Woodside_park Synagogue

The Shofar vs the Trumpet?

Below is an article written by Maureen Kendler. Maureen is Head of Education at the London School of Jewish Studies.

A timeless story is told of a boy in a small Jewish school. The class is about to read the story of the Binding of Isaac. . As the teacher begins to tell the story, Moishe protests. He cries out: "But Avraham is going to kill him!" The teacher says softly: "But Moishe, you know the story. In the end, the angel comes and stops Abraham and saves Isaac's life." Moishe hesitates for a second and then says: "But what if, this time, the angel doesn't come?"

What if, this time, the angel doesn't come? The fear, we feel, is warranted. Every time we read the story we are confronted with our own fear. Once comforted again, that the angel will come, that Isaac will be saved, there are three major questions that almost every commentator raises:

How could God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? How could Abraham say yes? And why is Isaac silent?

This article will focus on the second two questions- the first being beyond the scope of this article and perhaps any mortal's article!

Traditionally, there are many answers to the second question of Abraham's unquestioning acquiescence to this task, most of which illustrate Abraham's faith - his humble "hineini" -(here I am) signifying that he is ready to do whatever God asks. But the great Torah scholar Dr. Avivah Zornberg in her ground-breaking book "The Murmuring Deep" (Schocken, 2009) suggests something quite different. She applies a psychological reading of the passage which connects to several earlier and later Torah passages which help us reinterpret two mystifying aspects of this passage -why Abraham says yes and why Isaac remains silent?

She introduces the idea of trauma as a way of understanding Abraham's and Isaac's behaviour. Trauma can be defined as some sort of an emotional or psychological injury, usually resulting from an extremely stressful or life-threatening situation.

What is the after- effect of trauma? Trauma renders the recipient unable to think about or process such an event consciously. It will leave the recipient marked deeply, possibly resulting in a later life event where they will act unexpectedly because of this earlier experience. Modern psychology is hugely influenced by this: Freud's legacy is rooted in the idea that what happened in childhood can be used to explain apparantly inexplicable adult behaviour. Zornberg views Abraham's saying "yes" to the sacrifice of Isaac in this way, that when Abraham responded positively to God's demand to sacrifice his son, he was deeply influenced by an incident from his own childhood which is not in Torah but recounted in a Midrash.

May of us are familiar with the start of this Midrashic story: Abraham breaks his father's idols in a theological "experiment" to prove their falseness, in his quest for monotheism. But the next part of the Midrash is less well known: his furious father hands him over to the court, for a likely death penalty. Abraham is actually thrown into a fiery furnace by the king, from which he returns miraculously unharmed. The king then asks Abraham's younger brother where he stands in this argument: the brother answers that he too believes in the one God -after having witnessed Abraham's rescue. This brother too is thrown into the furnace, but he dies. The inference is that the brother erroneously assumed he would be saved because Abraham was and not that he believed in one God.

Zornberg takes this Midrash seriously. Abraham grows up knowing his father was prepared to kill him, and that his brother dies as a result of this, a death in which somehow Abraham was implicated. When God calls Abraham to tell him to take his son and sacrifice him Abraham now in some manner is under compulsion to act out what was done to him in the past.

If we accept this idea, Abraham agrees to carry out the instruction not really consciously or even willingly, rather in a state of trance-like obedience, as if not really "awake." Only when God calls him twice - finally- "Abraham, Abraham!" (Genesis Chapter 22, verse 11) as Isaac lies bound, in the last minute does he fully "awaken." Why does God call twice? Zornberg suggests - much influenced by Hasidic commentaries - that the first time Abraham hears his name called he is really in that state of near-oblivion. The greatness of Abraham is that by working through his traumatic experience he is able to hear the warning of God's voice the second time and come to his senses. He heals the past at that moment and saves his own child. God here acts as therapist. Abraham, the damaged patient, is finally cured.

What about Isaac, and his perspective? After Abraham and Isaac return from the near-sacrifice of Isaac it is Abraham's journey we follow. We are not given any insight into Isaac's response. The Torah makes no comment about Isaac's perspective. He is silent.

Zornberg argues that this is not a textual omission, but an expression of the traumatic experience buried within, which informs Isaac's life from that moment on.

