Social Justice

I have to admit to you, there’s a kind of editing we sometimes do with biblical stories when we read them to the kids.

For example if a bar/bat mitzvah child is assigned the Torah portion Vayishlach, of the many great stories and themes in that parasha, we usually won’t assign that child to chant and study the rape of Dinah. When we tell the story of Esther at the family service at Purim, we don’t usually tell the very end of the story. That’s the part where the Jews of King Ahasuerus’ kingdom are given permission to steal and pillage and do all of the bad things to the non-Jews that they were going to do to us.

But this is an adult service. And we, on this very important day of the year, should look at the whole story of this day’s Torah portion. Even the most difficult of parts. We read the Akaida, the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son with a knife on the mountain top; a concept already incredibly difficult. But there’s a profoundly sad and emotionally shattering end of the story that we almost never address. This year we will.

Let’s recall this amazingly rich and many layered story:

First, remember that it’s only one page long; only 19 sentences. But in spite of its brevity, there is something so very compelling in the Akaida, the Binding of Isaac.

Something that has given birth to thousands of pages of commentary by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars;

Something in it that has inspired novelists to write novels,
It’s currently the subject of a very popular and rogue video game; The Akaida inspired at least one 20th century opera;
The music of Bob Dylan;
It’s found in the soundtrack of The Hunger Games;
It’s been lampooned by writers of South Park,
Analyzed by Sigmund Freud,
And many times it’s been depicted on the big screen by Hollywood.

Something powerful is going on in these 19 sentences: An aging mother and father, Sarah and Abraham, were long ago promised by their God that they would have a child. And that child would be the first of countless generations of a great people, with descendants as numerous as the sands of the seas and the stars of the heavens. That’s quite a promise.

Years and years passed. And no child. Feeling for her husband and his desire for that Divinely promised child, Sarah gave Abraham permission to sire a son with her servant Hagar. But that was not really fulfillment of God’s promise to Sarah and Abraham.

Finally, when they were both well on in years, at an age that not even our most advanced fertility experts could imagine, Sarah gave birth to the boy Isaac. Oh how they celebrated and cherished that child! So many years waiting and praying and hoping. Imagine the incredible love and joy that we feel when a child arrives, and add to that promises from God that this little boy represents an eternal future, the beginning of a great nation!

Now we arrive at today’s story; all of that promise devastatingly crumbling as God commands Abraham to take that very child and slaughter him on a mountain top to prove his loyalty. God said, “Take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac, go to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burnt offering.”

One can only imagine the crushing collapse of Abraham’s emotional and spiritual world. One can only imagine the anger he must feel towards his God. We can only imagine his fury and confusion and indignation. One can only imagine. That’s the hard truth of this story; that “one can only imagine” these feelings, because Abraham says nothing. We only read of his acquiescence, his willingness, and maybe even eagerness, to do what God has asked of him. To prove his faithfulness. It’s so hard to understand. The Abraham in this story is simply a religious fanatic! He has totally given his soul and all he most cherishes over to this God of his. He apparently has sublimated normal human emotion; love of child, the willingness or even inclination to argue with God and ask Him, “Why? This makes no sense! Is there an alternative? How else can I show You and prove to You that I love You?!”

The fanatically myopic patriarch, ready to pay the most horrible price to please his God.

But still, even with the dearth of overt emotional information, there is a particularly beautiful and clearly conveyed loving relationship, loud and clear, throughout most of the story: The love of father and son, the closeness between the boy and his dad. In almost each and every one of the first 12 sentences, the relationship between Abraham and Isaac still manages to be tenderly and clearly conveyed.

Let me give you just a few of the phrases that keep eching bond between father and son:

“ take your son, your favorite one, Isaac, the one whom you love . . .”

“Early the next morning Abraham and his servants and his son Isaac went on their way”.

“On the third day Abraham said “stay here and the boy and I will go up the mountain; we will worship and we will return to you.”

“The two of them walked together”.

“Isaac said to his father Abraham, “’Father!’” and he answered, ‘Yes my son?’”

