This week's parasha is sponsored by Sam and Jack Markle in memory of Sam Slywowicz

Parashat VaYera (Gen. 18:1-22:24) for Nov. 19, 2005

Every morning how grateful we should be to awaken to a new day.

Study with Baruch Sienna

This year's cycle of weekly Parasha study explores what connections and insight we can find by examining the Torah portion together with the Haftarah.

This week's Haftarah features the prophet Elisha, a disciple of the better-known prophet Elijah. Elisha, too, was famous for performing miracles, and the Haftarah tells of two such miracles. In the first, a jar of oil miraculously fills all the jars of the house- (a tale that might be more appropriate for Chanukah!) The second narrative of a Shunamite woman, however, connects the Haftarah to our Torah portion. This Shunamite acts like Abraham in graciously providing hospitality to her guest. Like Sarah, she has no son, and expresses disbelief when she is told the news. The phrase 'k'et hayah' (II Kings 4:16) echoes the language in Genesis (18:14). Her young boy collapses -- the biblical text indicates that he has died- and is miraculously revived. (Scholars suggest it was possibly a sunstroke.) The account parallels the near death experience of Isaac, who (according to some Midrashim- see below) actually died, and was resurrected.

This week's Haftarah is taken from the book of II Kings (from the section called the 'Early Prophets' or Historical prophets as opposed to the later 'literary' prophets like Isaiah and Amos). The book of Kings was divided in two by the early Greek translation (the Septuagint). The book of I Kings deals with the monarchy of David and his son Solomon, and II Kings continues with the history of Israel after the kingdom was split into two. Elishah prophecied in the Northern Kingdom around 850-800 BCE, during the reign of Jehoram, son of Ahab.

This week's Torah portion concludes with the climactic 'Akedat Yitzhak - the Binding of Isaac' (also read on Rosh Hashanah). Immediately after, Isaac disappears from the narrative. While Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain, the text reads: "And Abraham returned (in the singular) to the men..." (Gen. 22:19). Where was Isaac? Various midrashim suggest different solutions: he was sent home early (at night) to avoid the evil eye. Rashi quotes the midrash that he went to study at the academy of Shem and Ever. Even more fanciful is the suggestion (in Midrash Hagadol) that "The Holy Blessed One brought Isaac to the Garden of Eden for three years" (one wonders, perhaps to recuperate from the psychological trauma). According to several midrashim, Isaac sustained at least an incision that had to be healed.

There is no limit to the creative midrashic mind, and there exists a surprising tradition that when Abraham's knife touched Isaac's neck, Isaac's soul left him.

Now the moment the knife touched Isaac's throat his soul took flight...
Forthwith the Holy One said to [the angel] Michael: 'Do not let the father slaughter him!' And the angel said to Abraham: 'Lay not your hand upon the lad.' Whereupon Abraham unbound the lad and his soul returned to him.. [Quoted from The Last Trial, by Shalom Spiegel, pg. 30].

The Rabbis match each of the first three paragraphs of the Amidah, the central standing prayer, to the three patriarchs. The first paragraph Avot is associated with the first of our ancestors, Abraham, and concludes with 'Shield of Abraham.' The third, the Kedushah, concludes with 'the Holy God' and is connected to Jacob who came upon the 'gateway to heaven' when he lay down and dreamt of the staircase with angels ascending and descending. The second paragraph, Gevurot, which concludes with 'who revives the dead' would then match the remaining, second patriarch, and the Rabbis suggest that Isaac recited this benediction when he was revived.

Although the 'pshat' or plain meaning of the biblical text is emphatically clear that Abraham did not go through with this near sacrifice (after all, the whole point of the story), one midrash pushes the limits of rabbinic imagination and turns the story on its head:

When Father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes (!) and his sacrificial dust was cast on to Mount Moriah, the Holy Blessed One immediately brought upon him dew and revived him...Forthwith the ministering angels began to recite: 'Blessed are You Adonai, who revives the dead.' [Shibbole Haleket quoted in The Last Trial, by Shalom Spiegel, pg. 33].

The idea that Isaac was actually sacrificed is shocking, and the exegete Ibn Ezra, obviously familiar with this tradition, forcefully disagrees and comments, "But he who asserts that Abraham slew Isaac and abandoned him and that afterwards Isaac came to life again is speaking contrary to Writ." But during the Crusades, where entire Jewish communities were slaughtered, they saw themselves martyred as Isaac [almost] was in the Akedah, except this time, without the miracle of being delivered at the last second. Medieval poems that memorialized these tragedies often compared the victims to Isaac on the altar.

When Christianity emerged with its central doctrine around crucifixion, resurrection, and the atoning power of Jesus' blood however, the Jewish parallel that Isaac too was actually slaughtered, atoned for our sins and was resurrected was almost purged from Jewish sources. While the concept of bodily resurrection was debated by the Sadducees and Pharisees, it was accepted as a tenet in Judaism, and is included in Maimonides' thirteen principles. It can be found in the concluding hymn of 'Yigdal.' Today Orthodox Jews still believe in bodily resurrection of the dead, while most liberal Jews believe that at death, the soul, the eternal part of us, returns to God and our bodies return to the earth. Because of its Christian associations, and the difficulty of the belief in literal resurrection for most modern Jews, most liberal congregations have changed the wording of the second paragraph's blessing from 'who revives the dead' to 'mekhayeh hakol - who gives life to all.'

But perhaps we should not distance ourselves from this idea of resurrection so quickly. Modeh Ani, the first prayer recited in the morning upon awakening (and therefore usually not included in synagogue liturgy) describes God as returning our souls- as if we were dead and have been revived. Each morning we are "born again." (We typically associate the language of 'born-again' with Christianity; Jews, who similarly become devout and newly observant are instead called 'baal teshuvah.') But when we recite the Modeh Ani prayer, or the second paragraph of the Amidah, we should remember how grateful we should be to awaken to a new day.

Shabbat Shalom,

BDS