifice be Yitzhak's sacrifice, and when he had raised him up, He told him -- bring him down.

Rashi presents us with an astounding -- and I believe very legitimate -- reading of this story. Avraham was indeed the faithful servant of God. Avraham would argue morality with God over the lives of the inhabitants of S'dom and Amorrah, but when it came to a direct commandment that affected Avraham and his family alone, he followed without question and without comment.

And Avraham was ready to sacrifice his son on the basis of a communication from God which he, Avraham, misunderstood.

How easy it is to sacrifice our children to causes or principles which we imperfectly understand ourselves. How easy it is to impose pain, to stunt a life or a soul because "it has to be this way", out of some compulsion or distorted principle.

I believe that the story of Akedat Yitzhak comes to teach us a measure of humility. If Avraham himself can misunderstand God's word, it is possible for any of us. Before we take action on the basis of what we believe to be divine guidance, we owe it to ourselves, to our tradition, and to our God to look inward and to look outward. We need to be open to possibilities that we may have never considered before -- or we may have to give up assumptions that we have long held dear. This is the process of spiritual growth, of living a spiritual life. It was Avraham's special privilege that his hand was stayed by a messenger of God. It is our privilege to learn from that breath-taking moment of intensity.

Shabbat Shalom

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Amy Levin has served as rabbi of the Masorti (Conservative) Family Congregation of Beit Ha-Kerem, Jerusalem, since September 1995. She is one of the first women to study in the rabbinical school of the Masorti/Conservative Seminary of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem. In addition to her congregational work, Amy teaches Talmud at Hebrew Union College's new Liberal Yeshiva -- a program designed to introduce English speakers to the basic texts and concepts of the Jewish tradition. Amy made aliyah in 1981 and is the mother of two wonderful teenagers.