In our post-World War II world there is no aspect of the story of the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac) that is not jarring and disturbing. We ask, how could any father agree to slay his own son on God’s command and claim this as essential to faith?

This Torah portion (Vayera) confronts our relationship with God as none other in our tradition. In this age of skepticism, doubt and tentative belief we ask what kind of a human being was Abraham who was prepared to kill his son? Did Abraham “hear” God correctly, and if so, could any of us have said “Hineni” (Here I am) as Abraham did when God called him to demonstrate how far his faith would take him?

The mystics tell us that Abraham’s willingness to do God’s will reflects an ideal man of faith, that there are times when (per Kierkegaard) we have to suspend the ethical and nullify completely the individual ego, even if it means destroying everything we love and our future. The 20^th century Israeli scholar and thinker Yeshayahu Liebowitz has written that we are not supposed to extract an ethical message from Abraham’s behavior. In effect, he says, human beings are not commanded by the Torah to be ethical; they are commanded to serve God!

I wonder. My understanding of the Torah and prophetic traditions is that a covenant of justice and compassion is what God requires of us, not heartless self-destruction.

The key Hebrew command relative to Abraham’s near slaughter of his son reads: Kach na et bin’cha, et y’chid’cha, asher a-hav’ta et Yitzchak v’lech l’cha el eretz ha-Moriah v’ha-a-le-hu sham l’olah al echad he-harim asher omar elecha (“God said, ‘Take your son, your only one, the one you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt-offering, on one of the mountains that I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2).

One midrash says that Abraham’s understanding of the event was wrong from the start and based on a mistaken perception of the original order. Abraham should have tried to find out, the midrash argues, what God wanted of him and not do anything until he was certain about what he was being asked to do.

Rashi explained that Abraham did not, in fact, understand God’s words and command. God didn’t say “slaughter your son – v’tish’chat et bin’cha.” He said, “Lift up your son to the service of God – v’ha-a-le-hu sham l’olah.”

Yes, the word “olah” can be rendered as a burnt offering; but it literally means “that which is lifted up.”

Recall Kunte Kinte from the 1977 TV Mini-Series “Roots” as he, following his tribal custom, took his son to the top of a mountain and lifted him in thanksgiving and dedication to the spirit world. Recall, as well, “The Lion King” doing the same by presenting his son and future King to his spiritual relatives among the stars.

In the Genesis story, just as Abraham lifted the knife to slay his son God sent the angel rather than speak directly to Abraham to stay his hand. God never spoke to Abraham again. Was God devastated by Abraham’s mishearing of his call to dedicate his son? Did Abraham fail that tenth and most crucial final test of faith? Did Abraham really understand the meaning of the Divine-human partnership?

The end of the story is clear. God did not want human sacrifice and we do not have to give up our humanity to serve God. What Abraham did earlier at Sodom and Gomorrah and what Moses did at the sin of the Golden Calf – namely, challenge God to live up to God’s own standards of justice and compassion – that is the lesson of the Biblical tradition. That is our Jewish legacy!

Shabbat shalom.

The greatest Jewish theological revolution since the destruction of the Temple (70 CE) has been brought about by Kabbalah. The greatest new idea about the relationship between God and humankind to appear during the past 2000 years was introduced by Jewish mystics who boldly asserted that we humans actually have the ability to restore God’s wholeness and effect the end of God’s exile within the Divine Self. Much of this new thinking was stimulated by Rabbi Isaac Luria (15^th century, Safed) whose ideas about the origins of the universe led to the belief that the Jewish people has the capacity to create the conditions necessary for the Messiah to come.

Isaac Luria’s cosmology is brilliant and simple. He explains that when God contemplated creating the universe the Creator realized that there was no room for anything except God’s Self, Who filled all time and space. In order to accommodate the new creation God underwent contraction (tzimtzum). Before the beginning God’s essence was light, and so God took away some of the light and placed it in giant vessels (keilim), but the vessels were not strong enough to contain the light and an explosion shattered the vessels (sh’virat ha-keilim) flinging the shards (kelipot) to the four corners of the universe. Trapped in the shards were sparks (n’tzitzot). Whenever a Jew performs a mitzvah (commandment), a spark is released from a shard. When all Jews perform all the mitzvot, all the sparks are released, the Messiah (Mashiach – lit. “anointed one”) is ‘awakened,’ and Tikun Olam (restoration of the world) results. When this occurs God too undergoes Tikun and the holiest Name (YHVH or Yod–Heh–Vav–Heh) is reunified.

Jewish mystics explain that the Yod–Heh (the first two letters of the 4-letter Name) represents the “highest” and purest of God’s ten emanations (Sefirot), but were separated from the Vav–Heh (the third and fourth letters of the Name) when the vessels shattered. The Vav-Heh represents the “lower” Divine Sefirot. As such, the “upper” and “lower” worlds were split apart (i.e. going into exile from themselves) reflecting the brokenness of our own world.

Enter Abraham, who in this week’s Parashat Lech L’cha (Genesis 12:1-17:27), receives the Divine call. That call and Abraham’s receptive response was a necessary stage leading to the unification (Yihud) of God’s holiest 4-letter Name. How so?

In Genesis 12:2 we read of God’s promise to Avram (he became Avraham in Genesis 18 after the Brit Milah):

“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and You shall be a blessing (Veh’yeh b’rachah).”

Note that God’s 4-letter Name (Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh) is comprised of the same 4 letters as Veh’yeh (“…and be a blessing”), but appear in a different order (Vav-Heh-Yod-Heh).

