Akedah 5783: The Quest for the [Un]/Binding of Isaac

I have been a part of a number of different religious groups in my life (I’m now referring to this as my “sectually promiscuous” past) and, at one point in my very early thirties, was a part of a Roman Catholic religious order. One priest in the order who did not like me wrote what he thought was a negative comment in an evaluation that said “Tim seems to be on a spiritual quest” – and this was one of the most puzzling things I have ever read – I couldn’t imagine (and still can’t imagine) how any clergyperson of any religious tradition could be worth their salt WITHOUT being on a spiritual quest. I took a class at a local synagogue last spring that studied Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book Man’s Quest for God and shared this story in the first session and was heartened to learn that the rabbi teaching the class and the other participants share my view.

I have also been obsessed with the Akedah for three decades, since in some ways it seems to serve as a parable for my own childhood, in which my fundamentalist Christian minister father was willing to metaphorically sacrifice me to his ministry and religious mania. I believe Avraham failed the test (he should have argued with G!d as he did for the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah) and read the story through a lens of the trauma Yitzchak experienced. Yet I still see new insights in the story and the reading of the Akedah on this year’s second day of Rosh Hashanah landed differently for me this year.

I took a class with Rabbanit Goldie Guy on Rebbe Nachman last year and she introduced me to his teaching about Ayeh/Where, in which he teaches that discovering that one is in a place of filth far from G!d and asking, “Ayeh/Where is the place of G!d’s glory?” (from the Musaf Kedusha for Shabbat), “this, this, is the essence of his rectification and ascent” (Likutei Moharan, Part 2, 12:11). He goes on to say that Yitzchak’s question to Avraham as they ascend Mt. Moriah, “Where is the lamb for the olah/burnt-offering?” shows that this is the means of spiritual ascent (“olah” also means “ascent”):

This is also the concept of the olah (burnt-offering), as in “but ayeh (where) is the lamb for the olah?” (Genesis 22:7). [Asking] “Ayeh?” is itself the concept of the lamb for the olah to rectify and atone for those thoughts in the heart that stem from the “filthy places.” For it is through the concept of Ayeh that a person is rectified and oleh (ascends) from there, as mentioned above. (Likutei Moharan 12:16)

Learning this shifted my understanding of the Akedah (see http://www.timcravens.com/2022/02/where-is-lamb-for-ascent.html for my first response to this learning).

Today, it shifted again for me slightly – “Where?” is the lamb for the ascent – the means of ascent – because it is the invitation to a spiritual quest to answer the question. Yitzchak does not return with Avraham to join the servants and goes his separate way – possibly to a yeshiva (one midrash), possibly to join his brother Yishmael (a more modern theory), possibly to do something else. But he must follow this quest – because it is his raising this question that begins his spiritual quest that is the REAL sacrifice. (NOT the pshat/literal meaning of the text – I believe he was young and did not have agency in the literal text, which is why I read it as trauma – but seen in a more midrashic way, I can see it as a partially voluntary acceptance of the sacrifice as a response to the abusive actions of his father.)

And here is an interesting thing that I realized today – in Gen. 22:9, it states that Avraham bound Yitzchok and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. However, the text does NOT say that Avraham UNbound Yitzchak – even though the ram was offered instead. Yet even the word “tachat” – translated (correctly for the literal meaning) “instead of” in v. 13 – “Avraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt-offering ‘instead of” his son” – also means “under” – so, spiritually and metaphorically and midrashically, I think one can read it as the ram being the physical olah/burnt-offering under the spiritual olah/offering-of-ascent of Yitzchak – the beginning of his spiritual quest.

There are readings of the story of Yitzchak that see his life as a sacrifice (for example, unlike Avraham, Yaakov, and the twelve sons of Yaakov, he never leaves Eretz Yisrael) – and I think seeing his making the question “Where?” the offering that began a life of sacrifice and spiritual quest is one way to read this. (I am grateful to Daniel Krupka who has shared the understandings of Yitzchak as sacrifice with me.) In this reading, the Akedah still involves Yitzchak being offered as an olah/offering-of-ascent – only transformed from a physical sacrifice involved death to a living sacrifice involving a constant quest for G!d.

