Below you will find the text of Joanna's wonderful d'var torah (words of
Torah) that she delivered on Rosh Hashanah. I think she gives us all a
great deal to think about - especially concerning issues of dialogue and
community here at Hampshire.
Shana tovah,
Rabbi Steve
Joanna Price
D'Var Torah
Rosh Hashanah, 2008
The binding of Isaac is a story that most of us know by now. It is
traditionally the portion for the second day of Rosh Hashanah, but since
we are not celebrating the second day here at Hampshire, I am going to
talk about the portion today instead. The binding of Isaac has always
been my least favorite story the Torah tells. In this story, God asks
Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham agrees and lies to
Isaac, telling him that they are going to make a sacrifice on the mount,
but not specifying that it is Isaac who will be sacrificed. As he draws
his knife to kill his son, an angel tells Abraham not to kill Isaac, but
to sacrifice a ram instead. He does not kill his son, but it remains
true that he had every intention of doing so. I don't like this story
because I find myself frustrated time and time again by the feeling that
after trying so hard for a son, Abraham wouldn't kill him! Certainly not
without arguing with God first, as he did in Sodom and Gomorrah. But he
sets off to kill Isaac without complaint. In fact, it is God who
prevents Isaac's death, not Abraham.
Why does God stop Abraham from killing Isaac? The Torah says, "The angel
of the lord called unto him out of heaven, and said: 'Abraham, Abraham.'
And he said: 'Here am I.' And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a
God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son,
from Me.'" God says, "ah, you would give up your son, I am reassured,
you don't have to kill him after all." God says, I just wanted to prove
that you followed my word, I didn't actually want you to kill your son.
But why doesn't God want Abraham to kill his son? Does God agree with me
that Abraham would not be Abraham if he did that? I chose to examine
this question by looking at a real life scenario.
If we take the binding of Isaac as a metaphor, we have to ask: at what
point do you go so far in your belief that you are willing to kill your
proverbial child? At first glance, Hampshire does not have this problem.
We pride ourselves on having a liberal environment that is tolerant of
everyone. We accept that there are multiple right answers to some of
life's big questions. However, if we understand our tolerance itself to
be the problem, then we can see that we are killing our children right
and left. For instance--recently, in Community Council, we discussed how
to address the problem of dialogue on campus: many students complain
that they can't share their opinions without being blatantly
disrespected by their peers. It turns out that in Hampshire's case, we
go so far in our belief than all beliefs should be acceptable that we
tend to be overly critical of people who put forth definitive opinions
on what is right and what is wrong. These opinions are the figurative
Isaacs, and we are the Abraham's, sacrificing personal standards so that
no one feels alienated, a greater good.
A prime example of such a sacrifice is the controversial belief in
Judaism, and at Hampshire, that a person is not a Jew if his or her mom
isn't Jewish. For some people, this is a belief they grew up with, that
is a core part of their Jewish identity. For others, including Reformed
and Reconstructionist Jews, it seems absurd and alienating. In fact,
when I originally wrote this speech, and ran it by Rabbi Steve, he asked
me to emphasize that as a reconstructionist Jew, he does not hold to the
belief that a person's mother has to be Jewish in order for him or her
to be Jewish. You can imagine, then, how hard it might be to be someone
at Hampshire who does hold to this belief, if the rabbi himself is
uncomfortable with acknowledging it. Sometimes, even Hampshire students
will have to forego their love of tolerance to respect people whose
beliefs can feel alienating. If you ask them to give up that
belief---for example, if they need 10 Jews at Hampshire to say Kaddish
for a recently deceased relative, and someone whose only Jewish parent
is their father shows up---you are, in essence, asking them to sacrifice
their personal belief for the "greater good," which in this case, is
tolerance. In Abraham's case, Isaac was the personal sacrifice for the
greater good. When Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac, God stayed his
hand. Perhaps God was saying to Abraham, "there are some things about
you which you should not give up for the greater good, because they are
so much a part of you that if you were to give them, you would no longer
be you." If we understand this to be God's message, perhaps we can take
away from it that upon occasion, it is better to alienate others than it
is to sacrifice our core beliefs, because when we sacrifice those
beliefs for the sake of someone else's comfort, we are really
sacrificing ourselves. When Abraham tries to sacrifice Isaac, he is
attempting to take Isaac's life, but he is sacrificing his own identity
to what he perceives as a greater good. Abraham would never kill his
son, but when God asks him to, Abraham chooses to stop being Abraham to
be servant to God---or the greater good. That greater good stopped
Abraham from sacrificing his son, and from this, I think we should take
that we cannot let ourselves think we are better or bigger than the
greater good and must be ready to sacrifice without hesitation for what
we perceive to be a better world for everyone. That may include acts
like giving to charity, or doing community service, or just being
considerate of other opinions. These are not just good acts, they are
mitzvahs---commandments from God. We are commanded to sacrifice our time
and energy, our money, and our thoughts and actions to others in need.
In fact, we don't have to have any good intentions in doing these
righteous acts, so long as we do them. We might do these things because
they are good, but we must do these things for Him. In the story of the
binding of Isaac, I think God is telling us that as with Abraham, we
must not sacrifice our core beliefs because God would not want us to
sacrifice our identities for His sake. Thank You. Shana Tovah.
--
Steven P. Nathan
Campus Rabbi
Interim LGBTQ Advisor
Hampshire College
Office of Spiritual Life -- Box SA
Amherst, MA 01002
Phone: (413) 559-5282
Fax: (413) 559-5663
snathan at hampshire.edu <mailto:snathan at hampshire.edu>
/"The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets, the
more powerfully it became clear to me what the lives of the prophets
sought to convey: that morally speaking there is no limit to the concern
one must feel for the suffering of human beings. It also became clear to
me that in regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society,
some are guilty, all are responsible."/
/-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel/
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