|
|
October 29, 1999/19 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No.9
Abraham learns to fear God
Torah Study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Veer/Genesis 18:1 - 22:24
One of the most difficult events in the Bible to understand is God's commandment to Abraham: "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:2).
How can God, who teaches the message of ethical monotheism and who insists to Noah that "whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6), ask the father of the chosen nation to slaughter his own son?
Almost as strange is God's seemingly contradictory later instruction to Abraham: "Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God" (Genesis 22:12).
A study of Abraham's relationships with those closest to him, and with surrounding nations, reveals fresh insight into the awe-full and awe-inspiring story of the binding of Isaac. Mystical interpreters of the Bible identify Abraham with the quality (they call it "divine emanation") of hassid (unceasing, ever-increasing love and acceptance). Abraham is the consummate proselytizer, hosting strangers in his tent and urging them to accept God as the creator of the world. The Bible attests to the many people in Haran whom he engages in ethical monotheism.
To this end, Abraham adopts his deceased brother's son Lot, and then lavishes loving-kindness upon him. It is difficult to fathom how Lot could turn his back on Abraham and go to Sodom, a cesspool of violence and inhumanity. Nevertheless, Abraham fights to regain Lot even after he has done so. Abraham may have been hoping that Lot went intending to influence Sodom to come closer to Abraham, in behavior as well as in ideology.
Indeed, Lot becomes a judge in Sodom, and despite the selfish attitudes of many Sodomites, he emulates the hospitality he learned from Abraham by welcoming the three strangers into his home.When the people of Sodom want to commit a homosexual act upon Lot's guests, Lot offers them his two daughters instead (Genesis 19:6).
Despite all this and more, Abraham beseeches God not to destroy Sodom: "Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?" (Genesis 18:23).
Abraham then endangers his own life and the lives of those closest to him, when he battles the four despotic kings of the Fertile Crescent to save Lot from captivity in Sodom. He never abandons the possibility that human beings might return to God - not Lot, not the inhabitants of Sodom.
Abraham continues to believe in people even when they disappoint him. When he migrates to Gerar, he asks his wife Sarah to pose as his sister: "I thought ... surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife" (Genesis 20:11).
Then when (King) Abimelech of Gerar has Sarah brought to him, only Divine intervention prevents her defilement. Despite what Abimelech has done, Abraham enters into a treaty with him, a treaty later broken in the days of Isaac.
Thus we see the loving optimism of Abraham, ready to accept Lot as a son and willing to enter into relationships of trust even with those who do not fear God.
The narrative relates that "Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test" (Genesis 22:1). God instructs Abraham to bind Isaac.
Perhaps God wants Abraham to appreciate Isaac as his only possible heir. At the same time, God is demonstrating to Abraham the importance of fearing heaven, without which none of his goals could be realized.
Isaac fears God, and thus Isaac is equipped to lead the children of Abraham along their destined path. But it is through Abraham that all the nations of the world must eventually be blessed.
The house of God in Jerusalem must be a house of prayer for all nations. But the path to this goal can only be taken with partners who fear God. Such individuals alone have the right to lead the Jewish nation.
Only when God believed that Abraham had learned this lesson, could God rescind the initial command and allow Isaac to live and lead.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Efrat, Israel.
|
