Our Jewish Stories – Our Jewish Lives Part II
Sermon, Rosh Hashanah 5766
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

Word was spreading like wildfire through the community.  “Have you heard?”  people whispered.  The prophet is coming!  “Was it true?” someone asked.  “Yes,” another assured them, he had been in a neighboring village and was headed this way.

He would be here by nightfall and would deliver his message at the marketplace tomorrow.

The prophet had been here before, a couple of years ago, but his words still reverberated in the hills.  With passion, bordering on anger, he had lambasted the people for worshipping other gods and offering sacrifices on a make-shift altar.  He had criticized their treatment of widows and orphans, and reminded them of their duty to love the stranger.

In response to his message, community leaders had instituted changes; the altar was destroyed and idols confiscated.  A real effort was made to serve the poor.  The people rallied to reach out to those in need.  But as inevitably happens, the initial enthusiasm dissipated, and over time people reverted to their old habits.  So it was with a mixture of excitement and fear that they anticipated his return.

“What would he speak about this time?” everyone wondered.  Their pious fasting, while they ignored the plight of the hungry?  Their fastidious observance of Shabbat, while they exploited their workers the rest of the week? 

Excitement built the next day as everyone streamed toward the marketplace.  They pushed forward to get closer to the make-shift podium, anticipating his fiery rhetoric, bracing themselves for the onslaught of his words.  They held their collective breathes as he stood up and began to speak.

“Once long ago, in this very land, God put Abraham to the test.  God said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Hineini – Here I am!”

            The people looked at each other surprised, confused.  He wasn’t berating them.  He wasn’t exhorting them to change.  He was . . . he was telling them a story. 

Now, they had heard stories about Abraham before, about how he had left his homeland far away to come to the land of Israel at God’s behest, about his boldly challenging God to try to save the sinful cities of Sodom and Gemorrah, about the struggle to bear a child, his liaison with Sarah’s concubine, Hagar, and the disastrous results that produced, and finally, at the unbelievable age of 100, the birth of Isaac, who would carry on God’s covenant.  Yes, they had heard these stories from the elders, but never from the prophet.  The people leaned closer, as he continued.

God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your favored one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.” 

An audible gasp went through the crowd.  “Had he heard?” they wondered.  Sure, everyone knew of the despicable act, how Shmuel had taken his daughter and… everyone knew, but no one ever spoke of it.  “He must have found out, and now he is going to let us have it,” they thought.

“Abraham arose early the next morning, saddled his donkey took two of his servants with him and Isaac, his son, split wood for the burnt-offering, and set out for the place of which God had told him.  On the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar.  Abraham said to his servants:  ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go yonder and worship and return to you.’”

Now the people were confused.  “What is he saying?” they whispered.  Maybe it is not so bad?  Perhaps it is all right?   After all, if Abraham could do it….”

“Abraham took the wood for the burnt-offering, put it on Isaac, his son, took in his hand the firestone and the knife, and two of them went on together.  Isaac said to Abraham, his father, ‘Father,’ and he said, ‘yes, my son.’  And he said, ‘Here are the firestone and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt-offering?’  Abraham said, ‘God will see to the lamb for the burnt-offering my son.’ And the two of them went on together.”

“Yes, indeed,” everyone thought, “Abraham was going to do it.”  It was not so bad after all.  Maybe that is what God wanted.

“And they came to the place of which God had spoken, and Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood and bound Isaac his son and put him on the altar on top of the wood.  And Abraham lifted his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.”

By now the people anticipated the ending, they were ready for Abraham to raise his knife, ready for Abraham to slay his son, ready for God to reward Abraham for his obedience.  “Yes,” they thought, “Abraham was going to kill his son; God wanted child sacrifice after all!”

“Then an angel of God called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham,’ and he said, ‘Hineni – here I am.’  He said, ‘Do not lift your had against the boy, don’t do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God and would not withhold your son, your favored one, from me.”

The people were silent.  Like Abraham, they were caught off guard, stunned by the turn of events.  They had been taken in; they had been tricked.  The story that had seemed to affirm child sacrifice had been turned on its head and unequivocally condemned it.  The real sacrifice on Mount Moriah, the “offering” that went up in smoke, was the people’s acceptance of child sacrifice.  It was a story they would always remember, a lesson they would never forget.

