Rosh HaShanah Sermon: Finding the Missing Voices
Shanah tovah!
Each year, on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, we feel a sense of intrigue and trepidation as we listen, once again, to the story of the Binding of Isaac. The verses we hear from Genesis, chapter 22, are some of the most memorable, yet also most haunting and disturbing, words we read from our holiest text. We listen, once again, to the story of God calling out to Abraham. He is asked to take Isaac, his son, his precious one, his beloved, to the land of Moriah and to sacrifice him on one of the mountaintops to prove to God how faithful he is. Abraham not only agrees without hesitation, but actually wakes up early, saddles up his donkey, and takes Isaac on a journey from which his son might never return.
So, let’s say that we want to analyze the story based on the various players who take part. Last night, I spoke to you about comic book superheroes. So, let’s now look for the heroes and main characters in this story. As an exercise, if I asked you to list the main characters of the story, whom would you identify? God…. Abraham……Isaac…. Who else? Who plays as important a role, but never seems to get enough credit?
As I will suggest momentarily, there are three figures who are frequently forgotten, but, without whom, the story would not, and could not, take place.
Let’s first review the easy answers to the question at hand. If you are feeling particularly faithful and devoted this morning, you might answer that Abraham is the real star of the story. Abraham does not allow his conviction to waver, and is therefore anxious to show God how devoted a servant he is. At God’s request, he is willing to offer up Isaac to God and sacrifice his beloved son, yet, we might be hesitant to view Abraham as a hero of any kind because so many of us remain horrified at his willingness to do such a thing.
There may be some among you who would suggest that Isaac, poor, young Isaac, is the central character. As the pending sacrifice, the medium through which Abraham will show his devotion to God, this is definitely a convincing idea. In my own eternal need to cheer for the underdog, I find that much of my sympathy goes out to him, a seemingly passive victim in this religious interplay between his father and God. Isaac is about to sacrificed to Abraham’s God, and he doesn’t seem to have any say in the matter.
God could certainly be identified as the main character, for God, at the last possible moment, sends an angel to tell Abraham to put the knife down and not to harm his son. God saves Abraham, the father, and Isaac, the son, and allows for the creation of the Jewish people to truly begin. Yet, after all this, wasn’t God the one who set this horrible ordeal in motion?
So, we’ve got Abraham, Isaac, and God. Who else is there? This morning, I have three more suggestions. In the midst of this tale are three characters forgotten by the text, often forgotten by commentaries, and missing from many of our discussions.
First, I must ask, where would Isaac be if it hadn’t been for his mother, Sarah? Where, in this story, is Sarah? Luckily, we aren’t the only ones noticing her absence. As I stated, the Torah text itself ignores her throughout this entire ordeal, mentioning only that she dies in the next chapter. It is at times like these that we must turn to our reliable midrashim, those stories and legends that interpret the Torah, fill in gaps, answer our questions, and explain the otherwise unexplainable.
So, imagine a group of rabbis sitting around, hundreds of years ago, asking this same question – where is Sarah? And there are many more interesting questions they may have asked: What did she know about the near-sacrifice of her son? Why didn’t Abraham tell her that he was about to kill their beloved child, born to them in old age? Why does she die, whether coincidentally or not, immediately following this ordeal? The midrashim are filled with a number of stories, designed to answer some of these questions.
One midrash states:
“Abraham meditated in his heart, saying: What am I to do? Shall I tell Sarah? Women tend to think lightly of God’s commands. If I do not tell her and simply take off with him – afterward, when she does not see him, she will strangle herself.
What did he do?
He said to Sarah: “Prepare food and drink for us, and we will rejoice today.”
She asked, “Why today more than other days? Besides, what is the rejoicing about?”
Abraham: “Old people like ourselves, to whom a son was born in our old age – have we not cause to rejoice?”
So she went and prepared the food.
During the meal, Abraham said to Sarah, “You know, when I was only three years old, I became aware of my Maker, but this lad, growing up, has not yet been taught about his Creator. Now, there is a place far away where youngsters are taught about God. Let me take him there.”
Sarah said, “Take him in peace.”
“Abraham rose up early in the morning.” (Gen. 22:3)
Why early in the morning? Because he said: It may be that Sarah will reconsider what she said yesterday and refuse to let Isaac go. So I’ll get us early and go while she is still asleep. Moreover, it is best that no one sees us.
___
How clever of Abraham, and how sneaky!
As for Isaac – did he have any concern of what his mother might think? Another midrash has Isaac saying to Abraham, while laying atop the altar: “Father, don’t tell Mother about this while she is standing over a pit or on a rooftop, for she might throw herself down and be killed.”
With these midrashim in mind, it is pretty easy to see the early rabbis’ assumptions about women – easy to trick, ready to fly into hysterics at any moment, unable to handle stress, and lacking in faith.
It takes a modern, Jewish, female writer to capture more of what Sarah might have been feeling. I think that the following poetic commentary beautifully captures Sarah’s possible feelings.
Sarah Talks to God, by Lillian Elkin
And why, Oh King, my God, should the blood of a child
Run precious in your house.
My small boy has brought wheat to your altar
And in the summer gathered fruits and wild flowers.
What will you do with small fingers
And the fright of little hands.
More feeble is he than a bird on your altar
And his heart is a wing.
If we have sinned against your greatness
We have been humble, too.
And in the shadows of your timeless sandals
The small gods were weeds.
We have set our house for your guests.
And I have brought water and blessed their coming.
I have left the home of familiar herds and shepherds
And my mother’s loom is silent.
