“To Return, To Worship: The Human, the Holy and Yom Kippur”
October 9, 2016
The Rev. Heather Janules
We gathered on a hot August afternoon: an Evangelical Christian, two Congregationalists, a
Methodist, a Rabbi and me, the lone Unitarian Universalist. It was the inaugural meeting of the
Winchester Interfaith Council this program year and we were trying a new practice together. As
always, we enjoyed good conversation, decadent refreshments and shared sympathy,
suggestions and encouragement with one another. But beginning with this meeting, we studied
scripture together, the host religious leader guiding us through their chosen text.
Rabbi Cari Bricklin-Small of Shir Tikvah was gracious enough to be the first host of the Council
this year. The text she brought before us was this morning’s reading, Genesis chapter 22: verses
1-24, known as the Akedah or “the Binding of Isaac.”
This text is traditionally read during Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year and
also the beginning of ten Days of Awe, when the faithful search their souls and atone for their
sins, in hopes that G-d will inscribe them in the Book of Life at Yom Kippur. This text testifies to
Abraham’s ultimate faith in G-d. At Rosh Hashanah, it also reminds all who listen that, like Isaac,
we, too, may be spared and live again. We read this text this morning as we gather in the midst
of these Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
As someone who did not grow up in a faith community, with passing grades in seminary bible
classes that, while valuable, can never rival the years of engaged study by members of
synagogues and churches, it was hard for me to hear this passage as a relative newcomer to
biblical reflection. I struggled with this account of a father consenting to murder his child to
please G-d. What kind of father would agree to this act, for any reason? What kind of G-d would
ask for this sacrifice or even test a parent with this disturbing command?
Rabbi Cari shared that there is a modern poem that re-tells this story from many perspectives,
from the eyes of Abraham, from the eyes of Isaac, of the donkey, of the servants, the knife.
Sitting around that meeting room table, we heard this story through our many perspectives, as
people of different faiths, some as parents, all as adults who were once children, all as people
who live in a world where parents do harm their children, often for far less than divine favor.
For me, two lines in the scripture offer the most meaning. Abraham says to the servants “You
stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to
you.” This statement embodies the mystery of the story. Abraham knows he has been asked to
sacrifice his son and yet he affirms that “we will return.” Does he say this to deceive his son
who is in earshot or does he truly believe that Isaac will survive the trip up and down the
mountain? Knowing Abraham is a human being, capable of the best and the worst acts against
others, either interpretation is a possibility.
The other line that moves me is when Isaac asks the question, “Where is the sheep for the
burnt offering?” Perhaps this is the first moment in Isaac’s life when he questions faith in his
father, when he becomes suspicious of the human community, entrusted with his survival and
care. Perhaps Isaac could not imagine what the evidence was telling him but the lack of a
traditional sacrifice forced him to ask the question. Perhaps in hearing this question, we are
hearing the death of Isaac’s innocence.
The story of the binding of Isaac and the traditions of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur move us
to ask questions, questions about the connection between how we humans treat one another
and our connection to G-d, to the sacred, to all that is greater than ourselves. For as another
wise teacher of Jewish tradition, Martin Newhouse, once explained, the Days of Awe are not
just seeking forgiveness from one another but ultimately about seeking forgiveness from G-d
for how we treat one another.
G-d’s forgiveness is contingent on us doing a courageous thing – admitting our wrongdoing and
seeking reconciliation. People must offer teshuva, or repentance, and atonement with one
another to receive ultimate atonement. In Rabbi Cari’s words, “Only once humanity has been
healed does G-d’s role begin.”
The experience of atonement is an experience of returning – to our best selves, to right
relationship – with those we have harmed. And through seeking forgiveness, we move towards
atonement, or “at-one-ment” with the holy. Abraham says to his servants, “we will worship and
we will return.” At Yom Kippur, we are asked to return and through confession and
reconciliation, we worship.