Stories are powerful ways to convey moral lessons.  The prophets, of course, railed against child sacrifice, as they did so many other evils, and their words were heard, yet often ignored or forgotten. 

But who could ever forget the story of the binding of Isaac.  This story, of course, did not end child sacrifice, but never again would anyone in the community be able to lift his hand to sacrifice his child without hearing the words God spoke to Abraham:  “Do not lift your hand against the boy, don’t do anything to him….” 

That is this story’s primary lesson:  Do not sacrifice your sons!  Do not offer up your daughters.  That is not what God wants.  That is not what parents are supposed to do.

This morning, as I continue my series of sermons on “Our Jewish Stories – Our Jewish Lives,” I want to reflect on the importance of this particular story, as an example of how biblical stories resonate in our day and teach us important lessons.

Now at first, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac does not seem to be particularly relevant.  After all, we no longer take our sons or daughters to distant mountains and offer them up to the gods. 

However, in many other ways we still are prepared to sacrifice our children.

--we sacrifice our children by our willingness to send them off to war;

--we sacrifice our children by forcing them to lead the lives we want them to live, by creating unrealistic expectations and unreasonable demands, and  by imposing our hopes and dreams upon them.

--and we sacrifice our children by not setting the proper example for them, by not doing everything we can to assure that they develop a love for Judaism.

This story challenges us to confront our willingness to sacrifice our children.  Now, when I say “our children” I don’t just mean those of us who have been blessed with children of our own.  Rather, I mean all of us, who are part of this community and therefore, according to Judaism, are responsible for the children in our community. 

Each day when I read The New York Times, I turn to the article about the war in Iraq and look for the names of those killed in the war in recent days.  Usually there are one or two names, sometimes more, occasionally none.  I figure it is the least I can do for these people who are giving their lives on behalf of all of us.  Actually, I think their names should be blazoned on page one of every newspaper and lead every news report about the war.

Recognizing those who are dying for our country should not be a matter of partisan debate.  It should not make any difference whether one is in favor of the war or against the war.  All of us should recognize, honor and remember those who die for our country.

The Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. was very controversial when it was first proposed, but is now acclaimed as a meaningful and appropriate monument.  It recognizes each man and woman who died serving our country in that war, and forces us to confront the cost of war in human terms.  Israel, too, has fitting memorials for each of its military units, so that those killed defending the country will be remembered.  In recent years, on Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, television stations broadcast videos compiled in memory of solders who have been killed.

It is vital that we honestly and openly acknowledge those who die in war, the children who are sacrificed for us, so that we understand the true cost of war and recognize our responsibility for what we, as a country, are doing.  If we cannot read the names of those who have died, if we cannot look at the caskets of those returning, if we cannot look into the eyes of the parents and spouses and children who have lost loved ones, then we should not be sending our children off to war.

Fortunately, most of us are not faced with sacrificing our own children in this way.  However, we who care deeply about our children run the risk of sacrificing them in other ways.

The most difficult thing for a parent to do, the greatest challenge in raising children is to watch them grow and become independent.  The greatest gift that we can give them is to nurture their dreams and help them use their abilities and talents to achieve their goals. 

All of us have dreams for our children.  All of us have expectations.  But each child is unique and needs to find his or her own path to maturity.  As parents, we need to slowly let go of our dreams and expectations and nurture theirs.

Abraham and Sarah certainly had expectations for Isaac.  After waiting so long for the child who would carry on the covenant, they were not going to allow anything to interfere with their dreams.  When Sarah sees Ishmael, Isaac’s half brother, “playing” – the rabbis say that he was tormenting him by shooting arrows in his direction – Sarah demands that Abraham banish them.  Abraham, reluctantly does so with God’s blessing.

We can only imagine what else this overprotective Jewish couple did to guard their “baby” from untoward influences.  Indeed, commentators have suggested that Isaac was not a child when the akedah took place, but 37 years old, and that one of its purposes was to force Abraham and Sarah to give Isaac his independence, to make them recognize that they need to let him live his life.

We need to allow our children to grow up, to allow them to become independent.  We need to stop protecting them from the challenges that they face in the real world and allow them to face them on their own.  We should always be there to support them, to catch them when they fall and help them get up, but we need to let them make their own mistakes, learn their own lessons.