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (1740-1809, Ukraine), teaching that nothing is to be overlooked in Torah and that every word and letter have deeper metaphysical significance, wrote:

“The letter Yod-Heh [the ‘higher’ Divine emanations] in the word Veh’yeh is an allusion to God, whereas the letters Vav-heh [the ‘lower’ Divine emanations] is an allusion to the Jewish people. As long as Abraham had not existed, there had not been a human being who tried to ‘awaken’ God’s largesse to be dispensed in the lower regions. God’s largesse, whenever the Eternal One dispensed it for the good of humankind, owed this exclusively to the Creator’s goodwill [i.e. meritless Grace]. As soon as Abraham became active on earth, there were deeds on earth that ‘awakened’ God to dispense the Divine largesse as a result of acts performed by human beings. In other words, prior to Abraham, God’s Name could be spelled in the order Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, whereas this order had now been reversed and God’s Name could be spelled as Vav-Heh-Yod-Heh… The reversal of the sequence of the letters Vav-Heh hints at this largesse having its origin in the ‘lower,’ rather than the celestial regions.” (Kedushat Levi, translation and commentary by Rabbi Eliahu Monk, Lambda Press, volume 1, pages 43-44)

What is the meaning of this complicated understanding of the 4 letters in God’s Name? Until Abraham appeared, Levi Yitzhak taught, there was no mutual relationship between God and humankind. However, with Abraham all that changed. Abraham’s capacity to “hear” God’s call (i.e. prophesy) and respond augured well not only for the future spiritual development of the Jewish people, but also signaled the beginning of Divine Tikun.

The Torah’s reversing the order of the letters represents Abraham reversing the direction of largesse that had exclusively come from God to humankind to a new paradigm that moved from humankind to God.

The idea that Jews can actually effect the internal life of God is revolutionary, not only in Judaism but in the history of religion. This is why, according to Jewish mystics, Abraham was the world’s first Jew. As a Jew, each one of us carries a burden, responsibility, opportunity, and profound privilege to work towards tikun olam, the restoration of a shattered universe. When that occurs so too is there a Tikun Shem M’forash (a restoration of God’s holiest 4-letter Name).

Shabbat Shalom.

13] And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done!” The woman replied, “The serpent duped me, and I ate.” 14] Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you did this / More cursed shall you be / than all cattle / and all the wild beasts: On your belly shall you crawl / and dirt shall you eat / all the days of your life. 15] I will put enmity / between you and the woman, / and between your offspring and hers; They shall strike at your head, and you shall strike at their heel.” (Genesis 3:13-15)

Who is this serpent? In the broadest sense, Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (15^th century, Spain) explained that the serpent foretells the future moral and spiritual calamity of humankind. In the more limited sense in the Garden of Eden, the serpent, seemed initially to have held an exalted position as the ‘Lord of the Central Two Trees’. He was among the most intelligent of creatures, so much so that God gave him the ability to speak. However, he was so jealous of the human’s special gifts and status with God, that with deceit and cunning he sought to cause a breach between them by instigating the first sin in the Bible, resulting in Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise. The serpent would pay dearly for his lies, deceit and deception. He lost his legs and speech, was forced to eat dirt, and became the enemy for all time with humankind.

The Chatam Sofer (19^th century, Slovakia) noted that the serpent’s greatest sin was that he sought deliberately to undermine God’s uniqueness as the Creator and Sovereign of the Garden by referring to the Holy One only by the name Elohim, whereas throughout the Eden narrative God is referred to always as Adonai Elohim. In doing this the serpent demoted God by comparing him with lesser entities, such as angels and judges, and he planted doubt about God’s Ineffable power in the minds of the first humans.

The Zohar identifies the serpent’s soul with God’s and Israel’s greatest enemy Amalek who attacked the Israelites from behind as they left Egypt where the most vulnerable people were marching. Amalek’s attack was timed in the period before the people had a chance to meet God at Mount Sinai and receive Torah thus enabling Israel to represent holiness in the world. This is why Amalek came to represent all of Israel’s and God’s most vicious enemies (i.e. Rome, the Inquisitors, the Nazis, etc.). Amalek’s name equals 240 the same as is the Hebrew word safek (doubt).

The mystical tradition adds complexity to the meaning of the serpent by suggesting that there are not one but two serpents – a holy serpent and an evil one. As evidence, Kabbalah points to the numerical value of nachash (serpent) as 358, just as is the numerical value of mashiach (messiah). This suggests that the only path to redemption lies through a battle between good and evil, between the yetzer tov and yetzer ha-ra. In this final battle the Zohar says that the “holy serpent” will kill the evil one and merit marrying the Divine princess, thus uniting with the origin of the souls of Israel and bringing about redemption to the world.

This remarkable myth explains much about human nature and our complex and often difficult relationship with God. The serpent is a potent symbol of the attractions of the physical world, of temptation and particularly sexual temptation, which was uncovered when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, recognized their nakedness, and covered themselves out of shame.

In a conversation with Bill Moyers towards the end of his life, Joseph Campbell explained that this story represents duality in the world, the world of physicality on the one hand and the eternal nature of the soul on the other. For many commentators the story is about the nature of the afterlife. Campbell, however, retells the story by explaining that “the ability to throw off life and to continue to survive is represented by the snake who sheds its skin [and is renewed]… just as the moon sheds its shadow [and a new moon emerges]. The snake isn’t good or bad,” he said. “It’s necessary.”

He continued: “I don’t think [this story is about] seeking meaning for life [in the hereafter, as has been suggested by many]. Rather, I think what we are seeking is the experience of being alive [in the here and now], so that the experiences we have on purely the physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality…[affording us] the rapturous experience of being alive… [Life’s meaning doesn’t come when you] peak your head under a rock or [consider a new] philosophy…. Rather, the meaning of life is about the experience of realizing that your dreams have come true, that your make-believe world has become reality.” And he concluded that we should all “envision our dreams and embrace them.”

Shabbat Shalom.