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November 14, 2003/Cheshvan 19 5764, Vol. 56, No. 8
Making connections with the akedah
Torah study
RABBI MARK BISMAN
Vayera/Genesis 18:1-25:18
With our annual cycle of Torah reading, we journey through the words of Torah at such a rapid pace, there is seldom time to pause long enough to feel their power. Because the climax of this week's portion is also the reading for Rosh Hashana, we get two chances each year to stop and listen and consider.
Twice in his life, Abraham hears the call, "go forth." The first "go forth" calls him out of his father's house and propels him on a journey to the land that "I will show you." The final "go forth" follows the command for Abraham to take his son Isaac, "the one you love," and concludes with the incredible, "and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you." (Genesis 22:2)
In her book, "Handmade Midrash: Workshops in Visual Theology," (Jewish Publication Society, 1992) Jo Milgrom, who visits our valley this Shabbat, argues that we can use a simple technique in art to help us put visual expression to our feelings as we react to the power of a biblical narrative. In slowing down our reading of a familiar text, we allow ourselves time to make a personal connection to the powerful imagery in the biblical text. Often when we do so, we find that we gain a deepened understanding of classical Jewish commentators or even of famous visual artists who have represented biblical scenes.
For example, as a result of a workshop with high school students in a day school back East, a student interpreted her own artistic creation that resulted from pasting together tears of construction paper that represented the relationships between the characters in the akedah, the binding of Isaac.
"This is the final scene of the akedah. The ram has already been placed on the altar in Isaac's place. Yet the story is not over. ... The turmoil and anxiety of the event extend beyond the akedah, beyond this portion of Bereshit into my own life. My relation with my parents is a good one, yet there are times when there is anguish. As there is never ceasing turmoil in the picture, there is never a complete calm in my life." ("Handmade Midrash," p. 136)
The student found a way to connect her own experience with a formative image in our family story as a people. For millennia, each generation of Jews has pondered the reality that even after "the ram is on the altar, the story of the akedah is not over." Our classical tradition has explained the coincidence of the report of the death of Sarah immediately following the close of the narrative of the akedah as the textual signal that Sarah's death resulted from her discovery of what transpired on the mountain between her husband, her son and God. Sarah may not appear in the actual narrative of the binding of Isaac, but her absence does not mean she was unaffected by what transpired.
We were not present at the binding of Isaac on the mountain, but we too are affected by that moment. That is, we are affected if we can hear and appreciate how Jews throughout the ages have seen that the binding of Isaac was part of our family story as Jews. But unless each of us, individually, can make a personal connection, an emotional connection, to the ways in which that image speaks to our own life experiences, we could conclude that story was over a long time ago.
Assemblage sculptor and poet, Jo Milgrom, through her techniques of "Handmade Midrash" offers all of us one more powerful way to connect our own lives with the emotional power contained in our most powerful inheritance as Jews - our Torah.
Rabbi Mark Bisman is the spiritual leader of Har Zion Congregation in Scottsdale.
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