NOVEMBER 14 • 2024 | 45
his son: Then God said: “Take your
son, your only son, the one whom
you love — Isaac — and go to the
land of Moriah. There, offer him
up as a burnt offering on one of the
mountains, the one that I will show
you.” Gen. 22:2
How can this make sense? It is
hard enough to understand God
commanding these things of any-
one. How much more so given that
God chose Abraham specifically
to become a role model of the par-
ent-child, father-son relationship.
The Torah is teaching us
something fundamental and
counterintuitive. There has to
be separation before there can be
connection. We have to have the
space to be ourselves if we are to be
good children to our parents, and
we have to allow our children the
space to be themselves if we are to
be good parents.
It takes a certain maturity on our
part before we realize this, since our
first reading of the narrative seems
to suggest that Abraham was about
to set out on a journey that was
completely new. Abraham, in the
famous midrashic tradition, was the
iconoclast who took a hammer to
his father’s idols. Only later in life
do we fully appreciate that, despite
our adolescent rebellions, there is
more of our parents in us than we
thought when we were young. But
before we can appreciate this, there
has to be an act of separation.
Likewise in the case of the
Binding of Isaac. I have long argued
that the point of the story is not
that Abraham loved God enough
to sacrifice his son, but rather that
God was teaching Abraham that we
do not own our children, however
much we love them. The first
human child was called Cain
because his mother Eve said, “With
the Lord’s help, I have acquired
[kaniti] a man” (Gen. 4:1). When
parents think they own their child,
the result is often tragic.
First separate, then join. First
individuate, then relate. That is
one of the fundamentals of Jewish
spirituality. We are not God.
God is not us. It is the clarity of
the boundaries between heaven
and earth that allows us to have a
healthy relationship with God.
It is true that Jewish mysticism
speaks about bittul ha-yesh, the
complete nullification of the self in
the all-embracing infinite light of
God, but that is not the normative
mainstream of Jewish spirituality.
What is so striking about the
heroes and heroines of the Hebrew
Bible is that when they speak to
God, they remain themselves.
God does not overwhelm us. That
is the principle the Kabbalists
called tzimtzum, God’s self-
limitation. God makes space for us
to be ourselves.
Abraham had to separate himself
from his father before he, and we,
could understand how much he
owed his father. He had to separate
from his son so that Isaac could
be Isaac and not simply a clone of
Abraham.
Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the
Rebbe of Kotzk, put this inimitably.
He said: “If I am I because I am I,
and you are you because you are
you, then I am I and you are you.
But if I am I because you are you,
and you are you because I am I,
then I am not I and you are not
you!”
God loves us as a parent loves
a child — but a parent who truly
loves their child makes space for
the child to develop their own
identity.
It is the space we create for one
another that allows love to be like
sunlight to a flower, not like a tree
to the plants that grow beneath.
The role of love, human and Divine,
is, in the lovely phrase of Irish poet
John O’Donohue, “to bless the
space between us.”
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
• How does God make space for us to
be ourselves?
• Do you think it is hard for parents
to make space for children to be
themselves? Why?
• Does this approach prevent parents
(and God) from protecting their
children from making mistakes? Do
you think this is a good approach, or
is it too risky?
Following
a Mission
I
n previous commentaries, I
have queried which of the major
protagonists of the akeda (binding
of Isaac) story suffered the greater test:
Abraham, the father who had to take
the responsibility for the sacrifice
of his son, or Isaac, the son who
had to undergo the anguish of
being laid out upon the altar.
I have offered that Abraham
received the command
directly from God, which
made his acquiescence almost
understandable; Isaac is more
praiseworthy because he only
heard the command from his
father, yet he was willing to
submit himself. In doing so,
Isaac becomes the paragon of the
ideal Jewish heir, who continues the
traditions of his father even though he
has not heard the Divine command.
Maimonides bases his view of
Abraham as “rebellious son” upon the
fact that the Bible is silent about why
God suddenly commanded Abraham
to leave Ur and considered him worthy
of becoming a great nation and a
blessing for the world. Why Abraham?
Maimonides concludes that
Abraham must have discovered ethical
monotheism through his own rational
thinking and merited God’s election.
However, the last verses of Noach
record that “Terah took his son Abram
… and they departed … from Ur
Kasdim to go to the Land of Canaan;
they arrived at Haran, and they settled
there … and Terah died in Haran.
”
Why must scripture tell us that
Terah had originally set out for the
Land of Canaan if he never reached it
because he died on the way? The Bible
will then record a meeting between
Abraham and Melchizedek. The text
identifies him as a “priest of God
Most High” to whom Abraham gives
tithes. Is it not logical to assume that
there was one place where the
idea of a single God was still
remembered and that place
was Jeru-Shalem, Canaan,
Israel? And if Terah had left Ur
of Kasdim to reach Canaan,
might it not have been because
he wanted to identify with
that land and with that God
of ethical monotheism? And
if Abraham, Terah’s son, had
joined his father in the journey
may we not assume that
Abraham identified with his
father’s spiritual journey?
From this perspective, we
understand why this story is followed
by God’s command to Abraham:
Conclude the journey you began with
your father and reach the destination,
and the destiny, which unfortunately
eluded him.
Abraham, then, emerges as the true
continuator of his father’s mission.
The biblical message, through the
lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
behooves us to continue in our
parents’ footsteps and to pass down the
mission of ethical monotheism from
generation to generation. Indeed, we
must improve upon their vision and
accomplishments and take proper
advantage of the possibilities the
unique period in which we live may
provide for us.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah
Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.
SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION
Rabbi
Shlomo
Riskin
Parshat
Vayera:
Genesis
18:1-22:24; II
Kings 4:1-37.