A Fresh Look at the Akeda

I don’t usually publish stuff I haven’t written myself, but I loved this drash from a bat mitzvah that took place last Saturday so much that I just had to get the author’s, (and her father’s since, according to US law, she’s still a minor), permission to publish it. I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Drash
By Zella Lezak

Shabbat Shalom. In the beginning of my parasha, parashat Vayera, there are three stories that all have something to do with one another.

In the first story, three angels approach Abraham and Sarah and tell them that Sarah will have a baby. This is a big deal because Sarah was 90 years old, and she didn’t think that she could still give birth.

Immediately after, in the second story, God decides to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah! As you might remember, Abraham protests. And God and Abraham argue about how many righteous people would be killed if the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed. Finally, this parasha ends with the binding of Isaac, where Abraham is given the test of all tests, when God asks Abraham to bring Isaac, his son, up to a mountain and to offer him as a sacrifice.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks teaches that the conversation between God and Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah was a specific lesson. God says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” Our God is considering letting Abraham in on the plan. But we know, when the Torah was written, most other gods would have acted differently. Zeus, a Greek god, was not known for consulting with anyone. I don’t think that other gods would have even thought to let Abraham in on God’s plan.

And, after God does let Abraham know his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham says “Chalila Lacha!” to God. “Far be it from You God to do such a thing, killing innocent and wicked alike.” Rabbi Ed Feinstein teaches that most Gods would have killed Abraham right then and there! They would have struck him with a lightening bolt, as my mom says.

So there was definitely a new kind of partnership between God and Abraham.

What is strange to me is that after all of this back and forth and partnership, not long after, is the binding of Isaac. What is especially disturbing to me is that, unlike in Sodom in Gomorrah, Abraham agrees. He agrees to kill his son! Now in the end, Abraham does not follow through —at the last minute, an angel of God comes and tells Abraham to not proceed. But, the fact that Abraham was actually going to continue with this task really troubles me. Especially when we consider the fact that Abraham protested the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which concerned the lives of people that Abraham had never met, but he agrees to sacrifice of his own son. So my exact question is: “Why does Abraham protest the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah but seems to agree to sacrifice his son?” I have a few answers from tradition to share and then I’d like to tell you what I think.

Elie Wiesel, who writes about his experiences during the holocaust, retells a midrash from Genesis Rabbah. In this midrash, the tables are turned. At the very moment God told Abraham to stop and put down the knife, to not kill Isaac, Abraham said to God, “You promised me that I was going to have as many children as stars in the sky! Then you told me to kill my son! Even though I knew you were making a mistake, even though I knew you were wrong, I was obedient. I did not revolt. Now, if you want me to put down the knife, I want something from you.” And Abraham makes God promise that when future generations make errors, God must forgive them, no matter the mistake.

I appreciated that in this Midrash, Abraham had words put in his mouth. Because, in the Torah, Abraham just says nothing. And, in this reading, Abraham stood up when he felt that something was unjust. And he ended up fighting for forgiveness. For future generations. This seems like the Abraham I know, like the Abraham in Sodom and Gomorrah. And I think that we should be very thankful for Abraham standing up for us in this Midrash. After all, Abraham earned us unconditional forgiveness from God.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has another answer to my question of why Abraham speaks up at Sodom and Gomorrah but is silent when God asks him to sacrifice his own son?

Rabbi Sacks begins by connecting the story of Sodom Gomorrah to the story that comes before it, the birth of Isaac. Rabbi Sacks teaches that what seems like two different texts are actually part of the same story. Sodom and Gomorrah is not a new scene but a continuation of what came before. There is no clear break between the two stories. Also, God says, “For I have chosen Abraham so that he may instruct his children and his household after him…” In other words, the fact that Abraham is going to be a father changes Abraham’s response to Sodom and Gomorrah! Maybe when he was arguing with God, he was thinking about the innocent fathers in Sodom and Gomorrah!