I recite verses for two names that are significant to me (Tomer and Michael) at the end of the Amidah, as is a minhag (albeit a minhag introduced in a Sabbatean text, Kitzur Shelah, but that is a discussion for another time) – and at Musaf, I was inspired to also read the verse in my machzor for Yitzchak (or any name beginning with yud and ending in kuf): “[G-d] brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their bonds asunder” (Psalm 107:14). So the binding of Yitzchak is done by Avraham (albeit with partial consent from Yitzchak) – but the unbinding can only be accomplished by G!d – and is the ultimate result of the quest of Yitzchak begun on Mount Moriah

My Experience on Tisha B'Av, 5781

[Written on Tisha B'Av, 5781/2021]

For a non-Jew, I’ve had a lot of Jewish experiences, starting with my first visit to an Orthodox synagogue in 1981 when I was in high school (accompanied by my first purchase of Jewish prayer books). I majored in Judaic studies with a minor in Hebrew in college and took many Jewish studies courses in divinity school, including three with a Chasidic rebbe in Maimonides in which I was the only non-Jewish student in the class (in at least one, the only one not an Orthodox Jewish man). I’ve attended at least 25 Passover seders, 3 Tu B’Shevat seders (four if you count the one on Zoom last year during the pandemic), at least 9 years of in-person High Holy Day services (15 if you count livestreaming), and many, many Shabbat services. Even two Shalom Zachor celebrations and a bris. This was my fourth Tisha B’Av. I’ve learned daf yomi (daily Talmud) for over a year now, have completed the first year of the Center for Contemporary Mussar program, and have been attending a chasidus shiur for a few months. I own 84 Jewish prayerbooks, not counting a dozen and a half haggadahs for Passaover (and one for Tu B’Shevat). And a lot of other Jewish books. I’ve carried a tiny copy of Tehillim (Psalms) in my wallet for going on three decades.

And I don’t believe I’ve ever been as deeply emotionally affected as I was by this year’s Tisha B’Av observance.

To be sure, the other years were meaningful. The first two times, I only attended one service (the evening service). Last year, I participated in two evening services by Zoom, sitting on the floor by candlelight for the first and being moved by the removal of mezuzot from a year-old shtiebel’s first location, as well as a couple of Zoom classes the next day. (And another year, I had a wonderful conversation on Tisha B’Av morning with an Orthodox coworker who had not taken the day off but was fasting – he had great insights.)

A large part of what made it so powerful for me this year was being there in person for all three services of the day (and Maariv of Motzei Tisha B’Av) as well as for the afternoon program of four classes (and another one on Zoom when I was home in between morning and afternoon sessions) – spending 11 or 12 hours with Orthodox Jewish friends observing the day with a great deal of kavannah certainly influenced my experience. I did not fast, but from leaving the house at 2 until sitting down to dinner a little after 9, I had no food or drink – the mild hunger was not bad, but the lack of beverages did affect me. The services and classes were all very well done and quite meaningful. The arc of the day, from the intensity of the evening service in dim light sitting on the floor with candles about, punctuated by thunder and lightning, with a packed room of mostly younger people seriously mourning, leaving in silence, to the quieter morning service, still sitting on the floor, followed by reflections on the kinnot (I actually gave one myself and was quite moved by the others), to the afternoon where we returned to furniture. The rabbanit made the point that the day was to feel like a shiva call, and it did feel like a funeral observance, moving from more intense mourning to the sort of quiet remembrance with mixed laughter and tears.

But what affected me the most was the burden of centuries of Christian anti-Semitism. I’ve read the inspirational Easter sermon of John Chrysostom and heard it read at Easter Vigils – and the knowledge that his virulent hateful screeds against the Jews were able to be reprinted by the Nazis eliminates the possibility of any of his writings being sacred to me. The simplicity of the Good Friday liturgy has a stark beauty to it – but the knowledge that it at one time had anti-Jewish elements that inspired Christian mobs to attack and murder and loot their Jewish neighbors makes me grieve in a rather different way than the liturgy intends. Martin Luther made necessary reforms, necessitating a break from a church that had become thoroughly corrupt – and, again, wrote anti-Jewish attacks so vicious the Nazis printed them. I love the music of Johann Sebastian Bach inspired by Lutheran liturgy. I appreciate that many Lutheran churches have engaged in repentance of their part in anti-Semitism and in helping foster an environment that made the Holocaust possible – and yet I wonder if any act short of stripping Luther’s name from their churches can be enough. The Roman Catholic denomination commendably repented at Vatican II with Nostra Aetate, and yet anti-Semitism remains – I know someone who in this millennium studied in a diocesan seminary with a professor who has publicly defended the kidnapping of a Jewish child baptized secretly by a maid against the will of his parents and raised as a Catholic. And the evangelical world in which I was raised attempts to convert the Jews to their version of Christianity and have no problem with using the word “crusade” to describe their evangelistic efforts. I’m regularly asked by Jews if I have Jewish ancestry – and, given the fact that my ancestors are almost all from England and Scotland, who expelled the Jews in the thirteenth century, I must shake my head no. France and Spain followed suit, with Roman Catholic clergy leading the Inquisition in Spain, forcing Jews to convert, flee, or die, with only a minority of the Jewish population surviving with their Judaism intact. And the Eastern Orthodox, unlike Catholics, Anglicans, and many Protestants, have never reckoned with their anti-Semitism and history of pogroms and their liturgy remains intact with hatred of the Jewish people being a major theme of the Holy Week liturgy.

