Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772 Rabbi Hillel Athias-Robles 28 September 2011

A few weeks ago, I synchronised my ipod to my computer, and a song was transferred to my device. It was a song I didn’t know I had, a recording I never heard before, and I simply couldn’t figure out how it got into my computer. But I played it, a haunting melody, the words immediately recognisable, the memories flowing unfettered.  It was Et Shaare Ratzon, a liturgical poem for Rosh Hashanah written by Yehuda ben Shmuel Ibn Abbas in the 12th century. If you ask any Sephardi Jew what section of the Rosh Hashanah service they remember most clearly, it will almost certainly be this song. For some reason, it is a song that leaves its mark, a song whose importance is not only in its words, but also in all the recollections which it evokes: childhood, sitting in the service, flanked by family and friends, the sounds, the prayers, the fidgetiness, the drowsiness – especially at the time of the sermon, and the general spiritual aura.  

Since I first uploaded the song, I have had it on repeat playback, a never-ending loop. With the white ear phones surgically attached to my skin, I have carried the melody everywhere I go. I’ve been singing it whilst walking on the road, to the amusement of passers-by convinced of my madness, in front of my computer in the office, and even in the shower.  I was listening to the song whilst writing this sermon and I somehow still hear it in the background as I am talking to you now. Ha’oked, Ve’hane’ekad, Ve’hamizbeah – the binder, the bound, and the altar. Don’t worry – for your sake I won’t sing it!
[but you can listen to it Click here]

Like many sections of the traditional Rosh Hashanah liturgy, the poem centres around the story of Abraham and Isaac, the Akedah, the binding. According to tradition, the binding of Isaac allegedly happened on Rosh Hashanah. Hence, the day itself is imbued with imagery from that unique event. The congregation sits listening to every detail of the narrative during the Torah reading. Even the shofar is meant to recall the horn of the ram stuck in a bush who was used as Isaac’s replacement. Poor ram – lucky Isaac! As part of the zikhronot section of the Rosh Hashanah service, traditional Jews would pray as follows: “Remember unto us, O Adonai our God, the covenant and the loving-kindness and the oath which you swore unto Abraham our father on Mount Moriah: and consider the binding with which Abraham our father bound his son Isaac on the altar, how he suppressed his compassion in order to perform Your will with a perfect heart. So may your compassion overbear Your anger against us; in Your great goodness may Your great wrath turn aside from Your people, Your city, and Your inheritance.” This section of the traditional machzor follows the received, simplistic reading of the Akedah narrative: Abraham is commanded by God to do the unthinkable, and in his great piety he is willing to overcome his natural compassion, and especially his inborn paternal instinct, in order to blindly observe what he perceived to be the divine command. A congregant once told me that he had a great idea for a television advert – Abraham is about to slaughter Isaac, and then the following caption appears: “Should have gone to Specsavers.” But according to the traditional reading, Abraham was well aware of what he was doing. And his actions were so spiritually powerful, that we pray to God that the merits which such actions produced in heaven protect us now during the Day of Judgment – as questionable as that may sound to us as Liberal Jews. It was, however, all about Abraham, Abraham’s merit – no mention of what Isaac was going through.

The liturgical song which I mentioned to you earlier, Et Shaare Ratzon, is similar in that it still asks God to remember the deeds of the Akedah, but it is far from simplistic. The story becomes enriched and complex, a true family saga. We hear the voices of those silenced in the narrative – Isaac and Sarah. For according to the Midrash, Isaac wasn’t an infant green behind the ears who thought daddy was taking him for a picnic in the mountain. Isaac was 37, fully aware of what was happening. He knew that the picnic would have him as the barbeque, and he decided to do the basting. Abraham had to fool a suspicious Sarah by telling her that he was only taking Isaac to teach him Torah, although it didn’t really look like he was taking a chumash in the school bag.

Abraham and Isaac are in a state, realizing the magnitude of what is about to happen. “The light of day grew as night in their eyes,” the poet tells us. Tears become streams. Both are hoping for a moment of mercy that will put an end to all this madness.