In her book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel offers this advice to parents:  “as our children mature, we need to withdraw from smoothing their path and satisfying all their wishes.  By giving them a chance to survive some danger and letting them make some reckless or thoughtless choices, we teach them how to withstand the bumps and knocks of life.  This is the only way children will mature into resilient, self-reliant adults.” 

The third way we “sacrifice” our children is by not doing everything we can to assure that they develop a deep, life-long commitment to Judaism.  We are often long on words, but short on action.  We are responsible for setting an example for our children.  We cannot expect the children in our community to become committed Jews, unless we, ourselves are willing to make that commitment.  We cannot expect them to grow and learn, unless we ourselves are also growing and learning. 

We are our children’s first teacher.  We are our children’s first, and although sometimes it is hard to believe, their most important role model.  They might rebel at times, they might do their own thing, but the lessons we teach them by our words and, more importantly, by our actions, will stay with them.

“Kol Yisrael aravim zeh bazeh – all Israel is responsible one for the other,” our tradition teaches.  We are all responsible for creating a warm, nurturing environment for our children, an environment in which they can develop a love for each other, a love of God, and a love of Judaism. 

We are responsible for creating a nurturing and enriching educational program.  We are responsible for developing and expanding our Gan so that every Jewish preschooler will have the opportunity to begin his or her formal Jewish education at an early age, when it counts the most.  We are responsible for enhancing our Religious School program so that every Jewish child in our community learns to love Judaism and the Jewish people.

We are responsible for supporting our informal educational programs, our summer camping programs Kaytana and Machaneh; our youth programs Temple Teens, NFTY and BBYO.  We need to assure that our youth have the opportunities to attend Camp at Schechter or soon the new URJ Camp Kalsman and to study and travel in Israel.  Only by offering a complete array of formal and informal educational programs for youth, from our youngest to our oldest, have we fulfilled our responsibility “v’sheenantam l’vanecha – you shall teach them to your children.”

The lessons that our children learn in the classrooms and in this sanctuary about Judaism are important.  But what are even more important are the relationships that they build with their teachers and with each other.  Many students who started out in Temple Beth El’s Gan have remained life-long friends, have traveled to Israel together, and continue to share Jewish celebrations with each other.  Many of the students still look up to their teachers as role models and inspirations of how to lead a Jewish life. 

Those of you who were at this past year’s Confirmation service heard Matt Becker speak of his friendship with Stephen Robinson and Ben Mandel, which began in Gan and continues to this day.  In the short time that I have been here, I have heard many similar stories from our youth, young adults, and even not so young adults, about the relationships that began in our Gan or Religious School and have lasted a lifetime.  That is one of the things that makes this Congregation special and is why it is so important that we strengthen our educational programs.  If we fail to do so, then we are assuredly sacrificing our children to the many things out there that will lead them away from Judaism. 

The powerful story of the binding of Isaac certainly shocked its listeners when they first heard it, as it continues to disturb us today.  We read this story every year to remind us that we too are capable of “sacrificing” our children.

            --we sacrifice our children by our willingness to send them off to war;

--we sacrifice our children by forcing them to lead the lives we want them to live, by creating unrealistic expectations and unreasonable demands, and  by imposing our hopes and dreams upon them.

--and we sacrifice our children by not setting the proper example for them and doing everything we can to assure that they develop a love for Judaism.

As we begin a new year, let us reflect seriously on these sacrifices.  Let us listen for God’s voice telling us not to lift our hands, not to sacrifice our children.  And let us respond to God’s voice by making the changes we need to make.

Commentators have noted that twice this story says Abraham and Isaac walked up the mountain together.  But at the end of the story, it does not say that they walked down the mountain together.  In fact, Isaac is not mentioned at all, causing some to speculate that he was indeed sacrificed, or, at the very least, walked down the mountain alone.

Every Rosh Hashanah we make the journey to Mount Moriah with our children, ready, as always, to sacrifice them.  Let us take to heart the message of this story:  “Do not lift a hand…do not to anything to him” so that unlike Abraham, we can walk down the mountain and continue the journey of life hand and hand with our children.

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