Repentance and Prayer and Tzedakah remove the severity of the decree. Powerful words sung as part of the U’netaneh tokef prayer on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
There are many ways to read the Akedah, which we read earlier this week on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. I’m going to propose that one way of reading it is a journey of teshuvah, return, for Isaac.
At the beginning of the story, G!d tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Traditionally, Isaac is believed to have been 37 years old at the time, since he was born when Sarah was 90 and she dies at age 127 in the immediate aftermath of the Akedah. If this is true, he must have known what was going on and lacked the wherewithal to resist being sacrificed. He goes along with Abraham, seemingly willing to be sacrificed. Or perhaps he was not aware that he was going to be sacrificed but was unable to see what was obvious: his father Abraham had a nasty habit of rejecting family members that Sarah and G!d were happy to get out of the way. The text says that Abraham got up early in the morning to take Isaac to sacrifice – the text also says that Abraham got up early in the morning to send Hagar and Ishmael away.
At a certain point, however, Isaac wakes up. He is carrying the wood for the sacrifice while his father carries the knife and the fire. Isaac wakes up to the fact that there is no sheep to be sacrificed. He asks his father, “Ayeh haseh l’olah/where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” He wakes up to the fact the he, Isaac, is that sheep. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov has a teaching about the word Ayeh/Where that when we are in the place of greatest distance from G!d and cry out “Where??” that G!d becomes most close to us. He reads Isaac’s question as a statement: “’Where?’ is the sheep for ascent.” Reaching that point of distance, where one realizes that one’s soul is in danger of extinction, and crying out “Where?!” leads to G!d coming to one’s assistance.
Abraham tries to sacrifice Isaac and the angel of Hashem intervenes. Then Abraham returns to the two young men that had accompanied him. Rabbis notice that Isaac is not mentioned and assume that he went elsewhere – perhaps to Gan Eden to heal from his wounds (or possibly be resurrected from actually being sacrificed), perhaps to the yeshiva of his ancestor Shem to learn Torah, or perhaps to reunite with his beloved brother Ishmael. Regardless of the outer destination, his inner destination is himself. But how?
Most commentators do not notice that Isaac is not the only one missing from the verse. Abraham had told the two young men to stay with the donkey until he and Isaac returned. But Abraham returns to the two young men, but the donkey is nowhere to be found.
I believe that Isaac rode the donkey to his next destination, returning to his most authentic self, and that the donkey was an essential part of that journey. Donkey is chamor in Hebrew. A related word is chumrah, stringency. Isaac is held up as the embodiment of gevurah, or strength, often associated with restriction and setting boundaries. I believe the chamor is chumrah – the stringency Isaac exercised in strength to depart a situation that threatened his life. And the key to teshuvah is this donkey of stringency, leaving and rejecting situations that oppose our highest and deepest authentic self to be able to return to who we are, to who G!d creates us to be.
Repentance and Prayer and Tzedakah remove the severity of the decree.
Each of the three patriarchs is credited with instituting one of the three required daily liturgical prayers. Abraham institutes Shacharit, the morning prayer. Jacob institutes Maariv, the evening prayer. And Isaac institutes the afternoon prayer of Minchah, which means Offering.
We read that Isaac went out into the field to meditate before evening. Prayer is not necessarily easy at any time of the day, but at least in the morning and at night, most of us are not in the middle of the busyness of our day. To take time in the middle of the day to reflect, to pray, to turn toward G!d is more difficult. But Isaac is able to do this.
Rebbe Nachman urged his followers to engage in hitbodedut, a form of very personal prayer in which one pours out one’s most innermost thoughts and feelings and self to G!d. He urged them to go out into nature to do so. It is interesting that, at least on most weekdays when the Torah is not read in the afternoon, Minchah is the shortest of the three daily prayers. Perhaps this is to give us more space to bring who we are, in the middle of our day, to G!d.
It is even possible, in the midst of working, to do so with an awareness of the presence of G!d and to make all of one’s work a prayer. The pause for Minchah is good, but so is making all of one’s day of work the Minchah, the Offering.
Repentance and Prayer and Tzedakah remove the severity of the decree.
As Isaac is meditating, he looks up and sees camels coming. In Hebrew, the word is gemalim. The gemalim are gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness.
It would have been easy for Isaac to become bitter after his ordeal of nearly being killed by his father. But he is able to heal to the point where he is able to see opportunities to do acts of lovingkindness.
And the acts of lovingkindness, acts of charity or giving tzedakah, grow directly out of his prayer, his meditation, his offering. Prayer connects us intimately with G!d, but just at G!d loves all of the creation G!d so lovingly made, so being in the presence of G!d and making our lives an offering to G!d necessarily leads us to make our life an offering for others, for those whom G!d has created.
As we prepare, on this Shabbat Shuvah, this Shabbat of Return, for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, may we follow Isaac on the donkey in returning to our most authentic self, in the field meditating and making our whole lives an offering to G!d, and in seeing the camels of acts of lovingkindness and tzedakah and making our whole lives also an offering to those whom G!d has created and deeply loves.
Repentance and Prayer and Tzedakah remove the severity of the decree.