I have wept in strange lands
But never have I questioned Abraham or his will
Which was your own.
But I am a woman and this is my child
And my love for him is greater than fear
And my sorrow surrounds me with knives
And I am bitter in my doubts.
A mother’s heart – a modern poet captures what the ancient rabbis could never have understood. And how much richer the story of Abraham and Isaac would have been if it could have been, instead, the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. And how much more complete our own history could have been.
Next, we never seem to hear much about the angel, the messenger from God, who stops Abraham from slaying his son. The rabbis long ago invented a conversation between Abraham and this angel at the moment that he arrives on the scene. This midrash imagines Abraham’s confused response when he is told to stop the sacrifice by God’s messenger, understood to be the angel, Michael.
Abraham asked, “Who are you?” Michael replied, “I am an angel.” Abraham: “When the Holy One told me to offer my son, God spoke to me directly. So, too, if God now wishes something else, God should directly speak to me.
At once the Holy One opened up the heavens and said, “By Myself I swear” (Gen. 22:16). Abraham replied, “You have sworn, and I too swear that I will not go down from this altar until I say all that I need to say.” God: “Say it.” Abraham: “Did you not say to me, ‘Count the stars… so shall your seed be’ (Gen. 15:5)?” God: “Yes.” Abraham: “Out of whom?” God: “Out of Isaac.” Abraham: “When You commanded me to sacrifice Isaac, I should have replied: Yesterday, You told me, ‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called’ [Gen. 21:12]; now You say to me, ‘Offer him there for a burnt offering’ [Gen. 22:2]. Nevertheless, I restrained my impulse and did not reply as I should have done. Even so, now I say to you, When Isaac’s children shall sin and find themselves in distress, be You mindful on their behalf of the Binding of Isaac. Be filled with compassion for his children, forgive them, and redeem them from their distress.”
God then stopped Abraham: “You had your say, now I will have Mine. Isaac’s descendants will indeed sin in My Presence, and I will have to judge them on Rosh HaShanah. However, should they implore Me to seek some merit on their behalf, and to remember the Binding of Isaac, let them blow in My presence the horn of this creature.” Abraham asked, “The horn of what creature?” God: “Turn around.” At once, “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, a ram!” (Gen. 22:13)[1]
And, like that, the rabbis took a difficult story, they added Abraham’s understandably angry response to the ordeal, then connected the text back to Rosh Hashanah.
Besides Sarah and Michael, there is one more forgotten character – perhaps the greatest hero of the story – the one who really saves the day. He was referenced in that last midrash. Contemporary literary figure and popular Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, offered his view in the following poem, entitled, “The Real Hero” –
The real hero of The Binding of Isaac was the ram,
Who didn’t know about the collusion between the others.
He was volunteered to die instead of Isaac.
I want to sing a memorial song about him –
About his curly wool and his human eyes,
About the horns that were so silent on his living head,
And how they made those horns into shofars when he was slaughtered
To sound their battle cries
Or to blare out their obscene joy.
Amichai ends his poem with the following words:
The angel went home.
Isaac went home.
Abraham and God had gone long before.
But the real hero of The Binding of Isaac
Is the ram.
Another rabbinic text, Pirke Avot 5:8, lists ten things that God created at the very end of the 6th day of creation. Included on the list? The ram mentioned here in Genesis 22. This means that God placed this important animal during the act of creation, knowing that, generations later, this ram would be needed at a key moment in the Jewish people’s story. The ram, according to the rabbis, was an integral part of creation story.
What else does this mean? That God never intended to make Abraham go ahead with the sacrifice of his son.
Let’s also keep in mind: it is not God, Abraham, or Isaac whom we are asked to actively commemorate on the High Holy Days. Rather, it is the ram, remembered when we blow the shofar each Rosh Hashanah. The rabbis of old, and contemporary poet Yehuda Amichai, inspire us to focus on the poor, little ram, innocently placed in the thicket, waiting for his integral and fundamental role in a story told and retold throughout the ages.
You might ask – why worry about this missing characters? Why is it important to search for these absent voices? We must remember that our understanding of Torah is always evolving, and that we are encouraged to ask questions of our tradition, to seek out our own answers, and to connect with our heritage in a way that is meaningful and relevant to us today, in the here and now. We need never accept something on blind faith, or be satisfied with a static or inert version of Judaism.
We must be wary of anyone who professes to know exactly what Judaism has to say about this or that, or who insists that they have the true meaning of a text. As we’ve seen, there are always other interpretations or perspectives. Together, our voices add to the various layers of interpretation that come before us, and the conversation will continue lador vador, from our generation to the next.
So, in this New Year 5777, inspired by these silent characters, these figures without voices or viewpoints, these heroes whose stories were not properly told, may we learn this year to listen to all the stories around us, loud and soft, obvious and hidden. May we appreciate the unexpected gifts in our lives, and the various roles of all shapes and sizes that we, ourselves, may play. May we remember to thank those who contribute to our lives, who “save the day” in manners big and small, who provide heart, soul, compassion, and love when we least expect it or most need it.
May we all come to acknowledge the smaller yet crucial players in the stories of our lives. Those who may not always gain the fame, popularity or even notoriety, maybe even the silent, shy, or unusual ones, without whom we would never make it to this particular time, place, or moment.
Ken Yhi Ratzon. May this be God’s will.
Amen.
[1] [1] Bialik, Hayim Nahman and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitsky. The Book of Legends (Sefer Ha-Aggadah). New York: Schocken Books, 1992. p. 42.
