Shanah Tovah!
So… there’s this woman... In the Bible. (I really narrowed it down for you, didn’t I?) She can’t have any children. (Hm… that’s true for A LOT of Biblical women; maybe that didn’t help you much.) Her husband has children by a second woman (sadly, that doesn’t trim the lineup much either). She’s very upset about her predicament and she calls out to God for help. (STILL a bunch of candidates?? Ok, maybe I should just tell you who I’m talking about…)
Oddly enough, all of what I just said really DOES apply to several Biblical heroines; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Chanah, Samson’s unnamed mother, the Shunamite woman who appeals to the prophet Elisha. It’s intriguing, I think, that such a theme would be repeated over and over again. Though, if we think about it, we could likely each imagine many reasons why. I venture to say that at least one is about the importance of passing on our traditions and customs to a next generation. All of this - everything we do in life - kind of just ends, if there isn’t a next generation of our family, our congregants, citizens in our country, or humans on this earth. We don’t have to limit our scope to just parenting; there is so much that we pass on from one person to another, and from one era to another.
So the theme of “Oh no! What will our heroes do? It is the end of the line for them and their family!!!” is significant. And of course, the answer to all their prayers is - God swooping down, performing the miraculous, and she has a child. It’s a patriarchal story cover-to-cover, so let’s also acknowledge that yeah, the answer to everyone’s prayers is a BOY! But what I really wanted to share with you this morning is an interesting aspect OF that same theme, that both connects to it and offers a pretty stark and blunt reminder about the obligations it creates in us.
So you’ve got this theme, right? Repeating over and over. Woman, no child, miserable, God steps in, BABY BOY, everyone celebrates. And there are actually two of them that we read close together, both on Rosh Hashanah. The first would have been yesterday’s Haftarah, from the very beginning of the First Book of Samuel, where a woman named Chanah had no children, her husband had a second wife with a TON of kids (it doesn’t matter, let’s say she had 38 children), and Chanah was despondent. God hears her pleas and grants her a son, Samuel, whom she “dedicates” to Temple service, meaning that when he’s old enough, he goes and lives at the Temple in Jerusalem, under the tutelage of the priest, Eli. Great. Fine. Lovely. Boarding School. Very Harry Potter; terrific.
Today, our Torah reading begins similarly. Sarah, married to Abraham, no kids, inconsolable. Abraham has a child with Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar, which actually makes things WORSE. But God gets involved, angels come to visit, and they have a son, Isaac. All is right with the world. Then, somehow, we lose control of the steering wheel, our proverbial car careens off the road, and the “happily ever after” turns into a nightmare. God says (but not in so many words): “I gave you that son. You owe me. You need to offer him as a sacrifice on an altar back to me.” I shouldn’t say this from the Bimah… but “what the hell?!?” The logic is perverse, right??? You prayed for a son, I answered your prayers, so now as a sign of gratitude, kill the kid.
Now we can offer all kinds of explanations for why God was never intending to go through with it, or it was just a test, or we simply don’t understand the depths of meaning and intention here, blah, blah, blah. This story makes me, anyway, deeply uncomfortable… and, quite frankly, mad at God. And this week, I read a two-sentence commentary by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, that offered new a new perspective. I thought it was just so terrific, that I wanted to share it with you.
Waskow writes, so simply: “Seems to me that the rabbis’ choice of the story of Chana as the Haftarah [on the] 1st day Rosh Hashanah was a quiet rebuke of the Akedah [the Binding of Isaac]: to bring your child as an olah [for dedication], you don’t need to kill him or come even close. Do what Chana did, through prayer and steadfast chesed [righteousness], lift him to become a prophet.” I love this. In a sense, Waskow is suggesting incredible rabbinic chutzpah. When God conveys to Abraham, “you owe me,” Abraham is supposed to say “yes, AND…” My version is: You’re right, God. Abraham does owe you. We all do. We all should be incredibly grateful and appreciative of the blessings in our lives, and to know that joy, love, cuddling, closeness, and passing on our traditions from generation to generation - these are ALL phenomenal gifts. Buuuut, I’m not killing a child. That is NOT how I will show you my gratitude. Who talks like that to GOD?!? Oh yeah, we do.
I also love this, because the rabbis NEVER outright criticize the Torah. God forbid! They just mandate that we read the story of Chanah FIRST, then the Akeidah, the Binding of Isaac, so that we might say to ourselves, “huh. That was an interesting choice. Why couldn’t Abraham just have done what Chanah did? Teach the boy how to love God, be a force for righteousness and goodness in our world, help some of the less-fortunate of God’s creations, and THAT can be the way you dedicate him TO God!!!” But the rabbis never SAY that… they just subtly lay that out there for us to see. Not for nuthin’... bad call, God. Just sayin’...
My commentary on that, and then we’ll jump into our Torah reading is, we all have to find this balance too. Yes, we DO have to educate our children, give them a sense of values, pride in the self and in our religion, and a commitment to justice, compassion, and fairness. But we cannot sacrifice our children on the altars of our own causes. And we do sometimes. People do… and we’re tempted to say “other” people, but it’s worth stopping and thinking about ourselves too. We don’t bind a child to a physical altar and raise a knife over our heads to do something unthinkable (though I’m told when you’re the parent of teenagers, the thought MAY cross your mind…). But there are other ways that we DO damage our kids, and other ways to challenge ourselves to be better partners WITH them, and work together to demonstrate shared gratitude to God for the gift of life, meaning, love, and commitment.
As we begin our Torah reading, let’s all put Chanah (from yesterday) and Abraham (right here) on two ends of a spectrum, and spend some time figuring out where we, and our own values, could potentially fall somewhere between them. Just sayin’... Our Torah reading begins in the High Holiday Machzor, page 103.
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