And I found myself tearing up at Maariv as we davened and listened to the chanting of Eicha, the biblical book of Lamentations, and the kinnot, the dirges that are a major part of the day’s liturgy. I would have sobbed had I not wanted to attract attention. The next morning, several of us gave reflections on different kinnot (myself included). One in particular that really affected me was a reflection on a kinnah mourning the burning of many copies of the Talmud during the reign of Louis IX the king of France in the thirteenth century. How horrifying to me that anyone could be so evil as to destroy a sacred work, even if it is a sacred work of another religion - and this was in the days before printing, when there were far fewer copies of such works, all written in manuscript form. The fact that my friend who gave this reflection celebrated completion of studying the entire Talmud about a week and a half ago (which he mentioned as a reason he chose this kinnah to reflect upon) made this all the more poignant - and I am grateful I was able to attend the celebratory feast, or siyyum, commemorating his achievement.

I study daf yomi, a daily page of Talmud through this shul and have been doing so a little over a year (after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to read on my own). I enjoy it, get a lot out of it spiritually, and have become friends with my fellow students. After hearing this during this morning's service, I am even more glad to be engaged in Talmud study, which I hope can serve as an act of tikkun or repair in response to the destruction of this sacred text, both in France in the 13th century and in other times and places.

When I got home from the morning service, I looked up Louis IX and it sickens me to my stomach that this wicked man is commemorated as a “saint” not only by the Roman Catholic denomination (thanks to a thirteenth-century pope who not only canonized this vile genocidal tyrant but kicked a member of his court in the head and threw ashes in the eyes of an archbishop he didn’t like), but by the Episcopal Church as well.  I want to tell my Episcopal priest friends, for whom celebration of his feast is optional, that if they celebrate Mass of his feast or commemorate him in the office (and this latter goes for religious and laity as well), they are committing a sin in doing so – same goes for the Independent Sacramental Movement of which I am a part.

Last Sunday, I went to Lakewood, NJ, with friends as a road trip. Lakewood is a heavily Jewish town, with the world's second largest yeshiva, and we visited an amazing Jewish bookstore. I only bought one book, but I was drawn to buy it when I saw it - the Esh Kodesh of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe, z"tz"l - sometimes referred to as the "Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe". I had been wanting to read his writings. He helped keep the Jewish community going in the Warsaw Ghetto during the dark days of the Holocaust and was himself murdered by the Nazis. The remarkable thing about this book, a collection of teachings he gave on Shabbat afternoons, was that he put the manuscript in a metal canister with a note to forward the teachings and buried it. Miraculously, it was found and the teachings have been published. This miraculous story came to mind as we were reading the kinnah.

When the murder at the Poway Chabad shul happened in 2019, in addition to sending a small donation (as I had done for the Pittsburgh synagogue as well), I bought a number of books from Chabad’s publishing arm. This might have been self-serving, but I’m glad I did – because anti-Semites seek not only to destroy Jews but Jewish books as well, and I want to take a stand against that hatred. I’m glad I have Tanya and the Chabad machzor and Haggadah and a pocket book of Tehillim that I carry in my shirt pocket when I am in Jewish spaces (and use regularly – including at Minchah, when we davened for someone who was undergoing surgery and I pulled it out for Psalm 121 which we chanted together).