But now, Rabbi Sacks’ teaching makes my question even more difficult. If Abraham was learning how to be a parent during Sodom and Gomorrah, why wasn’t he a parent when God told him to sacrifice his own son Isaac? Why didn’t he step in and find his ‘Hey, this is wrong’ instinct when God told Abraham to sacrifice his own son?!

Here’s what I think:

I think that we are all challenged to find our, “Hey, this is wrong” instinct sometimes. We all have trouble saying, “I don’t need to tell the teacher that I cheated,” or “I didn’t really hurt their feelings.” We have moments when we are blinded by what we want (or maybe we are afraid of what someone is asking of us.)  And we don’t think clearly about what’s wrong and what’s right. We have moments when we are blinded by our own opinions and we sometimes don’t always want to listen to what others have to say.

I agree with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I do think that both God and Abraham learned something about parenting from the experience of Sodom and Gomorrah: God learned that sometimes when you are a parent you have to step back. And Abraham learned that sometimes you have to step in.

But in the case of the binding of Isaac, I think that Abraham was blinded by this idea of doing whatever God wanted him to do. So Abraham proceeded with this scary task, without stopping to think about the new role he had just established with God in Sodom and Gomorrah. During the binding of Isaac, God goes back to being a “God” and just doing what God thinks is right, alone. And Abraham goes back to being just the worshipper and not thinking about the consequences of what he is being asked to do. And the partnership between God and Abraham is broken, at least until the very end of the story when God changes God’s mind.

In my English class we read a Book called “Wonder” by R. J. Palacio. In which there is boy with a face deformity named August and people treat him awfully. On the back of the book there is the phrase, which reads, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But the word “book” is crossed out and is replaced with the word “boy.” And the word “cover” is replaced with the word, “face.” So it ends up reading, “Don’t judge a boy by his face”.  At a certain point in the book one of August’s friends, Jack says some really horrid things about him. And August finds out. Later in the book, Jack admits that he didn’t know why he said those things and he said that he didn’t mean any of them. Like Abraham, (even though Jack was not dealing with God) Jack was still blinded by the power of others so he did what everyone else wanted him to do and it also ended in disaster. In this world that we live in, it is so easy to hurt people’s feelings, so easy to do the wrong thing. So easy that sometimes the right thing to do can seem so wrong in the moment.

In conclusion, I think that the test that Abraham was given was too hard. If this was a test, as many people say it is, where was the room to improve or study?! In Advisory at my school, all the time we talk about failing forward. About using your old mistakes to do better next time. But in Abraham’s case there was no room to fail forward. So I think that Abraham failed the test. Abraham failed. Abraham failed to acknowledge that this was the wrong thing to do. Abraham failed to find his, “Hey, this is wrong instinct.” And, Abraham failed to challenge God when he was put up to an extremely hard task. But I do not only blame Abraham for this failure. Although he should take responsibility, I also blame God.

I don’t think that God gave Abraham enough room to “study” for this test. I don’t think that one test was enough. I think that Abraham should have had lots of tests to succeed before he participated in this final exam. Sodom and Gomorrah was not enough practice. Why didn’t God say, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do?” before he told Abraham to sacrifice his son?!? 

So I am left wondering, If God failed and Abraham failed, what do we learn from this Torah portion? This question is hard for me to wrap my head around. I think that we are supposed to learn something from all of the parshiot in Torah. But if Abraham and God failed, what are we supposed to learn? Maybe the Torah is telling us what not to do. The Torah is telling us to think about our actions before we proceed with them. To model ourselves on the conversation before Sodom and Gomorrah.   And not the silence leading up to the binding of Isaac.

In one of my favorite books of all time, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, it says, “The marks that humans leave are too often scars.” You and me, we can change that. We can stand up. We can study more for the exam. We can work on our “Hey, this is wrong instinct.” I think that everyone has potential to step back, to step in, to study for the tests, and to try to make the rig