Doctor Sleep

Started new book by Stephen King......oh, baby!

Binding of Isaac - Any Objections??

I can't even begin to tell to how much I love this time of year with these sections of the bible that are rich in stories and deep in meaning but begin I will. We have great shabbat-table conversations arguing and expounding on ideas we grew up with, others we challenge, and new ideas. As I get older, and I seem to be doing that quite well, I have found myself stepping back and looking at the Torah through different lenses, some microscopic and finely focused and others macroscopic, allowing me to look at broader themes, literary style, a more gestaltic view one might say. I definitely don't have it all figured out nor do I believe I ever will but let me share some thoughts regarding the Akedah that I hope you might find compelling.

It seems that quite a few people have a problem with the story of the binding of Isaac story (the Akedah) in the Bible. How could God command child sacrifice and then retract it, even if it was just a test? In a similar vein, what kind of Being sets up Adam and Eve for failure, shows favoritism to Cain with its murderous outcome, and floods an entire world?

  

My premise is based on an idea I heard from R. Slifkin regarding the unfolding of the creation story in Genesis. Briefly, the style used was one that the ancient mind was accustomed to hearing. There were prevalent myths of creation where the world was chaos and then two opposing forces battled and from the ensuing conflict came the birth of the world. The Torah sets up a similar backdrop and then drops the bomb. It begins with a world of chaos and void. The reader/listener expects the familiar story but is surprised by one very unfamiliar and with a very different lesson. The world is NOT a result of violent conflict but rather it is an orderly creation that, in its diversity, it is indeed called, "Good."

So too, by the binding story, the Torah constructs a backdrop familiar to the ancient mind. The assumption was of a world in which children are property of the parent to do with as they pleased. This world, where a deity required sacrifice of a child, was all too familiar back then. Indeed in 2Kings 3:26-27, we see Mesha, king of Moab, sacrificing his own son, first in line for kingship no less, to the gods so that the battle would turn against Israel. There are many other examples of tanach exhorting against child sacrifices. And yet, the Akedah begins with God asking for just that, a sacrifice of the child, Isaac.

The audience is prep-ed to learn about a world in which child sacrifice is the norm and necessary but instead it deviates unexpectedly. We learn that God does not, after all, want one to sacrifice his child. One must be willing to make sacrifices for the family but the family can't be the sacrifice!

It seems to me that God can actually take on a role opposite to what we would expect of our God to arrive at a truth.      

Hmmm, I see you squirming in your chair, face kind of contorting in half acceptance, half ready to start the pyre a-burnin'. So let me use this line of thought to explain another troubling story in Genesis, that of the Flood.

What I find interesting is the almost universal assumption that God's role in any tale of the Bible is one of infallible, unerring intent or action. Yet in the story of Noah, God specifically regrets what he has created, destroys the world, later changes his mind about the appropriate course of punishment for a given circumstance. Perhaps we can learn what a powerful figure should NOT do. Perhaps the unexpected actions of this figure will give us pause to question what is or isn't appropriate. Maybe God is saying if He is big enough to do so, so should we. Perhaps He is teaching us that there are better ways of solving problems than disposing of all past efforts or treating the past as if it didn't exist. The lessons of the Bible are many but less so when we limit the lessons we can learn from the actions of the God/parent/power-figure. 

Regarding Cain, didn't God know it is unwise to play favorites? Perhaps that indeed is one of the lessons, that a person in authority, like a parent, should not play favorites lest trouble ensue. Or perhaps there are times when a person must say no and the lesson we might derive is that how one handles rejection speaks to his nature. Maybe we have to learn how to handle failure and rejection.

I think readers get too caught up in the simple literal story and miss the wonder of it all.

Now whatcha all doing with them there torches....not really carin' for the the rejection I am sensin' now....

Passing On

It was a small service attended only by my son and I. He was the last of three, surviving the longest well past normal life expectancy. The weather had just started to change to autumn with a brisk breeze but somehow still refreshing after a long hot humid summer. The grave was dug hastily in the morning and the body just as hastily covered with only a rock to mark its location. I made sure to bury some victuals for his journey into the world to come. I don't know what possessed me to connect with the ancient traditions of burying objects or food that the deceased may need in the afterlife, but I did. I spoke of how he was loved by us all, especially my son and how he would be missed. He was like family and the parting was painful and laden with tears. We hugged and cried together over Dubby, the last of three hamsters.