Tisha B'Av this year was one of the most emotionally intense Jewish experiences I've had. I started writing up my experiences just now to share, but after writing 1,716 words and not getting everything down on paper and those words being too raw to share, I'm not ready to share yet. [I'm sharing it almost a year later.] Let's just say that I really felt intensely the very shameful burden of well over a millennium and a half of quite violent and vicious Christian persecution of the Jewish people.

Thoughts about Kinah 11 - 5781, shared at South Philadelphia Shtiebel on Tisha B'Av

This kinah is based on Eicha 4, which tradition believes Yirmiyahu wrote as lament for killing of Yoshiyahu in battle. The first word of each verse of Eicha 4 is used as the first word of each verse of this kinah. It is not a kinah lamenting the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, but of the killing of a tzaddik, which the rabbis teach is like the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash.

Yoshiyahu’s father Amon assassinated when Yoshiyahu was 8 years old, and he became king. A Sefer Torah was found and he set about abolishing avodah zarah from Yehudah and restoring the observance of Torah and mitzvot to Israel.

The Egyptians wanted to travel through Yehudah to wage war with Assyria. Yirmiyahu advised Yoshiyahu to let them – but he did not, and fought them in battle, in which he was killed. He realized his sin and his last words are captured in Eicha 1:18 – HaShem is righteous, for I have rebelled against His word.

Why did he fail to heed the words of Yirmiyahu in a catastrophic way that cost him his life?

It must have been quite traumatic for him to lose his father to assassins at the early age of 8. I can only imagine the lack of trust he felt in others, particularly the Egyptians. And to discover the Sefer Torah and learn of the ways his father had sinned in stopping the sacrifices in the Beis HaMikdash and even burning the Torah. Reading of the redemption from Egypt – how could he allow them to come through?

Tragically, he was unable to heal the trauma from his childhood and learn new ways of interacting with others, including the Egyptians.

The kinah also mentions that he died because, although he ended public idolatry, the people continued avodah zarah in secret. It may seem unfair that he is punished for the sins of others of which he was unaware, but as the king, he was responsible for them.

How can we use Yoshiyahu’s life and death in our own lives to turn from the things that can prove to be our undoing and accept life?

We can learn that the traumas we have experienced affect us but do not define us, and learn to bring the wisdom of HaShem to each moment, listening to the wise counsel of others who, like Yirmiyahu, can help us to see clearly.

And we can do more cheshbon hanefesh, accounting of the soul, to uncover not just the obvious ways in which we turn from HaShem but the hidden avodah zarah that hides behind the doors of our hearts.

May we find refuah and teshuvah for our souls and our lives and may this Tisha B’Av be the beginning of redemption. Amen.

Thoughts on Masechet Chagigah

It might seem odd that I, raised evangelical and ordained in a liturgical Christian church, now find myself with daf yomi as one my principal and most meaningful spiritual practices - but that is where I find myself. Every now and then, I even find the Bat Kol whispering words of healing - tikkun - to my soul. There were many such moments in Chagigah - including the famous story of the four who went to Pardes, with one losing his life, another his sanity, another his faith, and only one emerging with all three intact - a story I first heard over three decades ago in college and which, along with the story of R Meir, R Beruriah, and her reading of the last verse of Tehillim 104, has influenced me profoundly - I have mentioned it many times in Christian settings! But perhaps the most healing moment learning it over the past few weeks was coming across this follow-up to that story - pointing to R Yochanan embodying the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy from Shemot 34 and the Thirteen Supernal Attributes of Mercy from Micah 7 (expounded beautifully in the first perek of Tomer Devorah) in ways we should all emulate: אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: גְּבוּרְתָּא לְמִיקְלֵי רַבֵּיהּ? חַד הֲוָה בֵּינַנָא וְלָא מָצֵינַן לְאַצּוֹלֵיהּ? אִינְקְטֵיהּ בְּיָד, מַאן מַרְמֵי לֵיהּ מִן. אָמַר: מָתַי אָמוּת, וַאֲכַבֶּה עָשָׁן מִקִּבְרוֹ. כִּי נָח נַפְשֵׁיהּ דְּרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן פְּסַק קוּטְרָא מִקִּבְרֵיהּ דְּאַחֵר. פְּתַח עֲלֵיהּ הַהוּא סַפְדָנָא: אֲפִילּוּ שׁוֹמֵר הַפֶּתַח לֹא עָמַד לְפָנֶיךָ, רַבֵּינוּ!

