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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.<br>
<br>
Shana tovah,<br>
<br>
Rabbi Steve<br>
<br>
<br>
J<big>oanna Price<br>
D’Var Torah<br>
Rosh Hashanah, 2008<br>
<br>
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. <br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
</big><br>
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