Sermons and Divrei Torah
Whom do I Fear
by Rabbinic Intern Irit Printz
(Sermon - Rosh Hashanah 5765)
One of my favourite books of all time is 'Only Begotten Daughter' by James Morrow, about the immaculate conception of a daughter of God via a sperm donation of an elderly Jewish man. In this book there is a particularly interesting scene in which the Devil is giving God's daughter a tour of Hell. She is shocked by the size of the crowd. She turns to the Devil and asks him what the criteria is. 'Who ends up in Hell?' she asks. The Devil smirks and answers that Hell is a democratic institution. 'Whoever gets voted in, gets in' (kind of opposite of Survivor). In other words, he tells her, if someone - anyone - in the world thinks you deserve to go to Hell then you do.
It sounds a little bit like the beginning of a joke (and, indeed, the book is one of the best religious satires I have ever read), but in reality it makes a very sad statement. The Devil concludes his tour by telling God's daughter that Heaven is very sparsly populated - in all of human history, only four people have ever made it up there. As long as people keep hating each other, he tells her, Hell will stay in business!
It seems that everywhere we turn these days, someone knows what the Truth is, who deserves to go to Hell, what God wants, who God supports, and, more importantly, who it is that God hates. The conference of Southern Baptists a few years ago declared that 'God does not hear the prayers of a Jew'; Muslim radicals around the world are espousing the killing of any non-Muslim (but particularly of American infidels and all Zionists) as a mitzvah of the highest order; Even us - the Jews - are not exempt from such hatred. It is unfortunately no longer unusual to hear venomous barbs thrown between the various movements, uprooting of ancient olive tree groves in the Palestinian territories out of anger, and a desire for revenge have become commonplace; and even people who used to be left wing have grown tired enough of the daily violence in Israel to forget that at least some of the Palestinians who have died over the last couple of years have also been innocents.
One thread that runs throughout the High Holiday liturgy is Psalm 27. We read this Psalm every day from the begining of the month of Elul to the last day of Sukkot. Its first verse reads: 'Since God is my Light and Salvation - whom should I fear? Since God is the strength of my life - who should I be terrified of?'
What a lovely, lovely verse. And how far from reality as I experience it daily. Whom do I fear? Who am I terrified of? Precisely of those who KNOW that God is with them. Those who are so convinced that they are acting in God's name. Those who fly airplanes into buildings believing they will be rewarded for that with a place in Heaven. Those who think it is ok to blow up schoolchildren. Those who think that gunning down worshippers as they pray in a mosque is the right thing to do. Those who think hating, hurting, and killing in the name of God and religion is perfectly acceptable.
Yesterday we read the story of Ishmael's banishment. Earlier today we read the story of the Akedah - the sacrifice of Ishmael and the near sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham's last two tests of faith - and I would argue the most significant ones.
God initially asks Abraham to sacrifice Ishmael to Sarah's demands. Abraham has room to rationalize, to convince himself that sending the boy and his mother into the desert with nothing more than bread and water doesn't necessarily mean that his child will die. God then ups the stakes and asks Abraham to kill his other son himself. Abraham agrees to do this too.
Traditionally, Abraham's compliance is seen as the epitome of faith, the height of righteousness. I never bought into that. I used to think that Abraham failed these tests. But I am much older and wiser now and I have decided that Abraham passed at least one of these tests after all, but not for the reasons we've been told when we were kids in Hebrew school. I don't think these tests were about faith the way most people mean it. I certainly don't think they were about obedience. I think Abraham was being tested for his moral mettle. I think that when God asked him to sacrifice his children, Abraham was supposed to refuse. He was supposed to tell God to go find some other patsy. That God was no god at all if he required the spilling of human blood in his service. 'No Way' Abraham was supposed to say. 'You've taught me better than that yourself! Did you not tell me that each person is created in the Divine image, that each person is unique and that each human life is sacred? Did you not tell me that killing one human soul is like killing off an entire world? If you would have me kill my son for you, then you are no God of mine. You are just an imposter and I want nothing to do with you'.
Instead, Abraham rose early in the morning, and eagerly sent his firstborn into the desert with just some bread and one skien of water - without the benefit of the supplies or means of transportation Abraham's immense wealth could have provided. With Isaac, Abraham again rose early in the morning, prepared the animals for the journey himself, rode without explaining the purpose of the trip to his son for three whole days, and then, on top of the mountain, he bound his son to an alter and raised his knife. He wasn't looking for signs. He wasn't listening for a voice to stop him. He was eager to do the violence he thought God demanded of him. The angel sent to stop Abraham had to call him twice. TWICE! Can you imagine? If it was me on that mountain, I'd hear God whispering in the wind for me to stop. Every creak of every stone would cry out my name. But Abraham had to be called to twice before he put the knife down.
