Vayera
Genesis 18:1-22:24
II Kings 4:1-37
The most enigmatic narrative in Genesis is the binding of Isaac, or the Akedah, the centerpiece of Parashat Vayera.
Danish philosopher Soren Kierkeggard found great strength in Abraham’s unswerving trust in God, calling him an heroic “knight of faith.” Others, puzzled by the contrast of Abraham’s argument against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with his silence over the near sacrifice Isaac, see Abraham as misguided.
Why is such a troubling account utilized on Rosh Hashanah instead of a more ennobling, uplifting story? After all, if Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve, why not read the majestic opening lines of Genesis instead?
At one time Jews did read the creation story on Rosh Hashanah. To understand why it was displaced by the Akedah, it is necessary to examine a version of this story with a more shocking ending than the one in Vayera. In this alternative account from rabbinic literature, Isaac was actually slain — no angel intervened. Then the sacrificed Isaac was healed and resurrected.
This unusual version originated during the early centuries of Christianity when the supreme sacrifice of the Christian messiah was invoked as evidence of the superiority of the Christian God over the Hebrew God.
In the face of the growing popularity of Jesus, Jews underscored the story of the binding of Isaac to challenge the uniqueness of the Christian myth. They argued there was nothing special about the crucifixion because Jews also had a central figure whose birth was miraculous, who carried his own wood to his sacrifice, atoned for the sins of his people through his death, and was resurrected.
The parallelism is inescapable but Jewish tradition did Christianity one better.
Unlike Jesus who cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani — Oh God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), the rabbinic accounts report that Isaac willingly went to his sacrifice and insisted that the binding be secure lest his trembling result in an imperfect sacrifice, unacceptable to God.
Thus, in the early centuries of the first millennia, the Akedah story was showcased to refute the growing popularity of Christianity, thereby displacing the creation story previously read at the New Year.
Succeeding generations utilized the Akedah to define their experiences and express their concerns. A far more shocking example of the use to which the Akedah was put is recorded in the nightmare period of the Crusades beginning in 1096, when Jews in Mainz, Germany, armed themselves and took refuge in the fortified courtyard of the archbishop.
When the Crusaders, who left a path of death and destruction in Jewish communities across Europe on their way to the Holy Land, breached the walls of the courtyard, the Jews decided to kill themselves, their wives and children rather than face the demand that they convert to Christianity.
It was the Akedah that inspired and ennobled them to take this ghastly action. Similar events occurred in the city of Worms, where some 800 Jews were murdered. One account records the words of R. Meshullam bar Isaac who used the very language of the Akedah to sacrifice his child:
“‘Here is my son whom God gave me and to whom my wife Zipporah gave birth in her old age; Isaac is this child’s name; and now I shall offer him up as Father Abraham offered up his son Isaac’…And he bound his son Isaac, and picked up the knife to slay his son, and recited the blessing appropriate for slaughter. And the lad replied, ‘Amen.’ And the father slew the lad. Then he took his shrieking wife and both of them together left the room; and the vagabonds murdered them.”
In the 20th century, the Akedah found a unique place in Zionism’s revival. There is scarcely an Israeli poet who hasn’t utilized the Akedah to express brutality and violence.
For these modern writers, Isaac represents the Jewish people, constantly being called upon to make the supreme sacrifice as martyr. Utilizing this biblical motif, Haim Guri describes the frightful inheritance of Isaac’s descendants in his poem, “Yerushah — Heritage.” The poem concludes with the stinging words:
Isaac, as the story goes, was not sacrificed./ He lived for many years,/ Saw all that was good until his eyes grew dim./ But he bequeathed that hour to his heirs./ They are born/ With a knife in their hearts.
In reviewing the different ways in which Jews utilized the Akedah, a student of Torah learns how sacred texts provide new insights into personal lives and communal history.