The events of the Akedah emerge perhaps only towards the very end of Isaac's life as he faces death -again - when he blesses his twin sons. Jacob, disguised as Esau, approaches his Isaac, his blind father's bedside for a blessing. Isaac mistakenly blesses Jacob in Esau's stead. But before that blessing is pronounced, Isaac hesitates, forcing the reader to ask what he might be thinking. Does Isaac know Jacob is disguised as Esau, or does he think he is in fact Esau? Traditional commentators are divided on the matter.

Zornberg suggests Isaac does know it is Jacob disguised as Esau and that he does not know what to do, how to proceed. A strong dramatic tension is built up in the text by having Isaac ask many questions, he urges Jacob to come nearer, asking directly who he is. Isaac asks to feel him, to kiss him, smell him.... And suddenly a lengthy lyrical blessing seems to pour out of the heart of Isaac to his son:

"The God of Heaven give thee of the dew of Heaven
And of the fat places of the earth,
And plenty of corn and wine..." (Genesis, Chapter 27, verse 28)

It seems that something irrational tears the blessing out of Isaac, it is an inspired, rather than a rational moment. After the real Esau's entry, anguished at the trick Jacob has played on him to trick him out of the blessing, Isaac must act on his "error." His response is extreme: ( Genesis, Chapter 27, verse 33) Vayeherad Yitzhak.. ... haradah gedolah ad-me'od" -the Hebrew translated literally would be something like : "Isaac trembled greatly to the utmost"- The Hertz Chumash renders it: "he trembled very exceedingly." )

This implies some kind of absolute, profound shuddering from his very depths that was quite unexpected- and the Midrash explicitly comments that Isaac shudders here more than when he lay on the altar! Having forgotten about the Akedah, we are suddenly reminded now of that moment on the altar, and Isaac's lack of reaction at the time.

That experience, too terrible to process at the time, could not be engaged with and emerges only later, as Isaac is caught at an ambivalent moment of asking himself ....whether he curses or blesses his child, whether he can "save" his son, as his own father Abraham had done at the altar.

An intriguing post -script: when Esau cries shortly after this with an equally terrible cry and is given a compensatory blessing, Isaac does not withdraw the original blessing from Jacob. He trusts that if the blessing to Jacob emerged with such wholeness then it must carry its own reality and validity, it must have been somehow meant to be....coming from what we would call--the unconscious. The Akedah episode is closed, healed, before he dies. But it's not a pretty deathbed scene, there is nothing peaceful about it.

This framework casts God as healer, as therapist in a drama of personal growth. As the "patients" stumble, trying to make sense of the strange events of their lives a wise therapist will be able to understand symptoms, seemingly unrelated events and piece together a coherent picture and heal them. The patient, living out the story is unable to see his own actions. Only God is able to understand the bigger picture. We read the story as His witnesses, grasping for insights to explain the inexplicable, to piece together the puzzle of the actions of our ancestors in order to gain understanding into our own confused lives. Each year we do this as we conduct the Rosh Hashana our heshbon-nefeshM, our souls-searching. To read Torah as the mysterious interpreter of our dreams and unanswered questions is a blessing in itself.


Shimon Buckman comments on Maureen Kendler's article


Dear Maureen,

I am writing this letter in response to the article that you wrote recently. I must stress that this letter is in no ways meant to be an attack on you as a person - I have always respected and admired you very much, especially for your constant thirst for Torah knowledge. Your pursuit for trying to make sense of the ways of Hashem was especially apparent from the end of your article, where you conceded that although our lives may be very much in the dark, Hashem is forever present behind the scenes orchestrating the events, so that ultimately everything will work out for the best. Indeed, in order to begin to understand His ways, we must first realise that we can never really grasp His true ways.

The one thing that disturbed me however, was the article's approach towards the Avos - our Avos. When we come before our Creator for our judgement on the impending Yom Ha-Din, and we cry out that He inscribe us for a good year in the merit of the Akeidah, are we really just tapping into an act that was done out of impulse as a delayed reaction to a traumatic experience? When we blow the ram's horn, what are we really commemorating? Why did the Torah, the medium of transferring the Word of God to mortal man, choose to relate to us such actions done by our forefathers?

We Jews are blessed with a very rich history of Torah scholars, each generation receiving its tradition from the previous one, dating all the way back to Moshe Rabbeinu. This tradition has had a very specific approach in its analysis of Biblical texts. Although there are differing views on almost every verse or halachah, as we know there are 70 faces to the Torah, there are nevertheless certain fundamental principles that are entirely undisputed.

