Dear CBO family,
Some of the most memorable and ethically intense events of the entire Torah occur in Parsha Vayera. Among them are the banishment of Haggar and Ishmael and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Though volumes have been written about these first two events, it is the seventh Aliyah in parsha Vayera that has raised the most questions for philosophers and Rabbis. Here is succinct summary of this momentous and near tragic incident at the heart of Parshah Vayera.
“God commanded Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice on a mountain. Abraham took along Isaac and necessary provisions and set out for the mountain. They arrived and Abraham built the altar and bound Isaac. As Abraham stretched out his hand to take the slaughtering knife, an angel ordered him to desist. Abraham offered a ram, which was caught in a nearby thicket, in lieu of his son. God promised Abraham great blessings as a reward for passing this difficult test.”
Just last month, on the second day of Rosh Hoshana, we also read this same tale of Abraham’s almost tragic encounter. Why do we read this profound story twice every year within such a short time? And, most important, what are we to make of such a tale where God places his most loyal servant in the most compromising of positions? I would venture to say that most of us have never found a satisfactory answer, and we avoid its horrifying implications by focusing on the happy ending when God intervenes, and the ram is sacrificed instead.
On Rosh Hashana, we may celebrate with the blowing of the shofar, but whether read on Rosh Hashanah or on Shabbat Vayera, most of us are still left with the imposing question: Why would a merciful God place anyone, especially Abraham, the quintessential true believer, in such an unforgiving position? Whatever Abraham does, he is guilty of an unpardonable sin. Does he disobey his God who has given him his son, or does he murder the son he and Sarah prayed for?
For millennia, Rabbis and philosophers have opined about this dilemma, and this humble servant would not dare to substitute a more acceptable hypothesis than those views already espoused over the centuries. But since I have read, and read, and searched for a satisfactory answer, I can put forward two recent commentaries that are most satisfying to me. In 1996, news commentator Bill Moyers asked a group of theologians what kind of a God would ask Abraham to make such a sacrifice. (The full video and transcript can be found at https://billmoyers.com/content/genesis-the-test/)
During the telecast, Dr. Norman J. Cohen, a Reform Rabbi of some renown, claimed “…the punch line comes at the end, that God doesn’t want the sacrifice. I think that’s the starting point for me. That the message of the story is that God doesn’t want human sacrifice. God doesn’t need human sacrifice. And the lesson that Abraham has to learn is that God really wants him to focus on what’s most important in his life and that’s Isaac.”
Combine this thought with the commentary in our High Holiday Machzor on page 103: “Abraham failed the test...and should have raised a protest against God’s instruction, just as he raised a protest against the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.” These two interpretations still leave me with some misgivings, but they do give me some comfort too. Abraham is an imperfect man who simply failed the test and should have known that God would never ask a parent to sacrifice a child. This explanation is more acceptable to me than imagining a less than perfect God who would demand human sacrifice.
Thus, if we are to be true to the Torah and the lessons of Parsha Vayera, we can conclude that to serve God, we must fulfill our obligations and service first to people, those closest to us (like Isaac) or to the strangers that Abraham served as well. This is my final takeaway from Vayera today. Of course, by next Rosh Hashanah, and my next year’s reading of Vayera, I will likely have more to add!
Shabbat Shalom
Fred Cohen
