by Tamara Green, delivered at the Sanctuary Minyan

It has been very difficult to compose this dvar Torah. I spent last week, like everyone else, saddened and angry, at first somehow drawn by a terrible compulsion to read every article in the newspaper, watch every image on the television. Yet, no matter how much I have watched or read, it has not been possible to take in the enormity of what has happened. On Tuesday morning, I watched as the second plane flew into the Trade Center, and I could not take it in. On Tuesday morning, I saw the towers collapse, one after another, and I could not understand it. I did not cry. I just sat there in front of the television, like everyone else, I suppose, staring, stunned, unable to comprehend the numbers of people who worked there, unwilling to contemplate the possible numbers of people who might have died there. I was horrified, but I did not cry. But, then, that first night, the local news showed families at various hospitals, holding up pictures, desperately searching for husbands, wives, parents, sisters, brothers, children, and tears filled my eyes. The next morning, I began to read in the Times some of the biographical sketches of individuals who had been killed or who were missing. It was only then, when I bore witness to the meaning of a single life, that I began to comprehend what had happened. And then I wept.

Traditionally, we spend this week wishing one another a good year, a healthy year, a sweet year, but how can we begin the New Year with optimism in the face of such a calamity? How can we dare, after the events of this past week, to have hope for the New Year? And the Torah portions that we read on these two days of Rosh HaShanah at first glance don’t seem to give much comfort. I have always felt a contradiction between the miracle of creation that we celebrate on this day, and these two stories – the birth of Isaac and the akeidah -- that seem, in some way I have never been able to fathom, to be so downbeat, so filled with tension between the eternal of Adonai’s plan for the creation and the here and now of our lives, and in so many ways, enormously frightening, both on a cosmic level and in the context of our individual lives. What is Adonai trying to prove? Is the fragility of human existence in the face of Adonai's divine plan all we are meant to be made aware of? We’ve certainly learned that lesson this week, haven’t we?

The simplest and most straightforward explanation of the rabbis' selection of these two readings is to say that since we could not begin to comprehend the meaning and magnitude of Adonai's creation of the world and all that is in it, we bear witness to it, instead, on a human scale, through the story of the birth of a single child. As Adonai points out to Job, how can you understand my creation? Were you there when I created the world? You could never comprehend the totality of the miracle. Thus, although at Rosh Hashanah we are celebrating Adonai's creation of the world, we can understand it, the rabbis were saying, only in human terms, through Avraham and Sarah's creation of a single new life. As we learned last week, Adonai's creation of the world, and all that that encompasses, can be comprehended only one life at a time.
That would be a perfectly plausible, and perhaps even satisfying, explanation, if only we did not have to go any further than the very first part of yesterday's parsha -- how easy it would be, then, to be caught up in the joy of the miracle that surrounds the birth of Isaac. And in fact, it is entirely true that the parsha that we read yesterday can be seen as one that begins, at least, full of hopeful expectation and joy, for it contains the story of a promise made by Adonai that is miraculously fulfilled. "And Adonai remembered Sarah as He had promised." How easy it would be to pray to this Adonai on this Rosh HaShanah.

And we know, because of the promise that Adonai had made to Avraham, that there is another miracle embedded in the story, one that extends beyond Avraham and Sarah finding themselves about to become parents at the ages of 99 and 90 respectively. We are about to witness the birth of the nation of Israel, and the miracle is that it will occur because of the birth of one single child. But, even here, as remarkable an event as it may be, since we know how the story is going to turn out, as it were, we can understand even this, for Torah carefully lays out the path by which the descendants of Avraham and Sarah, dor v’dor, from one generation to another, came to stand at Sinai. The actions of this Adonai, who chose Avraham and Sarah to give birth to the nation of Israel, also then can make sense to us on this Rosh HaShanah.

But what about the second part of yesterday's reading, which is not nearly as joyous as the first, that seems mean-spirited and cruel at best, for it tells of the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael, with the blessing, as it were, of Adonai; and what about today's parsha, which recounts the akeidah, the binding of Isaac, and Avraham's seeming willingness to sacrifice his son because Adonai wants to test the faith of Avraham, an event that hardly seems comprehensible after that miraculous birth. The akeidah can seem to be some awful cosmic joke the humor of which only Adonai seems to understand. How can a God who in the parsha we read just this past shabbas commanded that the Israelites "therefore choose life, that you may live," and who declares about the law He has given that "it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off" have asked such terrible things of Avraham? How can we pray for mercy and compassion to this Adonai? What does this story have to do with being inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year?

To be sure, I'm not the only one to have had problems with this passage and its connection with the Rosh Hashanah liturgy; the rabbis long argued the essential meaning of this encounter between Avraham and Adonai. One talmudic response relies on the omniscience of Adonai: that Adonai knew what was going to happen or otherwise he wouldn't have tested Avraham, because he only tests those whom he know will pass the test (a difficult concept for a school teacher like me; supposing Avraham, normally a very conscientious student, hasn't studied for this particular exam), and I must admit I don't find that very satisfying on an ethical level either. Adonai may have known how the story was going to turn out, but Avraham didn't. If Adonai has endowed us with intelligence and understanding, to choose good, in the face of evil, as Rabbi Kalmanovsky said yesterday, how could Avraham have willingly taken Isaac to the mountain?

