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Some years ago during the holidays I told a story about 4 college students who decided to take a weekend road trip, planning of course to return to campus for an exam they had Monday morning. About an hour or so before the exam was about to begin that Monday, the Professor received a phone call from one of the students, explaining that on their way back to town they had run into a bit of trouble - they had a flat tire - and they were waiting for AAA, and and were not going to make it back to campus in time to take the test. The professor said, “oh, no problem, I understand - you’ll come in tomorrow morning - Tuesday morning - and take the test then.”
Well, Tuesday morning arrived, the students promptly showed up at the proper room, and they found that the teacher had already set up the room in strange fashion - there were only 4 desks in the room - one for each of the students - and each desk was placed in one of the room’s corners. On top of each desk was a blue book, and one single sheet of paper face down. The students sat at the desks, the teacher watched the clock, and precisely at 9 he said “you may turn over your papers and begin.” As the students turned the papers over, they each gasped audibly - there was only one question on the exam, and it was this: which tire was flat?
Of course at the heart of that story is the idea that there are tests that come unexpected in life, unlooked for, and in many ways those are the tests that determine the quality of our lives and their substance. And that idea is a theme that runs through all of the Torah and haftara readings of Rosh Hashanah, but it is most poignantly and powerfully explored in the Torah reading for the second day of the holiday, the story that we call the Akeidat Yitzhak, the Binding of Isaac. It is a story that abounds with problems - first of all, it is clear that there is some kind of test - the fist verse of the story says that God TESTED Abraham. But what the test is all about is anybody’s guess: Is it a test of faith? Is it a moral or ethical test? And what happens in the end - does Abraham pass the test, does he fail the test?
And compounding these difficult questions is the fact that neither God nor Abraham come off looking particularly good in the story. Abraham because he doesn’t voice a single word of protest when God asks him to sacrifice his son, and God because He asks in the first place, and then, almost making matters worse, God comes back later and says “you know what, don’t do it after all. I’ve changed my mind.” It doesn’t make sense! And it is disturbing to think that God would send such conflicting messages.
So what I would like to do today is to try to shift the perspective, to look at the story in a way that we might not normally look at it, and by doing so possibly to discover a different understanding of the events that the story describes - of God’s role in them, of Abraham’s role in them, of the nature of the test itself, and also maybe to find an answer as to whether Abraham fails the test, or passes it.
Now it seems to me that normally we read the story through God’s eyes, as it were. God is the primary character, the main actor and initiator of events. God makes the initial request of Abraham, commanding him, giving him specific instructions as to what to do; God then intervenes as the events begin to unfold, telling Abraham not to bring down the knife; and it is God who provides the ram that ultimately replaces Isaac and becomes the sacrifice. It is God’s story, and Abraham is just a passive character pulled along through the events that God has orchestrated.
But what if we read the story through Abraham’s perspective? What if we saw it through his eyes? What if Abraham was the primary character, and God the passive one?
We might imagine it like this - Abraham has discovered the idea of God, the first person to do so, to think of God as monotheistic, as the Creator of the entire universe. And Abraham is in the midst of a struggle, and his struggle is this: how should this God that he has discovered be worshipped, how should this God be related to? And you see, Abraham lives in the midst of the ancient Canaanites, and all around him, when people practice their religions, when they worship their gods, they sacrifice their children. So when Abraham strains to hear the voice of God in his life, to discover what this God wants him to do, he hears a voice that tells him, take your son, your only one, the one you love, Isaac - and offer him as a sacrifice on the mountaintop.
But as Abraham listens to this voice, as he carries out the initial steps that will lead to Isaac’s death, he begins to hear another voice. This voice is persistent in his mind - he hears it as he gathers the wood, he hears it as he packs for the journey, as he takes Isaac, as he walks, slowly but surely, toward the mountain, he hears the voice over and over again. And this voice is telling him something different, this voice is telling him “don’t do it Abraham!”
And you see - THAT is his test: he has to understand which of the two voices represents God’s authentic voice. Is it the voice telling him to kill his son? Is it possible that that voice conveys God’s true will? Or is it the other voice? The voice that is pleading with him to spare his child? Is it that voice that will bring him to a true path of holiness and into a more fully realized relationship with God?
And understanding the story from that perspective, maybe now we can answer the question and say that Abraham does pass the test. Because he is able to discern the authentic voice of God in that challenging moment of his life, and he suddenly understands that this God is different, that this God would not demand the sacrifice of a child - and in a sense, at that precise moment, Isaac is saved, Abraham is also saved, and I think you could argue that it is at that moment that Judaism is born.