“And the two of them walked on together”

And then it ends. It stops. Everything changes. The blind zealotry of the believer seems to have sadly won out over the father’s love for his son. From that moment on the relationship forever changes. The angel of God cries out to stop Abraham at the moment he’s ready with a knife to slay the boy., “Abraham, Abraham!”

We sometimes present that as an almost happy ending. ‘Yay, Abraham doesn’t have to slay Isaac. He’s proved his faithfulness to God. Isaac must be giddy with joy. Maybe they hug and are closer than ever!’ Too late. That’s not how it ends.

In the concluding eight verses of the story, there is no more language about beloved father and beloved son; nothing about the two of them together. There is no more conversation between the two. Do you know how the story ends? It’s very sad. Very tragic.

This is the part we don’t often talk about. The relationship between the father and son has ended. It says that Abraham goes down the mountain, alone. He returns to his servants alone, and then goes home, alone.

Where is Isaac? It doesn’t say. We know he’s still alive because his story is yet to be told. He will die an old man. But from the moment that the father was clearly ready to take his son’s life for a cause apparently more important and more compelling than loving a child; from that moment on their relationship was over. They never see one another again.

Well, one small correction. There was one more time, years later, when they were in physical proximity to one another; at a burial cave in Hebron, when Isaac and his brother came there to bury their father Abraham, after he died.

So, that’s Abraham? The great patriarch? The hero we are to emulate. The founding father?

Well, then perhaps the Akaida is in reality a cautionary tale. Maybe that’s where its value lies. Cautioning us against extremism; of getting so caught up in a larger cause that we lose sight of the actual people in our lives. Faith more important than family? God more important than a child?

A cautionary tale for this highly charged election season. Are any of us endangering the most important relationships we have because of blind conviction, support of some greater and larger cause that we’re more passionate about than our families and more sacred than the relationships with our closest friends and the people we work with?

Abraham was so caught up in the moment he forgot to think about the future, he forgot to think about the next day! ‘Gee, if this morning I show my son I’m willing to sacrifice his life at God’s request, I wonder what we’ll talk about this tomorrow morning?’

We are at the apex of one of the most emotional and intense political elections of our lifetimes. Maybe we need to hear this cautionary tale about the aftermath of this election; about the possible personal collateral damage.

By the way, these words are truly non-partisan. Individually we could be an Abraham on either side of the aisle. Most of us are so angry and frightened; many are zealous, immovably convicted in our stances, that when all is said and done, might we destroyed relationships along the way?

We can only assume that for the rest of his life Abraham had to mourn the loss of the relationship with his most beloved child.

A moment of such regret: Let me share once again an episode recalled by Cantor Richard Botton from his early years of his career: “At the end of one of my very first funerals, I walked over to the brother of the deceased who was standing next to the open grave. He was clearly so upset and distraught, shaking as he stood there. I reached out to put a reassuring hand on his arm and told him, ‘Don’t worry, it will get easier with time.’ He furiously pulled his arm away from mine and said, ‘No it won’t! My brother and I haven’t spoken for 20 years . . . and I can’t remember why!’”

Is that the only Abraham for us to look at? Thankfully he has other hugely dramatic and important moments in Torah that can teach us. Fortunately for us Abraham responded differently to another challenge and a command from his God. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah: Once again Abraham is informed from above, asked to involve himself in the sacrifice of human life to fulfill God’s wishes. God tells him that because of the great sins of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, that God is going to destroy both cities, killing all of the people who live there.

Thankfully, here we find a different Abraham, a different side of Abraham. Perhaps the Abraham of the Akaida might well have acquiesced and said “Yes Lord, how can I help?”

But this Abraham was not a blind zealot. This Abraham seems to have a mind of his own. His own conscience, his own sense of justice. This Abraham was able to approach the God of the universe, with his own humanity and emotion and compassion intact.

This Abraham brings his own convictions along with a gutsy and amazing ability to question even God! To argue and bargain! How cool is that?!

