Sermon for Second Day Rosh Hashanah, Beth Israel Synagogue, 2 Tishrei, 5775

A couple of years ago, I came to a startling revelation. I had never, to my knowledge, had a Budweiser. I was not much of a beer drinker when I was young, and by the time I did start drinking it, I could afford Sam Adams. What was I to do about this situation? After very little thought, I concluded that I would be in more exclusive company by staying away from the stuff. And the assurance by any number of friends that I wasn't missing anything confirmed me on my course. For all I do, this Bud's for . . . well. . .

I share with you this barely interesting piece of personal trivia because up until today, I have never given a sermon on the Akeidat Yitzhak – the binding of Isaac. I say this knowing full well that, unlike the Bud, most of you have not given a sermon on this topic either. But the binding of Isaac is no doubt the perennial most popular second day Rosh Hashanah sermon topic, so for me, not having given such a sermon is a bit more unusual. Part of the reason is that, for the past four years, my mentor, Rabbi Hesch Sommer has given the second day sermon. Rabbi Sommer himself is the author of a wonderful sermon on the Akeidah which was published in a journal whose editor swore he would never publish another such sermon. But a bigger part of the reason is that I have doubted I could have anything original or insightful to say. Those doubts continue with me. But they have been crowded out by the sense that any rabbi worth his tzit-tzit should venture to say something about this subject. So with no small measure of trepidation, here goes.

I want to open this discussion by examining one of the more perplexing questions raised by this story: why doesn't Abraham – who argues with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah – not offer a single word in defense of his son? These two events set up a devastating contrast. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is at his most loquacious and argumentative as he tries to talk God out of destroying these two cities: “Will You sweep away righteous with evil? Perhaps there are fifty righteous ones in the midst of the city. Will You sweep away the place rather than forgive it for the sake of fifty righteous ones in its midst? It would be a sacrilege for You to do this thing – to cause the death of the righteous along with the wicked – as though the righteous were like the wicked. It is a sacrilege to You. Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” Having established his point through God's consent, Abraham continues to argue – reducing the number of righteous on account of whom the cities will be spared all the way down to ten.

And yet, when God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham says nothing. Not a word. In fact, he rises up early the next morning to get started on his journey – the split wood and his ignorant son in tow. And yet where is the justice in this command? Why will not Abraham place the mirror before the Judge of all the earth on behalf of his son as he did for the strangers in Sodom and Gomorrah?

Indeed Sodom and Gomorrah is not the only time Abraham argues with God. And while this argument is less dramatic – really just a single sentence of parental longing – it is perhaps more relevant to our understanding of the Akeidah. When God tells Abraham that his 90-year-old wife Sarah will bear him a son who will inherit his covenant and his blessing, Abraham appears dismayed. He already has a son – Ishmael – by Sarah's handmaid, Hagar. לוּ יִשְׁמָעֵאל יִחְיֶה לְפָנֶיךָ - Oh that Ishmael might live before You! pleads Abraham on behalf of the son he so dearly loves. אֲבָל

replies God. "Nevertheless . . ."

But if there are other instances besides Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham argues with God, there are also many instances when he does not. For those of us who have reflexively covered our groins with our hands when attending a bris, we should note that the 99-year-old Abraham offers no objection when ordered to perform that operation on himself. Most powerfully, though, at the very beginning of his story, God commands Abraham – then known as Abram – to leave his land, his birthplace, his family and set out for some unspecified place that will be shown to him. Abram, 75 years old at the time, who as far as we know has had no previous communication from God, leaves behind everything he knows without saying a word. Interestingly, the language of God's command in both stories is eerily similar. In the opening story God says to him לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ - Go for yourself from your land. In the Akeidah, the command is לֶךְ־לְךָ אֶל־אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה – Go for yourself to the land of Moriah. And in both cases the response is silence.

I dwell on these examples to make a point. In both the cases of Sodom and Gomorrah and of the revelation of Isaac's birth and inheritance, Abraham objects. In neither case, however, is Abraham being asked to do anything. God is merely providing Abraham information. In fact, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, the text makes this point explicitly when God says הַמֲכַסֶּה אֲנִי מֵאַבְרָהָם אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה – shall I hide from Abraham that which I will do?