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Was this a mighty deed on Rabbi Meir’s part, to burn his teacher? Was this the only remedy available? Can it be that there was one Sage among us who left the path and we cannot save him? If we hold him by the hand, who will remove him from our protection; who? Rabbi Yoḥanan continued and said: When I die I will have the smoke extinguished from his grave, as a sign that he has been released from the sentence of Gehenna and brought to the World-to-Come. Indeed, when Rabbi Yoḥanan passed away, the smoke ceased to rise up from the grave of Aḥer. A certain eulogizer began his eulogy of Rabbi Yoḥanan with the following: Even the guard at the entrance could not stand before you, our rabbi. The guard at the entrance to Gehenna could not prevent Rabbi Yoḥanan from arranging the release of Aḥer.

On the correct translation of Yonah as “Pigeon”: a Purim d’var Torah

Yom Hakippurim is the “day that is like Purim”, according to the Zohar, so I want to talk about the book of Yonah – or, as I would argue it should be translated, the book of Pigeon. This book is read as the Haftarah at Mincha on the day that is Purim – that is, Yom Kippur.

Yonah has several memorable animals in it. Who can forget the fish that swallows Yonah and serves as his home for three days, until it spits him out on land? Less well known is the fact that the fish switches from male to female and back to male during this episode. There are also the cattle and sheep of Nineveh who wear sackcloth and fast. Finally, Yonah is comforted by a bush that grows up and gives him shade as he hopes, desperately and futilely, to see Nineveh destroyed, only to have it cut down by a worm.

Adding the Pigeon Prophet into the mix can teach us several things.

First, just as pigeons fly away when startled, so the prophet Pigeon flies away when startled by an assignment from G!d he does not want to fulfill. G!d still catches up with him, and he must do it, but only after an initial flight in the opposite direction. This can teach us that, even if we are flighty like pigeons, we can make teshuvah and fulfill G!d’s assignments that we initially balk at.

Second, I think most of us would agree that pigeons are annoying. They do unkind things to our windshields, they startle us when they fly away suddenly, they make noise when we want silence. And they mock indoor cats! But just as the prophet Pigeon was used by G!d to bring about teshuvah of a great city, so G!d can use us, even if we are sometimes annoying ourselves.

Finally, Ben Franklin said that “the early bird gets the worm” – but in Pigeon, it’s the early worm that gets the bird, by cutting down the bush that gave him shade as he seethed in resentment over the Ninevites making teshuvah while avoiding the destruction he felt they deserved. If we focus on loving others and helping others make teshuvah (even, yes, as we fight evil and never forget Amalek), then we will have the capacity to be the early birds who get the worms. If we do not, then the early worms will get us!

Chag Purim Sameach!

Passing Over - a Prayer for Pesach

I need to go to the desert, Lord - I need to go to the desert!

I/we don't know how I/we will serve until I/we get there, Lord!

But I'm stuck in the narrow places and Pharaoh won't let me go! And I can't leave the people behind but I need to take my leave and get to the desert.

I want the Promised Land but I can't even picture it now - I just want to get to that desert.

All the world is a narrow bridge. All the world is an EGYPT bridge.

(Bridge connections - why I love Hebrew.)

I need to leave the safety of the bridge for the desert or Miriam's well. Miriam's swell well.

(And where will I fish for gefilte fish? And can I get sweet Manischewitz or kosher for Pesach Dr Pepper in the desert?)

I have to set up the Mishkan and the twelve tribes around it - the twelve parts of me in four directions - not just the Rachel son parts but the Leah parts and the Zilpah and Bilhah parts - and even the Dinah part - what section of the camp does SHE get???

A Prayer for Purim

Riboinoi shel Oilom,

Maker of Masks, Wearer of Masks, Beholder of masks,

You are Hidden yet wear many Masks and bear many Names to reveal Yourself to us.

Blessed are You for putting on the Masks so we can approach You.

 

I need to wear masks of my own at times.

I need to remove my masks at other times.

Please give me the discernment to know:

·                   When to wear a mask

·                   When to take off the mask

·                   Which mask to wear

 

Thank You for Your guidance.

Thank You for coming out of hiding when we say “Ayeh/Where” – for “Ayeh” ha-seh l’olah – the question “Ayeh?” is the lamb of ascent.

May we know You with ever more sheer Masks speedily, in our own days.

Amen.