Rabbi Sarah L. Wolf
Rosh Hashanah 5769
September 30, 2008

The writer Anne Lamott describes picking up her son Sam from a play date and having a moment of clarity about a woman she calls her enemy, the judgmental mother of her son’s friend: “Sam’s shoes were on the mat by the front door, next to his friend’s, and I went over to help him put them on.  And as I loosened the laces on one shoe, without realizing what I was doing, I sneaked a look into the other boy’s sneaker—to see what size shoe he wore.  To see how my kid lined up in shoe size.  And I finally got it.  The veil dropped.  I got that I am as mad as a hatter.  I saw that I was the one worried that my child wasn’t doing well enough in school.  That I was the one who thought I was out of shape.  And that I was trying to get [my enemy] to carry all this for me because it hurt too much to carry it myself.”

Sometimes, we get ourselves into ridiculous or terrible situations and think, “Is this really who I am?!”  Like catching a glimpse of ourselves in a mirror and not recognizing the person in it, the aspects of our personalities we like to keep well-hidden, even from our own sight, occasionally jump out at us.  What we see can be embarrassing and humbling, like Lamott’s revelation, or even downright frightening.

Reading Torah can be just as disconcerting.  Take this morning’s reading, the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac.  The story is troubling, to say the least, and cryptic, defying easy interpretation.  One of the reasons I find it so disturbing is that we think we already know the characters in this story: the compassionate and generous God who has singled out Abraham, promising every blessing, giving him great riches and children in his old age.  But the God we meet in this story is altogether unfamiliar.  This God says, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up as an offering there on one of the mountains that I will show you.”  God’s command to sacrifice Isaac flies in the face of every experience Abraham and we have had of God thus far.  This time, there are no assurances of reward or protection, no “Fear not, Abraham.”  Indeed, this time, Abraham has everything to fear.  You think you know someone.

We think we know Abraham too, who is famous for his hospitality to strangers, who rescues his nephew Lot from captivity and destruction, who even dares to argue with God to try to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah .  But here we read, “So Abraham got up early the next morning and saddled his donkey and took…his son Isaac.  He split the wood for the offering and set out for the place that God had told him.”  No argument, not a moment’s hesitation.  Abraham doesn’t even blink before setting out to obey God’s command.  You think you know someone.

Beyond all reason, beyond all sense of morality, beyond all instinct, Abraham prepares to do the impossible.  We read breathlessly as Isaac’s fate hangs in the balance, and with it, our fate too.  For we know that if Isaac is killed, there will be no great and blessed people of which we are a part.  But if Abraham fails to do God’s bidding, what will become of the covenant, the very essence of this people and the glue that holds us together?  And then, the suspense is over.  The only possible way out of the paradox is what in fact happens.  An angel stays Abraham’s hand, Isaac is spared, and God reaffirms the promise and covenant with Abraham.  Everyone is back in his or her place, just as it should be.

But we are left bewildered.  We ask, how could the God we know have demanded such a thing of Abraham, even if it was just a test?  And how could the Abraham we know have obeyed?  Abraham and God, the ones we call “father,” Avraham Avinu and Avinu Malkeinu, are strangers to us.  We are disappointed, even disgusted.  It’s difficult enough to face the story during our yearly reading of the Torah, but why must we read this story on Rosh Hashanah as well?  The traditional explanation is that as we sound the shofar, the ram’s horn that represents the ram sacrificed at the end of the Akedah, we remind God of Abraham’s great devotion and ask that God extend his merit to us on this Day of Judgment.  But what if we don’t necessarily think Abraham behaved all that well?  What if we don’t want to believe that the God to whom we pray for forgiveness and mercy on this day could be so cruel?  How then do we read this story today? 

It is tempting to try to explain the story in ways that better fit our expectations.  Perhaps Abraham got God’s message wrong.  Or perhaps Abraham knew it was a test and did not really expect to kill his son.  The story is certainly fruitful ground for creative interpretation.  As literary critic Erich Auerbach writes, “Since so much in the story is dark and incomplete…[the reader’s] effort to interpret it constantly finds something new to feed upon.”  In other words, the terseness of the language of the story provides plenty of opportunities for the reader to read herself and her values into the text. 

