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VAYERA

Sacrificing one’s own son was undoubtedly the supreme test of Avaraham’s life and faith. When Avraham and Yitzchak came down from the mountain of Moriah their lives and the destiny of the Jewish people was changed forever. The akeidah remains the central story of Jewish history and destiny.

Its grim reminder of Jewish vulnerability has never departed from the people of Israel. Though we have survived the myriad periods of akeidah in our history, it has always been with great cost and almost always some sort of permanent trauma. Why God demanded that test from Avraham and why it is continuously still demanded from the Jewish people is a question that has no real answer. It is a situation that remains a stark fact of life and an ever-present reality - its inscrutability notwithstanding.

We will see in later parshiyot of the Torah how strongly Yitzchak remains affected by his near death experience. It governs his personality and makes him to us the most inscrutable of all of the avot of the Jewish people. Surviving the akeidah takes an enormous toll on one’s soul and psyche. And, as the rabbis teach us that the occurrences in the lives of the avot are harbingers of the future of their descendants, the akeidah has certainly become an oft repeated theme in Jewish history.

We should not be pessimistic about our present situation and our future. But we should certainly be realistic and wary as to what difficulties certainly face us now and later.

There are two witnesses to part of the akeidah drama – Yishmael and Eliezer. Their impressions of the event are not related to us by the Torah itself. Yishmael will remain the antagonist of Yitzchak and his descendents until our very own time. The descendents of Yishmael will even attempt to substitute their ancestor Yishmael for Yitzchak as the central character of the drama of the akeidah. However the history of the descendents of Yishmael does not conform to the pattern of historical akeidot.

 Yishmael remains the aggressor in history and his character, as delineated in the Torah as warlike and constantly dissatisfied, has been amply justified in human history. It is not the character of someone who has experienced an akeidah. Yishmael is willing to be the hero of the akeidah but not to suffer its experience and trauma.

Eliezer will play an important role in the life of Yitzchak. He is the person entrusted by Avraham to find the proper mate for Yitzchak and he performs his task flawlessly. But then he somehow disappears from the scene of biblical history and the story of the Jewish people. There is a lack of continuity in Eliezer and his descendents that does not allow him or them to remain any longer an integral part of the Jewish story.

Thus the two other participants in the akeidah story depart from the mountain of Moriah unchanged by the event. Apparently, immortality and eternity in Jewish history is gained only by experiencing the akeidah itself. Not necessarily a pleasant thought, but it is a proven reality. May the Lord test us with akeidot no longer.

Shabat shalom.