The Akedah and the Hole
2nd Day of Rosh Hashanah, 5784
There’s a guy walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me, can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.’
We know how the story ends. But that doesn’t change how it must have felt while it was happening.
קַח־נָ֠א אֶת־בִּנְךָ֨ אֶת־יְחִֽידְךָ֤ אֲשֶׁר־אָהַ֙בְתָּ֙ אֶת־יִצְחָ֔ק וְלֶ֨ךְ־לְךָ֔ אֶל־אֶ֖רֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּ֑ה וְהַעֲלֵ֤הוּ שָׁם֙ לְעֹלָ֔ה עַ֚ל אַחַ֣ד הֶֽהָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר אֹמַ֥ר אֵלֶֽיךָ
Take your son, your only son, the one you love, Yitzchak, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him up as a sacrifice on one of the mountains that I will show you.
What must Avraham have felt when he heard these words? What fear, what trembling, what anger, what miscomprehension? And what loss? The age of Yitzchak is never given. An opinion in the Midrash gives it as 37, based on the death of Sarah, but the great commentator Ibn Ezra says this does not work narratively. He puts the age of Yitzchak at 13. Some put it as low as five. However old Yitzchak was, to Avraham’s mind, it could only have been a short time since the feasting, rejoicing, and laughter of a child born to his and Sarah’s old age. And now the inexplicable command.
וְהַעֲלֵ֤הוּ שָׁם֙ לְעֹלָ֔ה
Offer him up as a sacrifice.
We know the story ends as a story of God’s mercy. Of a ram sacrificed, and not a boy. But Avraham did not know. Yitzchak did not know. And if we were reading the story for the first time, we would not know. On Rosh Hashanah we read so many stories of God giving to the downtrodden. A child for Sarah and Hannah! Life for Yishmael and Hagar! Redemption and reconstruction for the exiled children of Israel! And yet here, we almost have the story of the opposite. Where God takes, for seemingly no reason, and gives nothing in return.
Baruch Dayan HaEmet, we say when we hear of tragedy. Blessed is the true judge. We say this because we do not understand why terrible things have happened. Why this loss, why this grief, why this sadness. Blessed be the true judge. An expression of faith. Faith, because there is no answer. We must take it on faith that there lies a reason, somewhere. The rabbis argue over why God went to test Avraham in this manner. Rashi, quoting the Talmud: Satan goaded God, saying Avraham would never agree to sacrifice his son. Or, Yitzchak boasted to Yishmael he would sacrifice himself to God if commanded. Ibn Ezra: God only intended for Avraham to offer Yitzchak up, not kill him. Ramban: To give Avraham a reward for his obedience. Rashbam: to rebuke Avraham for agreeing to a foolish deal with the Philistine king Avimelech. But no one truly knows. No one can know the mind of God. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
When we enter Rosh Hashanah, when we sit down in shul and read about God giving life and children and redemption, we are in one of three relationships to those stories of God giving. In the first state, God has given to us in the last year. A child, a job, wealth, health, life. We exult in these gifts, we praise God, our souls resonate with Hannah as she proclaims “עָלַ֤ץ לִבִּי֙ בַּֽה’ רָ֥מָה קַרְנִ֖י בַּֽה” “My heart exults in Hashem, I have triumphed in Hashem.” We are here not to ask, but to thank.
In the second state, we are here to ask. We are Hannah begging for a child, the voice of Rachel coming from Ramah, Sarah laughing in disbelief in her tent but desperately wanting the strange man’s words of childbirth to be true. We come before God to ask for his mercy. We beg, we cry. We want, we hope, we dream. We move our lips in longing, and only we and God hear the words. There has been heartache in the past, the heartache of not receiving, but in this second state, we are here, once more, to hope that the coming year will bring us what we need.