We read the story of Abraham and his family every year on RH, not because we want to look back sentimentally at an old story, but rather because in the old story we see a reflection of our own lives. In a sense their lives are our lives, and we’re engaged today in the very struggles that they were so many years ago, to discover an authentic voice of God in the unending noise and challenge of daily life, and through that voice to live with meaning and with faith.
And we’re tested, too, just as they were, to pick and choose, to make decisions of great importance about matters that are rarely clear. Most of the time when we stand at a crossroads in life it’s complex, multilayered, with pluses and minuses on both sides, and very commonly filled with emotional weight. Those are the decisions of real life. We face them in the course of each day and each year, decisions that pull us in different directions, where there is neither a perfect right, nor a complete wrong. And when faced with those kinds of choices, we want to have a sense that we can seek and find God’s authentic voice, to guide us, to accompany us, and to lead us to a sense of truth and peace.
And I know that people want to find God’s voice at those moments in their lives because that is when they come to my office. By and large people don’t make an appointment and come to my office to say “hey Rabbi, every thing is terrific - just wanted you to know! Have a good day.” No - people show up at my office when they are struggling - when they have conflict with a loved one, or a difficult choice to make in their lives, or a terrible burden that they are carrying. And they don’t have to come see me - they could go to a therapist, or to a doctor, or to go talk to a friend. But they want to come to see the rabbi - because they want to feel that a sense of the sacred can be discerned even at that difficult moment of testing.
That’s why I think we’re here now. We may not be very observant throughout the year, we may not enter a synagogue from the close of Neila one year until RH of the next, we may not even be sure we’re believers, but we’re here today, reaching out for what we can understand of the sacred, and we are yearning to justify our lives in a transcendent moment, the beginning of a new year. We open the Holy Ark and carry the Torah scrolls about, we listen for the cry of the shofar calling us to judgement, we hear the sacred stories of our people and we hope to gain something, in faith and in strength, in humanity, and in soul.
Some months ago I received a phone call from a woman I have known for many years. She had just received a cancer diagnosis, and the prognosis was, I would say, mediocre. She wanted to talk, we made an appointment. She came to my office and for a few minutes we talked about her illness. But then she said, “Rabbi, I didn’t really come here to talk about cancer - I really came here to talk about my daughter.” For many years she and her daughter had had a strained relationship at best. There were long periods of silence with no communication, and those were interrupted by short bursts of connection and conversations that were filled with awkward and painful moments. There were deep wounds on both sides. Her daughter knew about her cancer diagnosis, but had not called the woman to ask about a series of important test results.
She was - devastated - so deeply hurt by her daughter’s neglect - so angry - that she had effectively decided to end their relationship. That was one voice she was hearing - “its enough! Its over! I can’t do it anymore!!” But there was another voice she could not ignore - “this is my child. I love her. I want to have a relationship with her. I want to forgive her, and try to move forward.”
now what is the authentic voice of God in a situation like that? where is it found? And the answer is, it is found inside of us. You see, most people, when they come to my office, they already know what they have to do, what is the right thing, what is the path that they will take. And it seems to me, 99.9% of the time they are right. Because God’s authentic voice is inside of them all the time - in their hearts and minds, and more than anything else in their souls. And maybe in my office they feel they can hear the voice more clearly, but it doesn’t come from me - it never does - it comes from them. And I knew, when she left my office, that she had heard that voice inside of herself, and she knew she would not end a relationship with her own daughter - and it seemed to me she had passed her test.
What will our tests be in the year to come? We all know they will arrive, some anticipated and planned for, others unexpected and unsought. In many ways, it’s those latter tests that define the quality of our lives and their substance. They reflect what we’ve learned during our lifetime and who we’ve become. Some of the tests will be personal, some professional. Some will have to do with family, others with faith. There will be tests of courage and patience and loyalty, tests that measure the kindness in our hearts, and the strength of our characters, and the depth of our emotions.
Hopefully, with God’s help and our own receptive spirits, we and more members of the human family, will hear the sound of God’s presence among us. If we can discern it, if we can hear God’s authentic voice, then we may find the capacity to live with less anger and more tranquility; with less jealousy, and more kindness and compassion, with more generosity and caring, more responsibility one for another. That’s my prayer today for myself, for my family, for each and everyone of us; and I believe that it is the meaning of all our people’s prayers during these holy days. May those prayers this year become reality in our lives and in our world. And may we all experience a new year of health, hope, faith and peace. Amen.
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