One such example is that of the general perspective upon the Avos and Imahos as people. They were, if we could use such a term, "super humans", people of such stature that they far excelled upon anything we could ever imagine. Their extraordinary qualities range from the nature of their interactions and relationship with Hashem, to how they treated their respective relatives and how they dealt with others in business.

The commentators all raise the question as to why the lives of the Avos and Imahos are recorded in the Torah, when the Torah is effectively just a compilation of the 613 mitzvos which Hashem has commanded to observe. The unanimous answer given is that they are our paradigm example in how to live fulfilled Jewish lives.

Furthermore, there is a well-known principle called 'maaser avos siman l'banim', which means that everything our forefathers did in their lives was a blueprint for the spiritual make-up of their descendants. For example, it is only because Avrohom left his family and friends behind in Ur Kasdim to settle in the more spiritually inclined land of Israel, that so many Jewish people since have been able to make the same journey. The status of the typical 'Jewish mother' as the person who is constantly looking out for the welfare of her family and others, is an inheritance from the self-sacrifice displayed by Rivkah when she went far beyond what would be expected from any decent person, by caring and catering for the needs of Eliezer, his men and his animals. Indeed, the amount we can learn from the Avos about the qualities and potential that we ourselves possess is endless.

Perhaps the most critical inheritance we have from our forefathers is from the events of the Akeidah. This is recorded in the Torah as the most outstanding achievement in the life of Avrohom Avinu. What made this particular ordeal greater than the rest of his accomplishments? The answer is that it was his total and utter submissiveness to the will of Hashem. Not only was he asked to sacrifice his most beloved son, despite having been promised that it was to be Yitzchok who would be his sole heir, but he was also being asked to go against everything he had spent his entire life preaching to others. He loved his son Yitzchok with all his heart and all his soul, but he loved Hashem more. He overcame his entire sense of logic, in order to carry out the will of Hashem, because he lived with the reality that Hashem is the all-powerful creator, sustainer and ruler of the world, Who created the world and all its inhabitants for a purpose, and loves every last being far more than us mortal beings can ever love each other. His self-sacrifice was so great, that Hashem considered it as if he had actually offered up his son as a korban.

[Regarding why Yitchok kept quiet during this whole ordeal, the commentators explain that this was symbolic of his unique quality of 'gevurah', loosely translated as inner strength. Whereas Avrohom possessed the unique quality of reaching out to others, Yitzchok possessed the unique quality of remaining silent in the face of adversity, or any other situation that was not going the way he may have liked it to go. This trait is seen many times through the book of Beraishis, and is not based on any form of weakness, but rather on a tremendous sense of self-discipline and inner strength.]

The main theme of Rosh Hashanah, reiterated so many times in the davening, especially the amidah, is the concept of 'malchus'. Literally translated as 'kingship', it refers to Hashem as the creator, sustainer and ruler of the world. It is the acknowledgment that He created the world for a purpose and that we are that very purpose, with our mission being to build a relationship with Him through observing His commandments, a relationship that will be experienced most intensely and enjoyably in the World to Come. There are of course many different ways that each individual can approach his mission, but ultimately it all boils down to the same thing.

One day a year, we are all brought before Hashem in judgement, in order for Him to determine how well we are doing in fulfilling the purpose for our existence. On this day He assesses what tools we need to carry out our mission for the upcoming year. (Why each year is assessed on a separate basis is a whole discussion in itself.) These 'tools' include things such as family, health, money, and general quality of life. Our job on this day is to prove to Hashem that we are living for no other reason beyond submitting to His will as a means of building our precious relationship with Him. To put it in other words, our job on Rosh Hashanah is to live up to the example of Avrohom Avinu at the Akeidah.

It is for this reason that there is so much emphasis on the Akeidah through the various prayers on Rosh Hashanah, and why the one outstanding mitzvah of the day is to sound the horn of the ram that was ultimately offered up in place of Yitzchok, and thereby our one symbol to commemorate the event.

My we all dig deep into ourselves to live up to the ideals of Rosh Hashanah, and carry these ideals with us through to the next year. And in this merit may we be granted all the vital tools that we need to accomplish our mission for the forth-coming year.

May all of Klal Yisroel be written and sealed for a good year.

Shimon Buckman