We then hear Isaac’s voice, as he raises his lament to the heavens:
“See how my mother’s joy is gone; the son she bore when she was ninety years old has fallen prey to the slaughtering knife and fire. Where shall I find someone to bring her comfort? I am sorry for the mother who must weep and sob”
“Although my speech trembles before the cruel knife, yet sharpen it well, father of mine. Bind me fast! Be firm! When the flames devour me, take what remains of my ashes, and say unto Sarah, ‘This is the saviour of Isaac.’”

The angels then cry out, imploring before a seemingly cruel God: “Redeem him, give him ransom! Do not let the world be without its moon!”
God finally wakes up, and sends everyone home, just in time for supper! Sarah was glad. Perhaps that’s why we blow the shofar, just in case the divine alarm clock is not working as with Isaac.

I have been thinking a lot about this powerful song for the past few weeks. We feel the pain and the emotion behind the story. Abraham, Isaac and Sarah are no longer robots, but feeling human beings who experience fear and horror. It speaks to me of martyrdom. Isaac becomes a willing player in this whole fiasco. He becomes resigned to his fate, he doesn’t question. He can’t conceive of an escape route. He assumes that this is the right thing to do, even though it couldn’t be further from the truth.

The story was reappropriated by modern Israeli writers, who also saw Isaac as a conscious agent in the project. Isaac came to represent the Zionist reality, the self-sacrifices needed to erect the Zionist dream, even to the point of offering one’s life for the sake of Zion. Isaac came to represent the inescapable chain of violence they were fated to endure. As the poet Haim Gouri expressed it, after describing the Akedah in his own way: “But Isaac bequeathed that hour to his offspring. They are born with a knife in their hearts.”

But there were voices of protest too, of those unhappy with the situations the establishment was forcing them to accept. Hanoch Levine expressed this too powerfully in his own words: "Dear father, when you stand on my grave… do not say that you've brought a sacrifice,/ because I was the one who brought the sacrifice,/… dear father, when you stand on my grave/ old and weary and very lonesome,/ and when you see how they lay my body to rest – / ask for my forgiveness, father"

Or in the verses of Yitzchak Laor: "To pity the offering?… To trust a father like that? Let him kill himself first. Let him slam his father/ his only father Abraham/ in jail in the poorhouse in the cellar of the house just so/ he will not slay.”

Both authors blame Abraham, and allegorically the establishment, for imposing this sacrifice on Isaac, and by default on his children. But as we have mentioned, Isaac was his accomplice for acquiescing.

All of this has made me realize the power of the Isaac story, as it relates to us today. There is an Isaac that is in all of you and me. For Isaac wanted to be bound, asked his father to tighten the knots, demanded that he sharpen to knife. And often we do the same.

Many of us are also bound, tied tightly, until we are motionless, until our bodies become numb from the restrained circulation.  And we often chose to be entrapped. Many of us are placed in impossible, untenable situations in our life. We feel that we are destined to endure, that we are meant to be in these detrimental circumstances, that it is the yoke we must carry. Even though it is possible for us to release ourselves, we won’t even consider the possibility. Like Isaac, we think we are serving a higher purpose. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we must face hardship indeed for the sake of a higher purpose. But, just like Isaac, often we think we are serving a higher purpose which is in fact not called for. If we were to take a step back and analyse the situation objectively, we would soon realize that often our crucible is made up, we would discover that the emperor has no clothes.  We might be trapped in situations at work, in our family, in our relationships with friends. Unbalanced power, abuse, complacence. Perhaps we clip our wings, decide not to pursue our dreams, not to find happiness – all for the sake of the greater good. Sometimes we lock ourselves in vicious cycles, of dependence, of violence, of submission. But martyrdom is not a state to admire. Martyrdom has no spiritual or moral value. Judaism is about living a life well lived, and martyrdom is the opposite of that. To me what me must honour and celebrate today is not the binding of Isaac, but his release.

I therefore entreat all of you today to release the chains that bind you, to reject becoming a sacrifice offered on an altar. Claim your freedom. On Rosh Hashanah, we hear the shofar, the instrument used to call slaves to their liberation. Let us be liberated today. Tradition says that, just like the breath of life was blown into Adam, the blowing of the shofar grants us a new soul. Today, let us become new beings, free as in the moment that we were born. Let us not burn ourselves on a pyre, but rather the rope that has tied us for so long. Only then will be truly fulfill our purpose, empowered by the liberty we need to achieve what we are meant to achieve. Today, as we leave this sanctuary, let us do so free and unbound.