Last week, I was bothered by our Torah reading. Which isn't to say it was the first time this had happened, but something about the trouble I was having seemed unique. I had read the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah before, as well as the other stories pertaining to immoral behavior, unethical actions, and disturbing sexual situations. Let's face it; a lot of weird (and upsetting) stuff happens in Genesis! But I was finding it particularly difficult to practice my Torah readings and plan out what I was going to say in services on Shabbat, given what's been happening at Penn State, and the unfolding of a pretty horrific sex scandal.
I was, therefore, pretty thankful when we were done with last week's Torah reading, so we could put the whole sordid mess behind us... but like the Penn State scandal, the pain continues. Last week's reading contained the Binding of Isaac, a story in which God "tests" Abraham by telling him to offer his young son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Abraham willingly goes along with it, and only at the last minute does an angel block Abraham's hand, and stop him from actually killing his son. Bizarrely, the text tries to convince us this is all a good thing, and that Abraham has now proven his worth. But just like the story unfolding in State College, PA, where for a while we were distracted by stories about an idolized football coach, riots in the streets, and questions about a most peculiar phone interview; in the end, the question is, and should always be, what about the children?
In the case of the Bible, God and Abraham play a high-stakes game of chicken, which is (or really isn't) fine, but the life that's at stake is Isaac's. He is like a sad, traumatized pawn in this ordeal, and no one seems to want to really deal with the question, what did this horrible experience do to him? And when we read the text closely, we in fact see that something is very wrong. The last time we heard Isaac speak was when he asked his father where the lamb was for their sacrifice... and his father lied to him. Then, Isaac never spoke again in last week's Torah portion.
Lots of things happen around him this week, but Isaac himself never says a single word in our entire parasha, and this continues into next week's reading, where it takes a full chapter before he finally opens his mouth again. And by the way, when he does, he himself speaks a lie. The kid is traumatized. It isn't articulated explicitly, but so what? We have to stop using that as an excuse. We need to protect Isaac, like we need to protect the abused kids from The Second Mile, even when they don't know how to protect themselves. We need to stop waiting for someone ELSE to act, or to call the police for us; we are obligated (by our own conscience, if not by law) to be proactive. Please see that both of these stories are speaking directly to you and me.
Later on, when Isaac is an old man, he goes blind. The rabbinic commentators tell us it's a repercussion after seeing his father standing over him holding a knife, when he was a child. Trauma doesn't just disappear; it didn't 4,000 years ago, and it's still true today. The aftermath for these kids is unimaginable for most of us, but that is all the more reason why we must not let ourselves forget. The Binding of Isaac never went away, and neither should our vigilance and our outrage at what has happened today.
Photos in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of gideon_wright on Flickr
Rabbi: I absolutely agree that there should be much more emphasis on the children involved in the recent scandal. However, I also recall that Rabbinic tradition has Isaac as 37 years old at the time of the binding incident. Daniel Matt's take on the Zohar says that God was testing the adult Isaac, and not Abraham, as Isaac could have refused to go along. Roy Brandow
ReplyDeleteHi Roy!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Yes, there is indeed a rabbinic tradition that says Isaac was 37 years old, but personally, I don't buy it. I think the rabbis are trying to assuage their discomfort with Abraham doing something like this to a small child. In Gen. 22:5, Abraham describes his son as a "Na'ar," which means "young boy." Why would he refer to his 37-year old son as a "young boy"???
And I think the Zohar is expressing a similar discomfort with Isaac as a young child. Furthermore, the Zohar was written (most likely) in a time when Judaism was under attack from Christians. So Isaac, as a 37-year old man dying for our sins, served as a nice rival to the Christian Jesus. If we instead strip away all that discomfort and all the political struggles of a different era, I truly believe that what we're left with is a young child being victimized to serve someone else's purpose.
Thanks again for the comment, Roy. See you soon!
RJG