The Real Hero of the Akedah: RH2 5770

A short while ago, I asked you to consider an important question regarding this morning’s Torah reading, Genesis Chapter 22, עקידת יצחק
The Binding of Isaac . Knowing that each and every year we read this same story from a drastically different personal perspective, I asked you to ponder which character you most identified with this year. Likewise, during these Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe, when we find ourselves wondering if we have the necessary courage to undergo great personal change, I asked you to determine which character in our story this morning acts the most courageously.
The reason I am asking these questions to you today, is because no matter where I may find myself each year, and regardless as to how I might be feeling on any given second day of Rosh HaShanah, I often find myself returning to the same familiar question – who is the hero of this suspenseful tale of the Binding of Isaac? Who is the character I am supposed to idolize? Which character am I supposed to identify with? Which of our players is the one about whom I am supposed to say to my child, pay close attention to this one; this person is an example of true courage, of real righteousness. And so the question I pose to each of you this morning is: Who is the real hero of Genesis 22, of עקידת יצחק?
A standard response to this query would be Abraham of course. After all, should not אברהם אבינו, Abraham our forefather, get the lion’s share of the credit in this story? A man of advancing years, recently blessed with the birth of a child from his beloved, but aged wife Sarah; a man who left his home and family by the command of an invisible voice, a man who only yesterday had to send away his first born son Ishmael in order to satisfy his wife’s desires – this man is now asked to sacrifice his only remaining progeny, his beloved son Isaac. And yet Abraham, this paragon of faith never waivers or falters, he moves with purpose to carry out this ultimate act of faith without a single word of protest. Surely Avraham Avinu is the real hero of the Akedah.
Or perhaps the true hero of our story is the character of Isaac. After all, the story is called עקידת יצחק, the Binding of Isaac. Perhaps our title hints that he is the true hero, the one who really lays it all on the line. In fact, our Talmudic sages believed that Isaac was not a young child at the time of this story, but rather he was a grown man of thirty-seven years old. If we believe in this chronology then our Isaac is no small boy heading out on some camping trip with his father. This is a ready and willing participant in this moment of faith. If Isaac is self-sacrificial, if he understands God’s command as his ultimate destiny, then Yitzhak must be the true hero of the Akedah.
On the other hand I often think about silent Sarah’s role in all of this. Perhaps she heard God’s voice the night that Abraham awoke from his sleep; perhaps she gave her husband her understanding permission to take their only son on this sacrificial journey. Perhaps she is the true symbol of faith in this story. Maybe Sarah’s role as silent mother is the most courageous of all.
Or maybe we are missing the biggest hero of them all in this amazing story. What about God? Isn’t God the ultimate hero of this tale precisely because God DOES NOT require this ultimate act of faith on the part of Abraham, Isaac and Sarah. Isn’t God the one who sends the angel to Abraham saying אל תשלך את ידך אל הנער , "Do not dare raise your hand against that boy?" Ultimately it is God who turns our story into a test of faith instead of into a tale of ancient human sacrifice; so maybe God is the hero of the Akedah.
But before we go and crown a winner, wait just a moment! Although you could make the case that each of these characters plays a courageous and heroic role in this tale, you could just as easily make the case against each and every one of these players. Far from being fine examples of heroes and heroines, perhaps we could indict each of them for their regrettable actions or inactions as the case may be.
Let’s start with Abraham. What kind of father accepts this divine decree against his son without a single word of protest? Is not this the very same Avraham Avinu who in a moment of tremendous hubris bargained with God for the lives of the innocent living in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? There, in that story, our hero Abraham was willing to stand up to God and ask: השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט "
“Should not the Judge of the entire world act with righteousness?” And indeed God, bent to Abraham’s moral will! But here in this story, when he is asked to sacrifice his own innocent son Isaac, now he chooses to remain silent?
And maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to let Isaac of the hook either. Either we read the character of Yitzhak as a young, naive boy; Or we to read the persona of Isaac as a grown man at the time of the Akedah, which means we must ask why he too accepts this divine decree without a single utterance of protest on his own behalf, let alone on the behalf of the emotional damage it would cause to his elderly father and mother.
Which brings me to Sarah Imeinu, whose presence is noticeably absent from the narrative details of our story. Now on the one hand I am tempted to give Sarah a pass, after all, it was likely a group of men who originally wrote this story, and they didn’t really have a talent for including the feminist perspective. On the other hand, my own feminist approach to reading the Bible challenges Sarah as to why she did not insert herself into this crucial story? Why did she not take an active role in the life and the welfare of her only child? Why did she not stand up to her husband and put an end to his incessant desire to please a distant Divine voice at the expense of her family?
Finally, I am forced to bring a critique against the character of God in this story. I hesitate to ask the question, but I know it is one that many of us here today believe needs to be asked: Is this the type of God we choose to worship? Do we really want a seemingly capricious God who is willing to tear the fabric of our family lives apart for the sake of a divine test? I certainly don’t. For this reason, I for one believe that God can not be the hero of our story either.
Which I think leaves us only one option unturned: there, almost lost in the background of our tale, tangled tightly in the thicket is the lonely, wandering ram. Yes, that ram, which appears so suddenly in our story and is ultimately brought to the altar in place of the boy Isaac, I believe that ram is the true hero of the Akedah. In sacrificing its life in place of Isaac’s, this dark tale of divine decree is suddenly transformed into a story of familial and national redemption; a story whose message is so meaningful to us, we read it each year. A hero whose example is so powerful for us, we sound the shofar in memory of his courageous act each Rosh HaShanah.
Now just to be fair, before you go thinking ‘this new rabbi….pretty clever,’ I must say that I am not the first one to say this! In fact, many people before me have pointed to the image of the ram in the Akedah as a paradigm for heroism and courage. I first was introduced to this concept by one of my most favorite inspirations, a maker of modern midrash, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.
With your permission, I would like to read you the poem which inspired this morning’s sermon. It is entitled “The Real Hero of the Sacrifice of Isaac.”