But even using this approach, trying to find ourselves in the story, has consequences that may not all be pleasant.  And that is exactly the point.  As my teacher Rabbi Rachel Shabbat writes, “Through Torah, God will help us see ourselves.”  If this is true, then as we read ourselves into the text, the shock we feel at seeing characters we know behave in surprising and troubling ways should be turned inward: we too can be strangers to ourselves.

It is easy to ignore certain sides of our personalities, even to the point that we do not realize we have them.  We “forget” to balance our checkbook, or, in this electronic age, to check our balance online, in order to avoid knowing how much money we spend.  We avoid getting helpful feedback on our work or take offense at even constructive criticism because it is easier than scrutinizing our work and recognizing its imperfections, perhaps even forcing us to admit that we need to work harder.  We don’t weigh ourselves or look at ourselves in the mirror because we are afraid we won’t like what we see.  We don’t go to the doctor because we don’t want to be told that we should be exercising more or smoking less.  We ignore and hide our negative emotions, our anger and regret and embarrassment, to the point of repressing them.  Most of the time, it is easy to overlook the traits we would like to erase from ourselves.   

But every once in a while, we find ourselves comparing our son’s shoe size to his friend’s and are horrified by our own pettiness and competitiveness.  We find ourselves up on that mountain and ask: how did I get here?  Or we see others behaving in such a way that we think, how could they? – only to realize that the reason we dislike them so is because their flaws are eerily familiar. 

Know thyself, the ancient Greek philosophers said.  In order to do so, we must make the most of these moments of realization and create more of them for ourselves.  One way, as we have seen, is to study Torah, not only to hear the words of our people, but to reflect on our reactions to the text.  There are certainly many troubling passages in our sacred writings, and it is tempting to say, “I don’t like it” and walk away.  But if we stop and think about why we had that reaction, we might learn something about ourselves, maybe something the Torah was trying to teach us all along.  During these Ten Days of Repentance and reflection, we might be more mindful of our feelings and reactions not just to Torah, but to life.  If I wake up in a bad mood, I might stop and think about why.  If I get frustrated with a loved one, I might take a step back and ask myself what button it is that he or she is pushing.  Often, understanding why we feel the way we do can help alleviate our negative reactions, or at least help us to find better ways to express them.  

We can also learn from each other.  When I did chaplaincy training during my time in rabbinical school, we the interns had a session twice a week called IPR, interpersonal relations.  As our supervisor described it, it was a time for us to hold up a mirror to each other, to help each other learn about how each of us is perceived by others so as to improve our pastoral skills.  We were required to go around the room and tell each other exactly what we thought of each other.  Once, we had to write on big pieces of butcher paper what we thought each person’s “blind spots” about him- or herself were.  I think I speak for the whole group when I tell you that it was agony, even, or maybe especially, for a group of seminary students who were generally kind, good people.  After the experience, I thought about how rare it is that we are forced to compare other people’s perceptions of us to our own.  In spite of the difficulty and pain that it caused, IPR was an incredibly powerful experience of self-reflection and self-discovery for the whole group.  During these ten days, those of us who are brave enough might consider asking a friend or family member whom we trust to hold up a mirror to us and give us honest feedback about our blind spots.  You might be surprised at what you learn.

If we are to turn to God in teshuvah, repentance, with whole hearts, we first have to see ourselves as wholly as possible, in all of our complexity and imperfection.  Repentance comes from true self-knowledge, from knowing and accepting ourselves as we are.  Only then will we be better able to forgive ourselves for our sins and ready to improve our behavior, which is the true sign of repentance.  Despair and self-loathing are not goals of these Days of Awe.     

I still do not understand the story of the Binding of Isaac.  But in trying to understand it, trying to find a meaning and a message for me in it, I am learning about who I am and what I care about.  And I am comforted by the fact that I am not alone.  There is a story about Rabbi Mordecai, a Hasidic master, who was expounding Torah to a hostile crowd.  They laughed at him.  “What you say does not explain the verse in the least!” they cried.  “Do you really think,” he replied, “that I was trying to explain the verse in the book? ... I want to explain the verse that is within me!”