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March 5, 2004/Adar 12 5764, Vol. 56, No. 24
What about our passion?
BARRY COHEN
Editor
Jesus was not the first great sacrifice story, not the first biblical figure to suffer "passion" or pain and not even the first to be resurrected.
We have our own pain-filled passion story, the Akeda, the binding of Isaac.
God instructed Abraham to offer his son Isaac as an olah, a sacrifice to be completely consumed by fire. Abraham complied without even asking why.
The Midrash adds breadth and depth to the tale. One midrash teaches that Satan - the Jewish Satan, God's prosecuting attorney - does everything he can to prevent Abraham from offering his son. He appears to Abraham and demands, "How can you sacrifice the son of your old age?" He appears to Isaac and declares, "Your father is mad."
As Abraham is about to sacrifice his son, the biblical text reads:
"Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am."
"Do not raise your hand against the boy or do anything to him."
This midrash explains that after the first call, Abraham responds, "Who are you? You may be Satan. Only God can rescind the order to offer my son."
God replies by calling Abraham's name, after which he responds, "Here I am."
After being told not to raise his hand against Isaac, Abraham replies, "Let me at least mark him, as a memory of this moment."
God responds, "or do anything against him."
Another midrash teaches that at this point, Satan wants revenge. He appears before Sarah, disguised as Isaac, and tells her what was really happening between father and son.
She drops dead in shock.
How do we know? In the biblical text, directly after the Akeda, Sarah dies, and Abraham is not by her side. Innocent Sarah was the collateral damage of the Akeda.
Another midrash leaps forward and concludes that Isaac too loses his life, despite the Torah account.
How do we know? After the Akeda, the Torah reads, Vayashav Avraham el ne'arav, "Abraham returned to his servants." (Genesis 22:19)
Where was Isaac? This midrash explains that Abraham sacrificed Isaac - that the call from the heavens came too late - and that Isaac went to paradise to heal, not to return until he met his wife Rebekah.
Centuries later, another sacrifice occurred: Jesus at Golgotha. According to Christian tradition, this was the final and ultimate sacrifice, meant for the salvation of humanity.
But this is not true.
For 2,000 years, Jews have been sacrificed repeatedly in the aftermath of Golgotha, during pogroms, crusades and the Holocaust - many blamed for the death of Jesus.
Yet our symbolic Isaacs have not been resurrected. Our symbolic Sarahs - our innocent by-standers - have met horrible deaths.
With "The Passion of the Christ," Mel Gibson, who claims to be a student of the Bible and of history, should have known better.
Gibson consumes himself with the Passion - the pain - of his savior, while overlooking the exponentially magnified Jewish passion and the renewed pain that his film would inflict.
Contact the writer at barry_cohen@jewishaz.com.
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