Dear {{first_name}},
Two years ago, I had one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. When Ayelet stood in our sanctuary and read from the Torah, I was filled with so much emotion. We had known the date of Ayelet’s Bat Mitzvah for quite some time. Ayelet was born on Shabbat and thus precisely on the Torah portion וירא/VaYera. We found it to be so meaningful because of our difficult journey to be parents, and the difficulty of Abraham and Sarah to achieve the same status. Ayelet knew from an early age this would be her week and her reading and spent much time debating what she would teach on her big day. The Torah portion opens with the promise made to Abraham and Sarah about having a child and then the realization of that promise occurs quite quickly. The portion ends with something we read about twice a year: the binding of Isaac, read on Rosh Hashana (Day 2) and on the Shabbat on which it’s read. Ayelet chose to speak about the sacrifice of Isaac and I’m going to speak about it today as well.
The pain of the story is so striking. Each time the father and son speak, there’s great detail about their relational status. The story opens with God telling Avraham just how much he (Avraham) loves his son, and its his only son with Sarah, and so much more. There’s usage of the word יחדיו, together, that’s used time and again until the end of the story when Avraham returns to his servants without Isaac and is no longer together with his son. It’s a painful story and one that teaches more than just the greatness of Avraham’s obedience. Some have argued it’s a polemic against child sacrifice. This is in large part because the new monotheism Avraham and Sarah had begun was a direct rebuke of the idolatrous and pagan world in which they lived, and child sacrifice was a regular practice there.
I have often offered a counter viewpoint to the story from that of our tradition. We’ve inherited a tradition that praises Avraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son. We’ve inherited a tradition that wants to say Avraham passed a test God had given him. This viewpoint is a damning indictment of both God and Avraham. Why would it ever be okay to test with such awfulness? Why would the “passing grade” be to attempt to sacrifice Isaac? Why didn’t Avraham say “no, this is too great of a request of me”. I’ve always asserted that Avraham failed the test and God had to send the angel and the ram at the last moment because Avraham wasn’t going to stop on his own. I’ve looked at this to mean Avraham was human, and failing a test is a very human thing to do. Today, I think it’s both a statement against the practice of child sacrifice, and a statement about Avraham failing a test.
The news is awful. Each day we learn of more terrible things happening to Israelis and to Jews living around the world. Each day we don’t hear about hostages being released or any updates on their status. Each day we read about more people blaming Israel for its response to Hamas’ assault and brutality. It just never stops. Israel has/had three choices following October 7th:
- Destroy the entire Gaza Strip regardless of who gets hurt and/or dies
- Destroy Hamas and try to avoid civilian injuries and deaths as much as possible
- Do nothing at all because of the risks to the civilians
The problem is that options one and three are both inherently immoral and so Israel chose option two and is doing its best to pursue that choice. But this is really difficult for a number of reasons:
- Hamas keeps their weapons and bases of operation in civilian population centers to protect themselves
- They have our hostages in harm’s way
- They consider any loss of life on their side, combatant or civilian, to be a martyr and thus a positive for them on the PR side.
- Their tunnel system makes it very dangerous for Israel to be present in Gaza
- They don’t wear uniforms like other militaries and thus they aren’t easily spotted, and they can pose as civilians to get out of harm’s way
- And the list goes on…
The issue is they have a long-established practice of using human shields and of targeting innocent civilians on both sides. This is something called child-sacrifice. They’ll sacrifice the innocent and the voiceless for their own hatred and power hunger. They’ll do whatever it takes to inflict terror and harm on their enemy (us). They have no issue with killing innocents on either side and that makes this war not only difficult but nearly impossible. With all of that said, Israel must not sacrifice its children. Israel must secure itself and its citizens so its children and vulnerable population can live freely and not in danger of losing their lives. We learned so long ago that sacrificing a child is wrong. We must pursue this mission to secure a future for our people, and we must do so in a way that eliminates Hamas, and does it’s best to protect innocent civilian life in Gaza. We must do this because it’s the only moral option.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Hearshen