The rationalist approach, which can be found in the notes of the chumashim we use every shabbas, declares that the outcome of the akeidah shows the ethical superiority of Judaism in that, in contrast to ancient pagan religions, it condemned the practice of child sacrifice; but that rather smug self-congratulatory note has always seemed to me to have been made from the vantage point of hindsight.

A more traditionalist interpretation posits that this is the final trial of Avraham, and with its successful completion, Adonai and the creation enter into a new covenant, in which Avraham's relationship, and by extension, our relationship, with Adonai is defined by total trust in Adonai's power. That view seems to me to be possible only because, once again, we know how the story is going to turn out. What kind of covenant betwen Adonai and the creation would it have been if it had been sealed in the blood of a child?

And even if ultimately we are forced to take refuge in our belief that we cannot understand that divine plan, what about Avraham? How is it that Avraham, who, of all the patriarchs, is said by the rabbis to be the embodiment of chesed, can do the one and even contemplate the other? What has happened to the ongoing conversation between Avraham and his God, a conversation in which Avraham had already dared to challenge the decision of Adonai to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? How is it that Avraham can argue with Adonai for the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, can confront Adonai with the words, "shall not the judge of all the world do justly?", and yet not utter a word of protest when Adonai commands him to make an offering of Isaac, to kill his own son, after having already driven away his first born?

As I read the parsha through yet once again, what became clear to me was that part of the meaning of this story was forever beyond my reach: that what Adonai had done in this story was no more comprehensible in human terms than the act of creation itself: we may be called to witness it, but that does not mean that we can make sense of it.

But could I find another level of meaning through focusing on what is the human response, through the words of Avraham? What was his response to the incomprehensible? hineini: Here am I. Three times in these verses he utters this word, twice in answer to a divine summons: first, when Adonai calls upon Avraham to make an offering of Isaac, and then again, when the angel of Adonai calls out from heaven, to keep Avraham from committing that awful act, from killing his own son. Could Avraham have had any idea what Adonai was about to tell him to do when he made his first response of hineini? What could have he been feeling when the Malach Adonaim, the Angel of Adonai, called out to him? How could he have answered hineini yet again?

And what does it mean, then, when Avraham responds with exactly the same word to Isaac, when Isaac calls to his father to ask about the sacrificial lamb. How did he find the words or the courage to answer his son when Isaac called out to him?
Some explications of this word have seen it as proof of Avraham's total surrender of self to Adonai, but I don't like that interpretation, for that would mean that Avraham, and by extension, we as the children of Israel, have no free will and are merely subject to the whims of a force much more powerful than ourselves. Besides, it has been pointed out that when Adonai called upon Avraham the first time, He called his name only once, but when the angel called out to prevent Avraham from sacrificing Isaac, he called his name twice: Avraham, Avraham. Did he want to make sure that Avraham was really listening, or did he call twice because Avraham was no longer so eager to hear the voice of Adonai and did not respond the first time the angel spoke his name?

There are so many questions that I have raised here that I do not have answers for, but what finally made sense to me was to see the answer to at least one of my questions -- why we read this particular Torah passage on Rosh Hashanah -- in Avraham's response -- that Avraham, in the face of the incomprehensible, by his simple declaration of hineini, here am I, was saying: this is what I am, this is who I am, a human being, with the flaws and virtues that are a result of my humanness. I will try to learn what You, Adonai, expect of me, but so too will you learn, Adonai, of what we, your creation, are capable of. Here am I, for you, Adonai, but you also must be here for me; we must both listen to the voices of the other. And here I am for you, Isaac, my son, to whom I must respond whenever you call, even if I do not know how to answer.

These are the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, during which we are enjoined to reflect on our lives over the past year, and upon Adonai's creation; we turn inward into ourselves, seeking resolution within our innermost being. But we must also turn outward, to hear those who call upon us: we, like Avraham, must listen intently not only for the voice of Adonai, but we must listen also for the voice of Isaac, and of Hagar and Ishmael. We must see ourselves bound, like Isaac, by our present fears, sadness, and perhaps even despair. And we must answer hineini, here am I. We must loosen the knots, we must build a bridge between ourselves and all of Adonai’s creation, between being here at this present moment, no matter how terrible and fearful we might feel, and the eternal. We must do it for ourselves and we must do it for one another.

There was an article in the Times several years ago about the huge numbers of Hasidim who go to the Ukraine each year at Rosh HaShanah to pray at the grave of Reb Nachman of Breslov, the 18th century Chasid master who was the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. Although Reb Nachman was filled with the joy and celebration of Judaism, he recognized that there is much in our lives that is painful and hard to bear, and that can fill us with despair. "All the world is but a narrow bridge," he said, and then he added, "but the essential thing is not to fear at all." Hazzak, hazzak, v’nithazek. Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another.”

copyright reserved by the author