But there is a third state. The state of having lost over the past year. The state of coming into the New Year not in triumph, or supplication, but despair. The despair of Avraham being asked to sacrifice the child of his old age. The despair of God taking, for seemingly no reason, and not delivering. Sure, God gave Avraham a child once, God could do it again. Ask Iyov. Iyov had seven sons and three daughters, God tested Job and took them from him, and ultimately once again Iyov had seven sons and three daughters. But those ten children could not, would not, ever replace those he had lost. And for Avraham to have Yitzchak, ever so briefly, and then lose him again would be a pain beyond the comfort of additional children. He would forever remember what he had lost. God would never be able to console him. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
There is overlap between the second and third states, between wanting and despairing. We can flit back and forth between the two. For those who have wanted for so many years, that wanting can turn into despair. For those who have harbored loss for so long, that anger at God can turn into want. The commonality between those two groups is that for both, Rosh Hashanah can be difficult. How are we to relate to all of these stories of biblical heroes getting what they want, when we struggle? It is especially difficult if what we want, or what we have lost, are children. What means Hannah, or Sarah, or Rachel to us, when we pray for year after year and are ignored? When we are mourning what they have gained? How are we to relate to them?
Just two weeks ago, my wife Naima suffered a miscarriage. In the blink of an eye, plans we were making, names we were debating, futures we were imagining, were snuffed out. In the immediate aftermath, I had never felt so alone. As we started to tell people slowly: friends, family, colleagues, we started to hear about everyone else’s stories. It seemed as though everyone had a story related to pregnancy or childbirth they could share: miscarriages they had, trouble getting pregnant, troubled pregnancies. And as more people shared their stories in sympathy, the pain did not lessen, but the loneliness did. I found myself wondering why we don’t discuss miscarriage more often. It helped knowing that we were not alone. They got in the hole with us.
Of course, there are personal boundaries. I have no plans to go up to the people who volunteered information about their miscarriages or losses and interrogate them about when and how it happened. Their stories are for them to tell when they want to tell it. But knowing those stories exist is helpful. Knowing that we are not the only ones to experience pain and fear and loss is comforting. Knowing others have been in the hole gives us strength that we can one day get out.
Immediately after today’s reading, Sarah dies. According to a midrash, Sammael, the Angel of Death, came to Sarah and told her that Avraham had taken their son to be offered as a burnt sacrifice. She cried, she howled, she sounded like the Shofar, and her soul fled. Avraham and Yitzchak return from their trial to find her dead. Avraham goes to bury her, and father and son begin an extended period of mourning. Again according to the Midrash, it is not until Yitzchak marries Rivka that he is able to recover. Rivka, who was eager to get away from her wicked brother, her silent mother, her possessive father. Rivka, who according to yet another midrash, had just suffered the death of her father at the hands of an angel. They could be in the hole together.
Why do we read the story of the Akedah, of the binding of Yitzchak, on Rosh Hashanah? Perhaps because, on this day of all days, our tradition, our ancestors spanning generations, want to get in the hole with those who need it. We read the Akedah, and we are reminded: life can be cruel. God sometimes takes God’s time answering prayers. Tragedy can strike at any time. Baruch Dayan HaEmet. And Rosh Hashanah, with its prayers and celebrations and hopefulness, can feel to those down in the hole like the doctor and priest just walking past. So here comes our tradition, with the Akedah, coming down into the hole, letting those in that space know that there are others there, that they are not alone, not at this time of year, or any time of year.
My challenge for you today may not surprise you: it is to get into the hole with those who need it. That doesn’t mean you need to share your story, or make yourself depressed, or not feel happy on Rosh Hashanah or other holidays when others may be sad. As I said earlier, some of us have come into the holiday happy and grateful, and that too is a theme of the holiday, one worth delighting in. But when it comes to talking with or comforting those who are longing, those who are sad, those who are angry, not just today but any day, it is worth remembering the guy in the hole. Of our ability to help others just by lessening their loneliness. And together, supported by our tradition and each other, we can help one another out of the hole.