This Abraham approaches God and says, ‘Woah, woah! Wait Lord. Let’s talk this over. I need to speak up here!’ And then he begins to challenge and negotiate! He famously says to God, “What if there exist, among this entire population, 50 righteous people? Would you kill the entire city knowing that there are 50 innocents among them? And then Abraham gets really chutzpahdic and says, ‘God, I know you. We have a history. This is not the type of God you want to be. Believe me. I know you are the Judge of everything and everyone; don’t you want to judge justly? And be forever remembered that way?’

And God listens! Abraham is being reasonable. He’s engaging in rational and thoughtful conversation. Abraham is standing up for himself and his fellow human beings! And God seems to like that. God says ‘I’ll spare them if they were just 45 righteous people. And as we know the bargaining continues until God agrees to spare the cities even if there are only 5 righteous people among them.’

Which Abraham does Jewish tradition ask us to emulate: I would suggest that Judaism at its highest and best does not want us to blindly follow. Understand that Judaism at its highest and best is not about the individual relinquishing ourselves and our souls and our intellect and gut-sense of right and wrong to some higher being, or highly placed human being, to command us how to act.

The Judaism that I know and aspire to is one that acts in partnership with each individual Jew, requiring that each of us always includes our own intellect, passion, and sense of justice in our decisions and actions.

That’s why I so love Rabbi Shira’s response to a colleague who once quoted that great 11th century thinker and said, “But Maimonides said it!” Shira’s reply?, “Maimonides said so? One man’s opinion!” She doesn’t have to blindly accept. None of us have to. We are always to bring our own mind and heart to our Jewish decisions.

When the Abraham of Sodom and Gomorrah responded to God’s command by bringing his own voice and conscience to the conversation, he made good and right decisions for himself and for the world. And maybe God learned a little something.

As we enter these sacred days, only to be followed by our return to a tense and angry world, may we conduct our lives, our conversations and our decisions with the knowledge

Thoughtfully speaking up like Abraham for what we think is right and good. 5

Which Abraham Do We Learn From?

Rabbi Tom Weiner October 3, 2016/5777 Rosh Hashanah Congregation Kol Ami

Yet with a civility and awareness that tomorrow we will want to still walk on together, side by side, down that mountain; and continue to live our lives together as family, as friends, as community, and as one people.

Amen

6

Before the Wright Brothers finally got their plane o the ground, they had an experience similar to that of many geniuses and visionaries. People laughed at them and told them it could not be done, family members, neighbors, the press . . . lots of people got a chuckle out of their first attempts.

Fortunately there have always been these exceptional few whose powerful self-confidence could overcome all of the negativity being tossed their way.
Did you know, for example, that:

Early in his career, Jimi Hendrix and his band opened for the Monkees and got booed o of stage. And then dropped from the tour.

Did you know that Jack Kerouac tried to find a publisher for On the Road for six years.

Did you know that Elvis was kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry in 1954, with the advice that he should stick to his day job as a truck driver.

Or that Winston Churchill failed the Royal Military entrance exams, twice.

Lucille Ball got sent home from acting school in New York because her teachers thought she was too shy, and would never make it as a performer.

Michael Jordan, a great name in basketball, was actually cut from his high school basketball team.

Beethoven’s music teacher once told him that he was a terrible composer.

(From Google)

(I apologize for the misogynist nature of this list of early failures, but all the “early failure lists” that I looked at are dominated by men!)

Admiring this type of person and their perseverance to succeed and overcome, Rabbi Sydney Greenberg observed that, “Great discoveries are usually made by people who are so passionately committed to their quest that they can withstand the discouragement of those who are convinced that the goals they seek are only illusions.”

And sometimes the voice is internal.

Vincent Van Gogh said, “If you hear a voice within you say „you cannot paint“, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

But, a little reality check here: most of us – 99% of us – are not Elvis, or a Winston, or a Vincent, or a Ludwig or a Lucy.

Rabbi Greenberg tells of a group of Portuguese sailors centuries ago who are more typical of folks like you and I. These Portuguese sailors ventured out to the Atlantic trying to prove that you could reach land crossing the ocean. Before they left the shore, they were already a little weak in the self confidence department.