Do you know what I think? I think God gave Abraham a deliberately ambiguous command to see what he would do, and Abraham chose the familiar path, the one he saw all around him, the easy path - because we know that child sacrifice was something everyone did, and because how easy could it have been to tell God to go peddle his wares somewhere else. In the end, Abraham could not think past his conviction that he knew exactly what God wanted.
That Abraham misunderstood God's command is not all that farfetched. The Bible clearly tells us that Moses was the only person God ever spoke to 'face to face' - as one person speaks to another. Everyone else got dreams, visions, messages that needed to be interpreted. Is it not at least possible that Abraham was commanded to give God the most precious gift Abraham was capable of giving, and that Abraham heard that as a requirement to sacrifice his children? Tikvah Frymer-Kensky writes that following the Akedah, the meaning of the pasuk talking of Abraham's success in this test - 'Indeed I know that you are a God fearer for you have not withheld your son from me' - hinges on the translation of the Hebrew word 'Ki'. 'Ki' has many, many different translations: 'since', 'for', 'because of', 'but', 'nevertheless', and many other possibilities. If this key word in this verse is translated as 'BUT' instead of 'FOR' then the whole story changes: 'Indeed I know that you are a God fearer - BUT you have not held back your son from me'. This interpretation is supported by the fact that even though it is God who sets Abraham on this path, it is an angel who stops him. Most telling, in my opinion, is the fact that God never addresses Abraham again. Up to that point God and Abraham are buddies. They do lunch on a regular basis. But this test is the last direct communication between them. God, with regret, is concluding that, great as Abraham was, he was still plagued by a hubris peculiar to particularly religious people: the conviction that their strong belief in God, and what they think are his commandments, can lead them to do no wrong. Rabbi Dawn Rose writes that after the angel called to him, Abraham 'stayed his hand, but he did not know what to do instead of killing his son. It was not until he looked up and saw the ram, not until he allowed himself to see an alternative that might have been there the whole time' that he found a way out of the horrible situation he was in.
I think Abraham almost failed because he did not trust that the God he had come to believe in was a moral God who would never, ever ask for, nor accept, a human sacrifice. I think he almost failed because he did not trust that God would stick by the moral principles that drew Abraham to his worship in the first place. Abraham did pass but just barely. He stopped but almost didn't. Is it any wonder that God never spoke to Abraham again?
I believe that we, each one of us, fail this very test every day - believing that our interpretation of what God wants is paramount; that God could not only accept, but condone, violence as long as it is perpetrated in the Divine name; that sacrifice of innocents is a necessary evil. When the knife is raised, when the sacrifice is bound before us, and the course of action is already decided upon - it is almost impossible to see an alternative, to see that other options are available. I think the angel is out there - calling to us, asking us to put the knife down, telling us that violence is not the answer, that we must find a different way, a different path - one that does not include estrangement and blood. We just don't hear it.
Psalm 27, which began on such a high exalted note ends on a much more ambiguous one. The psalmist writes: "If I did not believe in God's goodness in the land of the living..."
The psalmist leaves the verse unfinished. What, precisely, WOULD happen if we didn't believe in a Moral Agency acting in our world? If we believed in a God that encouraged us to kill each other in the service of the Divine name? The psalmist has no answer, but the implication seems clear to me: Life would be hopeless and thus unbearable. If there is no ultimate morality, no Positive Force, we are left with randomness and chaos - and the world might as well have never been created.
It is time for us to mourn every time a person is killed - not just when it is one of "ours", but even when it is one of "them"; even when the killing is really necessary, even when it is in self defense, even when there is absolutely no other choice. We must mourn every time a person is killed so that we never, ever, forget that a being created in the Divine image was destroyed, a being filled with the potential for Divine light. So that we never forget that a God who could be happy or satisfied with killing should never be a God we worship.
I have tried hard to avoid speaking specifically about the political situation in Israel, but I can't ignore it completely. So let me say just this about it. I know there are no easy answers. I am not naive enough to believe that if we just lay down our weapons and opened up our arms in love that the other side would just stop bombing us, would lay down its weapons, and that we would then all live happily ever after. I've outgrown fairy tales a long, long time ago.
But... But... (Lule he'emanti b'tuv Adonai b'eretz chayim...) ... If we lose our belief in the basic humanity of people... If we lose sight of the fact that there are innocents on all sides, that everyone is suffering... If we lose our hope that the world is intrinsically good, then we are truly doomed. Each of us must do our own part to increase hope in the world; each of us must act to do the good we are each capable of doing; each of us must use our empathy to heal the wounds and rifts we see all around us. Only then will we deserve to dwell in God's house. Only then will we be able to claim God as our light and our salvation. And only then will we be able to genuinely say - with God in my life, what is there for me to fear?
Shana Tova
Sermons and Divrei Torah
Additional Resources
Elul: Period of Preparation
Yamim Noraim: Days of Awe
Rosh Hashanah: Introduction
Shofar Symbolism
The Custom of Tashlich
Yom Kippur: Introduction
G'mar Chatima Tova...