 

The night before I returned home to learn that he was bleeding out of one eye and lying on his side. I thought of bringing him to a vet but they would just euthanize him. I stroked his neck and back telling him all will be OK, just find rest and let the pain go. And thank God he died that night so that my kids wouldn't see him suffer excessively.

 

That night I had a dream with Dubby. First he appeared as ill as described and then suddenly he woke up with strength to climb out of his cage, filled with vigor and ready to go. I wonder if some forces exist out there that signify the passing of a soul and I do believe animals do have souls. Was he saying goodbye and letting me know he will be OK out there, no longer confined in body and time to our home? Unbeknownst to me, at 3:15AM my wife woke up to a bright flash. She looked around and there was no rain outside and she wondered if that was Dubby passing.

 

Goodbye dear Dubby thanks for  all the special moments with the kids. We will miss you :(

(for related posts on dreams of animals passing see here).

Ruled By Passion

אל האשה אמר הרבה ארבה עצבונך והרנך בעצב תלדי בנים ואל אישך תשוקתך והוא ימשל בך

To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;

with painful labor you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

Gen 3:16 describes woman's "punishment" of difficult child birth. And her desires would be towards her husband. The last 3 word in Hebrew  "and he will rule over you" have always been interpreted, as far as I have seen and heard, as the husband would dominate the wife. And this verse has been used throughout the generations to assert male domination. Obviously feminists and even modern thinkers find this passage discomforting. And I am sad to report my own efforts in this area are severely lacking.  

My wife and I were discussing Genesis and she flat out translated those last three words differently, the way she had always understood it. The 'he will rule" clause goes upon the word "your desire =תשוקתך" such that a woman is rules by her passions and emotions and that is her lot. 

To support her reading of this clause, she notes that the next chapter by Cain uses the exact same phrase saying that Cain can "rule over it (his desire!)" Gen 4:7 

הלוא אם תיטיב שאת ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רבץ ואליך תשוקתו ואתה תמשל בו

"But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Read the clause as modifying the word preceding it- "(it's) desire." So here is Cain about to commit a crime of murder, he is fuming inside and G-d tries to calm him, warn him, refocus and redirect him away from his intentions to do harm but his emotions overcome his rational thought and even God can't stop him. So instead of ruling his emotions, they ruled him and led him to ruin.

I do believe you got my main point so if you are not interested in grammar skip to last big paragraph.

Now if you want to get technical rather than just enjoy 70 faces of Torah and some homiletics off the cuff, תשוקתך is feminine so it should have said, "והיא תמשל בך" by woman and "ואתה תמשל בה" by Cain. But what then is Cain ruling over? If it is SIN, isn't חטאת also a feminine noun? If so, it should have said, "בה" by Cain regardless!! 

So it seems at this point, grammar isn't totally helpful. And to make matters grammatically worse for my point, consider the following:

Rashi says that חטאת is the name for the יצר הרע who is a masculine being out to mess us up. This accords with Reish Lakish in Sotah 3a who says that "a person does not transgress a sin unless he is invaded by a spirit of insanity". If we agree that there is some outside force, and that force is masculine, then all we have tried to prove falls apart since the masculine conjugations by Cain work out nicely with חטאת as masculine noun. This יצר הרע has HIS sights on you but you could rule over HIM, the  יצר הרע.

But let's use the same logic in another fashion. If we accept that  חטאת is indeed masculine and that it represents the evil inclination, BUT we define that inclination as internal struggles of human desires (A Talmudic source is a Midrash Tanchuma (Breishis 7) re: age when child's yetzer is empowered), we can help my case. Notice, I have equated the יצר הרע with desire (תשוקה). And if we make this essentially all about inner desire (and by extension emotion), then this masculine internal force may take a masculine grammatical roll as in "והוא ימשל" he will rule over Eve! 

Ok, so maybe your not totally buying the grammatical manipulations but I still find the homiletics very satisfying. Especially considering the reality is that people are subject to the human condition  with an inner temptations that have the ability to rule over them but God exhorts us to rule over it! In that vein, this has nothing to do with a man dominating a woman, Eve was made from the side of Adam, they were to be partners walking side by side. God made human "male and female He created them" two complimentary parts. The lesson of Eve's 'curse' was really a lesson in life. In ancient times, the life of a woman was one with difficult childbirth, necessitating reliance upon her husband to support her during pregnancy and child-rearing times. And she would be subject to her emotions. You may have witnesses this. 

That last part certainly endures to this day! And for reminding my wife of this obscure, little-known fact, a slap I did get...