Their families, friends and fellow sailors were no help, taunting them and saying they were crazy they wouldn’t find anything, except maybe sea monsters, and likely fall o the edge of the earth, which everyone knew was flat.

Well, the Portuguese sailors set sail. Legend has it that they headed westward for about 50 or maybe 100 miles, had a change of heart, came about, and raced back home, announcing to the world “There is nothing there!”

Now of course there was something there. We’re here.

They never really gave it a chance. Whether because they themselves never really believed it, or lacked courage, or had their ambitions thwarted by their doubting families and colleagues.

So they claimed, there’s nothing there!

So, for us regular folk who sometimes venture out and conclude that “there’s nothing there”; or “there’s not enough in here” . . . what’s getting in the way of our self-confidence to move forward?

And what does Rosh Hashanah have to say to us?

A great story from Torah is about such self confidence . . . what can enhance it, and what can devastate it.

It’s the story of the 12 Israelite scouts: The Jews are in the desert, getting ready to enter the Promised Land. And like any well-run military expedition, you can’t just blindly send your army into foreign territory without first getting familiar with the lay of the land and the enemy’s capabilities.

So Moses sends in 12 scouts to reconnoiter the Canaanite fortifications, their soldiers, the quality of the land for agriculture, and the nature of the terrain for military maneuvers.

Now comes the crisis in confidence: 10 of the 12 scouts come back with the most scary, negative and pessimistic report. And they freak out all of the other Israelites, convincing them it can’t be done. They say, “Their soldiers look like giants to us, and we must have looked like little insects to them; their fortifications are huge and impossible to penetrate. Sure, the land is flowing with milk and honey, but we’re never gonna get any of it. We’re just too small and weak!”

That’s what the majority of ten experienced. And the last two scouts? Joshua and Caleb? Well, they saw the very same places, the same fortifications, the same soldiers, and the same terrain.

But somehow they had enough confidence in themselves and in the Israelite people to come to an entirely di erent conclusion:

They said, “Yeah, they have a lot of soldiers; yes they have some fortified towns. But you know what? We can handle that. We’re strong enough. We’re prepared. We can beat them. And it doesn’t hurt the God’s on our side.”

10 scouts shaking in their boots – sandals -say, “No, we can’t do it.” And only 2 say, “Yes we can, it’s big and it’s scary. But we can do it.”

The rabbis look at this in a couple of interesting ways. And both are helpful to us here on Rosh Hashanah.

One interpretation is that the majority of 10 represent that large number of the naysayers we often encounter in life. It’s when most of your friends tell you, “No, that’s not a good idea.” And only a couple of intuitive, wise, and supportive friends who say, “Yeah, go for it.”

The ten scouts you know at work who say: “That idea of yours? That’s too expensive; it’s impractical; we’ve always done it the other way.”

And if you’re lucky, you’ll have those two scouts who support you and say, “There’s merit there. Good idea. Let’s go with it. You can do it!”

I think the Rabbis’ second interpretation – a more compelling one – is that the 12 scouts don’t really represent 12 other people; but rather they reflect the struggle of many voices and feelings inside of us. Our own internal dialogues and battles.

It’s a really brilliant recognition that it’s the majority of our internal voices that tell us “we cannot”. And it’s often the minority opinion that tells us, “yes we can”.

The Torah didn’t say that the 6 say yes, and 6 say no. The Torah recognizes that our self-doubt is often much more powerful than our confidence.

“Oh man, there are hundred reasons I shouldn’t be trying this. But there’s this one little voice, quieter than the rest, overwhelmed by the rest; but very persistent in my gut that’s saying, ‘I can accomplish this. I can manage this. I can overcome this. It’s the right thing to do.’”