But when God issues a command to Abraham, he does it. And he usually does it in silence. So to my mind, the question isn't why does Abraham object to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah but is silent with regard to the sacrifice of Isaac. The cases are not analagous. The real question is why does Abraham comply with virtually every commandment – regardless of how those commandments will pain him physically, emotionally, or both – in silence?

The answer to that question is, I believe, that Abraham loves God. He loves Him with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his being.

Well if this is love, you may be thinking, it is love at its most perverse. For certainly true love – healthy love – cannot be revolting and immoral. Is not love the desire to possess and be united with that which is good and beautiful? That desire is indeed how the Greeks defined love. But, as Professor Simon May argues in his book Love: A History, that is not how the Hebrew bible understands it. As he persuasively argues, our scripture's understanding of love is as the emotion most intimately connected to the strongest human need: the need to find a place for oneself that anchors us in this wide world. Those people or things that we truly love are who or what define who we are, and thus give our lives a sense of purpose and meaning. That which we love gives us our place in the world.

Think about how this idea plays out in Abraham's story. Though God promises him that his descendents will inherit the land of Canaan, from the time he is commanded to leave his land, his birthplace, his fathers house, until the day he dies, Abraham quite literally has no place on earth that he can call his own. גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁב אָנֹכִי עִמָּכֶם – I am a stranger and soujourner among you, he tells the Hittites as he is forced to bargain for a cave in which to bury his wife. The only thing that gives Abraham a place in the world is his relationship to God. To lose that is to lose everything. The irony here is that for many of us, our relationship to our children is to us what Abraham's relationship to God is to him: that thing for which we will sacrifice anything, including our morality; for to lose it is to lose who we are.

Much of what makes the Akeidah so emotionally shattering is its language. It is so spare that every detail speaks volumes. It isn't merely Abraham who is silent. A three days journey toward Mount Moriah passes without a word of description or emotion. Then, as Abraham and Isaac make their way up the mountain, the story's only dialogue:

And Isaac said to Abraham, his father,

And he said, “My father,”

And he said, “Here I am, my son,”

And he said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

And Abraham said, “God will see to the lamb, my son.”

And the two of them walked on together.

That repetition of the words “his father,” “my father,” “my son,” “my son” is, to my ears at least, heartbreakingly tender. But amazingly enough, for a story about a man off to slaughter his son, the Akeidah is just that: tender. Its tone is set in the very command that sets this tragedy in motion. קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ, it begins. That נָא in he middle is a word of entreaty – often translated as "please." "Please take your son." With what pathos that one little word colors this entire story! How did Abraham hear this command? As a thunderbolt from the blue? Or perhaps as a gentle whisper: "Please take, your son, your only one, the one you love, Isaac."

Which raises what is perhaps the most startling and maybe even redeeming point of this story. If Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son at God's commandment because he loves God and finds his place in the world through Him, then God loves Abraham too and for precisely the same reason. For it is indeed through Abraham and his descendents that God has found a home among the peoples of the world.

It may seem strange – perhaps even to some, distateful – to think of the Akeidah as a love story. That is because we think of love as something beautiful and good. But love doesn't have to be either. What it has to be is grounding. It has to tell us who we are. Think of the famous closing words of the bible's greatest love story, the Song of Songs: שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל־לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל־זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי־עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה – Place me as the seal upon your heart, as the seal upon your arm, because love is as fierce as death. Our loved ones mark us. They leave their seal upon us and, through it, they affirm in us who we are. The Akeidah is a story of love that is as fierce as death. What is so unusual and so powerful about this story is that both parties – both Abraham and God – are the objects of each other's love. Both are looking to ground their existence in the other. So when God says to Abraham קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ - Please take your son, what he is really saying to him is שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל־לִבֶּךָ - place Me as a seal upon your heart. Perhaps that is why we read the Akeidah on this day of remembrance – to remind the One who judges all the earth that we are as a seal on His heart as well.