The real hero of the sacrifice was the ram
Who had no idea about the conspiracy of the others.
……
I want to sing a memorial song about the ram,
His curly wool and human eyes,
The horns, so calm in his living head.
When he was slaughtered they made shofars out of them,
……..
I want to remember the last picture
Like a beautiful photo in an exquisite fashion magazine:
The tanned, spoiled youngster all spiffed up,
And beside him the angel, clad in a long silk gown
For a formal reception.
……
And behind them, as a colored background, the ram
Grasping the thicket before the slaughter.

The Angel went home
Isaac went home
And Abraham and God left much earlier.

But the real hero of the sacrifice
Is the ram.

Now before you go thinking…this Amichai….pretty clever; as proof to the Biblical statement of “v’Ain Kol Hadash Tachat HaShamesh,” “There is nothing new under the sun,” Amichai is also not the first to have focused his attention on the heroic role of the ram in our story. Thousands of years ago, the rabbinic midrash makers taught us about the ram and the crucial role it played in the Akedah.
In a famous mishnah found in Pirkei Avot, the rabbis teach that ten things were created by God on the eve of the world’s first Sabbath. Among this list are things that would be crucial elements in the survival of the Jewish people throughout the Bible, things such as the rainbow that ended The Great Flood, the Manna that fell in the desert and the writing on the Ten Commandments. Included in this list however is our all-important ram, the very one we are discussing this morning. You see, his role in the Akedah was no case of mere happenstance; instead this courageous ram he was the one fulfilling his divine destiny on this fateful day.
Another midrash comes to teach us that lest we think the ram in our story was a one-hit-wonder, that is he played his role in our tale and then disappeared for all time, this is most certainly not the case. In a midrash found in Pirkei D’Rebe Eliezer we learn that every part of this sacrificed ram comes to play a role in the future of the Jewish people. There the rabbis explain that the ashes of the slaughtered ram served as the bedrock for the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The sinews of the ram provided the ten strings for the harp that Kind David used as he composed the Psalms; and its two horns were made into shofrot, the left horn became the shofar that God blew on Mt. Sinai at the moment of Revelation, the right horn becomes the shofar that God will blow in the world to come.
What I find most fascinating about this midrash is how the rabbis allow for the ram to transcend its animalistic nature and magically become the most important institutions of our Jewish religion. Firstly, by becoming the foundation for the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple, the ram turns into the idea of Korban, or of drawing closer to God through acts of sacrifice. Secondly, when the ram transforms itself into David’s harp, it becomes T’fillah, the institution of prayer; the chief thoroughfare of human communication with the divine. Finally, the image of the ram is transformed by its two shofrot, the shofar blown at Mt. Sinai is representative of Torah, of God’s special Revelation to the Jewish people. The second, the one that will be blown in the world to come becomes our image of G’eulah, of redemption. Korban, sacrifice; T’fillah, prayer; Torah, Revelation; and G’eulah, redemption: That’s quite an accomplishment for one small, woolly ram.
I want to conclude this morning by teaching you one final nuance in the story of our heroic ram. As we know, at that moment of truth, svach. The accepted English translation of the Hebrew word “svach” is thicket, although this word hardly does the Hebrew justice. The root of the word Svach, is samech, bet and chaf, meaning interwoven. But in fact, Modern Hebrew has taken its definition even further. The Hebrew word for ‘complicated’ is M’subach, meaning all tangled up, and it shares the same root as our word thicket. In fact the phrase Svach HeChayim has come to mean “the complications of life,” capturing the notion that to live in our modern world is to find ourselves constantly caught in a thicket of moral dilemmas.
We are trapped by elements of our society which worship materialism over spirituality. We are trapped by our media that tells us we should look this way, act that way and buy this thing. We find ourselves struggling to break free from complicated collections of personal entanglements, conflicts with our neighbors, our friends and even our families. In short, we are trapped ba’svach, caught in the thicket, and our challenge is to work our way out. When you find yourself caught in the thicket this year, will you have the courage and the sense of purpose to free yourself? When someone around you cries out in need, will you answer the call to help them, cry with them, and support them?
Moments ago we heard the blast of the shofar, a reminder of the heroic ram in our story. Now that we heard that shofar sound, the question we must ask ourselves today is do we have the same courage as that wooly ram? Do we have the strength to work our way out of the entanglements of a complicated life in order to become something bigger, something more meaningful, something lasting? Do we have the courage to live our lives just a little closer to God this year, as a Korban like this little ram did? Do we have the commitment to create a relationship with the Divine through prayer, T’fillah, as this little ram managed to do? Will we let another year go by without dedicating ourselves to the most precious gift God has ever given us, the Holy Torah? Friends, the results of our newfound courage in the year to come could be nothing less than cosmic. We must believe, as the ram did, that if we work to remove ourselves from the thicket of our lives, if we live our lives with a commitment to our Jewish values, if we truly allow the blast of the shofar to enter our souls today; if each of us has the power to achieve these courageous goals in the coming year, then we are surely one step closer to Ge’ulah and a time when all of humanity will gather to hear the long, last redemptive blast; reminding us what a little courage can do.