A Modern Day Meaning to the Akedah
Recently an acquaintance of mine, Lee, at The American Bible Association told me the following story. The man is a Christian fully versed in the text of the Bible. It happened that he took his four-year-old son camping. Lee intended to take his son up to a hill, in the middle of a valley, so that they could watch the sunrise together and pray. They set out before dawn, and as they reached the dewy grass, Lee’s son looked up at him and said, “Daddy: Are we going to MountMoriah?”
Lee told me that he had never even studied that story with his son. Yet, somehow this little boy had internalized the story of the Akedah; the story in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac upon MountMoriah, and only at the very last second does an angel call out to Abraham and say, “stop.” Lee told me at that moment, for the first time, he thought to himself, “How could Abraham have gone up that mountain with Isaac?”
The Akedah story pervades the entire yamim noraim, the Days of Awe period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. It is the reading of the second day of Rosh Hashanah, but in fact its story begins on the first day of Rosh Hashanah when we read that Abraham and Sarah are promised a child. It is central to many of the prayers of Rosh Hashanah. We say in Musaf of Rosh Hashanah, “veteraeh lefanekhah akedah she-akad avraham avinu…, remember when our father Abraham bound his son Isaac on the Altar suppressing his compassion that he might do your will wholeheartedly.” It is central to many of the selichot that we say during the days of Awe, and on Yom Kippur itself. We say, “mi sheanah leavraham behar hamoriah, hu yeaneinu, The one who answered Abraham on MountMoriah, should answer us. Mi sheanah le-yitzchak beno she-neakad al gabei mizbeach, hu yeaneinu. The one who answered Isaac when he was bound on the altar, should answer us.” Finally, the shofar itself, which frames the whole yamim noraim period, is a reminder of the Akedah. The shofar comes from a ram, because it reminds us that when Abraham put down Isaac, he slaughtered a ram instead. With Abraham’s merit we ask to be blessed.
The Akedah is central to the theme of the Days of Awe. And yet, its message is so difficult ethically. That little boy read the Akedah story and thought he was next. And you know what, maybe he wasn’t completely crazy. In 1990, in California, a father--by all accounts a normal, loving, devoted and religious Christian-- took his youngest daughter, who was his favorite and sacrificed her. Can you imagine such a horror! The jury found him insane. But at the trial it came out that he considered himself a modern Abraham.
And while that story is horrible enough, it is possibly not even the greatest perversion of the biblical text. That distinction belongs to those modern day believers of Islam who argue in favor of sacrificing their children as terrorist suicide bombers of innocent people in the name of God. After many of these bombings you see the parents of these murderers publicly proclaiming how proud they are that their chioldren are sacrifices onto God. Is there a connection between these suicide bombers and the fact that the holiest day in the Muslim Calendar is the Id Al Adha—a commemoration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son? Indeed, to this day, every year in Mecca, tens of thousands of animals are sacrificed on this holy day.
What message are we trying to send with this ethically difficult story, the Akedah? Why is its theme central to the yamim noraim? What can the Akedah story mean to us this year—a year where we have seen the story line of the Akedah abused so perversely? Three questions with one answer.
The answer, for me, lies in a midrash that tells of a conversation between Abraham and God. Abraham said to God, “Etmol amarta li, ki ve-yitzhak yikareh lekhah zarah. It was only yesterday that you promised me that my seed would go forth from Isaac. Achshav atah omer li, ‘healeihu sham leolah.’ And today you are now telling me offer him as a sacrifice. Kakh ki-shehayu banav shel yisrael…ve-nikhnasin le-tsarah tehei nizkar lahen akeidato shel yitzhak vetislakh lahen vetafdem mitsaratan. So too, when Israel will suffer, remember the Akedah of Isaac, and redeem them from their pain.”
On a basic level this Midrash teaches us that when Israel is in trouble, in danger or in bad times, God will remember the Akedah, and God will remember to redeem us. However, on a much deeper level, it points to a profound lesson of the Akedah, and the reason why the Akedah is so central to the teachings of the Torah.
This Midrash is teaching us that the Akedah is the paradigm of the cycle of life. Abraham is saying to God: “Just yesterday, you told me that I was going to blessed with a child who would carry my mission forever. And now today, you are telling me that my child must die.” Just yesterday, Abraham had experienced the greatest joy. And today, God is telling him that he must experience the greatest pain.
And that’s the lesson right there. As Freud pointed out, it’s a truism of life that the state of happiness can never be maintained forever. Freud said the only way to be truly happy is to remove yourself entirely from the world. Built into all the joy we experience in this world is the understanding that eventually that joy will be turned into sadness.
Recently I sat with a wonderful woman when she learned for the first time that her ninety-year-old husband of sixty years had passed away. She said, “We had such a wonderful life together. Why does this have to happen to me?” She had experienced the greatest joy, and now she was experiencing great pain.
Perhaps God never intended for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. God wished to teach Abraham a fundamental lesson about the patterns of life—both for individuals and as a nation. And so, God used the model of the Akedah story as a paradigm for life.
That’s the message of the story of the Akedah. It is to teach us that with all joy, comes great pain. And yet, as the Midrash says God will remember the Akedah and redeem us from that pain. God will not allow us to wallow in our pain forever. In this sense the Akedah is a story of hope intended to lift us out of our misery: to remind us that God will redeem us from our pain.
The Akedah promises that joy is followed by pain, which in turn is followed by joy. This theme is actually reflected in the sounds of the shofar itself.
In the Torah there are two main terms for the sound of the shofar—the tekiah and the teruah. Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel points out that when the Torah refers to the tekiah it calls it a blast of joy. The Torah says (Numbers 10:10): “U-va-yom Simchatchem u-ve-moadeichem u-ve-rashei chadsheichem u-tekatem bechatsotsrot.” On the day of your great rejoicing, on your festivals, you should blast the shofar—the sound of the tekiah.
On the other hand, in the Torah, the teruah—the other sound of the shofar—is associated with great sadness. Says the Torah (Num. 10:9), “…al hatsar hatsorer etchem ve-harotem be-chatsrotsot, when the enemy attacks you, when you are in great pain (a play on the word tsar), you should blast the shofar—the sound of the teruah.
Every shofar blast that we make on Rosh Hashanah is a tekiah followed by a teruah followed by a tekiah. It is the sound of joy followed by the sound of pain, followed by the sound of joy. The message is the message of the Akedah..
When I look back at the Jewish people as a whole over the past two years, it feels as though we are in a never-ending series of pain. We have lost hundreds of men, women, children, and even some babies. Yet the shofar and the Akedah teach us that this pain is just a temporary cycle—soon we will be redeemed from this pain as well.
On our recent solidarity trip to Israel I remember meeting with many, many wounded people. Yet of all the wounded one sticks out in my mind: I remember Tomer. He is a handsome man, with a successful business who was wounded in a terrorist attack and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Tomer was devastated. His life was altered forever. He has been in the hospital bed for months. And yet, just one week before we arrived, his wife gave birth to their first child. His pain, as great as it is, is beginning to end. He and his wife have the joy of a child.
So this year, the blast of the Shofar and the Akedah mean something else to me. Tonight at the conclusion of neilah, we will blast a single tekiah. This tekiah means that we will be redeemed from our pain. We have had our pain, it is now the time for our joy to arrive.