To have the courage and confidence to:

Declare my love
Start my own business
The courage to end this bad relationship
The courage to work on this troubled relationship that’s redeemable.
The fortitude to recover from this illness
Pursue my dream
The confidence to seek the professional assistance I know I need
The courage to get in there and help my kid through this di cult time
Or the courage to back o , and give my child the room to figure this one out on his own

That lone little voice, that minority voice, won’t always be right. But there are times when listening to that little voice can make all the di erence.

Experts say that there are a lot of brilliant, famous and successful Broadway actors that are so nervous before each and every performance that– if you’ll pardon my saying so – they get so nauseous that they can’t help but throw up every night before going on stage.

Ten voices inside making them throw up. And then the two little voices that win the day, and get them to go on stage and give a brilliant performance.

What are the most powerful voices we carry inside throughout our lives? For better or for worse (hopefully more often for the better) our parents voices are loud and clear; and lifelong.

I was sitting in the activities room of a nursing home. A couple of ladies were helping each other put on some make up for a special occasion. One of them – 98 years old – looking a bit scared – said to her friend, “If my mother saw me doing this, she’d kill me!”

A voice from almost a century ago!

A parent’s voice. The voices that – perhaps more than any other – create and mold our sense of value, self worth, and our ability to navigate life.

I was at a training seminar this summer for rabbis and teachers who will be leading a monthly mentoring and discussion group for boys at our respective synagogues this year. I look forward to o ering a monthly group for our 9th and 10th graders.

At the closing evening session of this three day seminar, there were about 30 guys, sitting around the table in this conference room at the hotel.

We were asked – for those who wished-to share a time when we made our fathers proud, and a time when we felt we had disappointed our fathers. Powerful questions.

One of the older teachers, a guy about 60 years old, said, “My older brother was the golden child. It was always so obvious that my father had such high expectations for him. He was pushed, encouraged and expected to do important things in life.”

“I on the other hand, felt no sense of expectation from my father. I always felt that he thought very little of me because he never pushed me; he never got angry when I didn’t have excellent grades as he would my brother. He would just sort of verbally pat me on the head and smile.”

“And because he never seemed to have any expectations of me, I don’t think I ever really had them for myself.”

“Fifteen years ago, after my father died. For the first time, I shared my thoughts with my older brother. He looked absolutely floored and taken by surprise at my words.

“Did you really think that? That Dad thought very little of you? Let me tell you something. You know you were born prematurely. And back in those days, it was really touch and go. Dad was so scared. When you finally made it and it was clear you were going to be all right, Dad said that you were his miracle son. And he always felt that just the fact that you were alive was a beautiful and wonderful thing. And enough for him. He loved you so much, and was so scared of losing you, that he never wanted to push you or be angry. He was just so happy to have you in his life.”

“Finding that out has helped me change my life.”

That story is only marginally a thought for us as parents: The cautionary note that we be thoughtful, consistent and loving and clear in what we convey to our children.

But mostly, that man’s story is a lesson to us as children, whether we’re 18 or 99. One of the great tasks we all share is that we have to take responsibility for the voices and forces inside of us. Regardless of their origin. We need to take control and ownership for our internal voices.

It’s never too late.

These High Holidays, these Days of Awe, are rooted in a most magnificent and profound belief: That we human beings are capable of change.

That’s what these holidays are for.

Why go through this oft times painful introspection contrition unless we believe there is a chance to change ourselves, for the better?
If not, let’s skip these days and begin the year with the pure joy of Sukkot!

But Rosh Hashanah says; And the Torah declares; And the Rabbis teach; And we have learned;

-that we can change:
Whatever obstacle is in our way, whatever has been holding us back, can be over come.

So that we can find the courage to declare that new love
That we can find the confidence to create that new business That we can reach out and repair the seemingly irreparable relationship with our child
That we can find that illusive spiritual strength to physically heal That we can put on that make-up – even if it would have angered Mom in 1925.
That we can change our careers, even if it will anger our parents in 2013.
That we can have faith in ourselves, even if we believe that faith was damaged by our parents.

May these sacred days of 5774 be a season of giving heed to the healing, loving, bright and wise small still voice that – if we allow it –can guide us, from the center of our souls.

Amen