As we neared the High Holy Days this year, I returned to a contemporary testament that also
explores the human spirit and the holy, Night by Elie Wiesel, his account of surviving the
Holocaust. With Wiesel’s death this past July, his life of humanitarian advocacy ends and his
enduring legacy begins.
Last week, I spoke of a concentration camp inmate who fasted on Yom Kippur in defiance of her
Nazi captors. But before re-reading Night, the primary detail I remembered from my long-ago
high school English class was, unlike Abraham’s steadfast devotion, the loss of Wiesel’s faith, his
refusal to fast on Yom Kippur in defiance of a G-d who seemingly abandoned him, his family and
his people.
By returning to Wiesel’s words, I realized that his profound alienation from G-d was also a loss
of faith in humanity, perhaps like how I imagine Isaac might feel, wondering about the absence
of the sheep with every step up the mountain. Reflecting this sentiment, the unabridged,
Yiddish version of Wiesel’s memoir starts with the declaration that
In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—
which is dangerous.
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has
been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekinah’s flame; that every one of us
carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God’s image.
That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals.1
Throughout his life, Wiesel named his obligation to offer survivor testimony like Night lest the
world forget and not learn from humanitarian disasters.2 Yet, Night is also a spiritual odyssey,
illustrating Wiesel’s attempts to understand G-d amid the absence of hope and mercy in the
unimaginable death camps.
Even in Auschwitz, the rich tradition of Jewish spiritual reflection continued. Wiesel recalls
Evenings, as we lay on our cots, we sometimes tried to sing a few Hasidic melodies.
Akiba Drumer would break our hearts with his deep, grave voice. Some of the men
spoke of G-d, his mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people and the redemption to
come.
As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job; I was not denying his existence but
I doubted his absolute justice.
Akiba Drumer said, “G-d is testing us. He wants to see if we are capable of overcoming
our base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair…”3
And perhaps this understanding speaks to the heart of the spiritual challenge of Wiesel’s
grueling survival. In an unbelievable environment where one’s humanity is denied at every turn,
do we succumb to the evil that surrounds us, conspiring with its power, or do we retain our
humanity by seeing and serving the humanity of others? It is not just the cruelty of the captors
but the erosion of the inmates’ conscience and commitment to one another that calls into
question whether “every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of G-d’s
image.” As I asked of Abraham, what kind of human being creates an Auschwitz? What is the
“Satan within ourselves?” And as I asked of the divine, what kind of G-d allows such brutality to
happen?
Throughout Night, there are many moments when Wiesel and his father protect each other,
comfort each other, encourage each other to continue, the bond between father and son
sustaining them forward. Yet, in time, Wiesel’s father becomes deathly ill and, as a weak
member of the community, a target of violence by other inmates, who beat him and steal his
food. Wiesel is torn between reserving his meager energy for his own survival and caring for
and protecting his father. He had seen with horror how other members of the camp related to
1
https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/1912/page_number/2/night
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-acceptance_en.html
3
Night, Wiesel, Elie. Audible.com, Chapter 2: 17:37-18:19
22
one another devolved into abandonment and animal brutality against each other in pursuit of a
few scraps of bread or another chance at life.
An inmate guard, seeing Wiesel’s attempts to keep his father alive, offers him some advice. He
says to young Eliezer, “In this place, it’s every man for himself, and you cannot think of others.
Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us
lives and dies alone.”4
Somehow, while his father did not, Wiesel did survive, as did his faith in humanity, despite how
his trust had been annihilated. Beyond Night, as Wiesel advocated for the safety and dignity of
communities around the world facing genocide and oppression, his faith in G-d also returned,
as he affirmed in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Yes, I have faith. Faith in G-d and even in
His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to
indifference: the most insidious danger of all.”5
This call to engage with humanity’s dignity, with creation, echoes other words Wiesel heard
from an inmate guard when he was first interned at Auschwitz. The quotation is abridged as it
speaks not only to Wiesel’s experience in the moment but, I believe, to the human condition
Elie Wiesel went on to serve so admirably:
Don't lose hope…muster your strength and keep your faith…Have faith in life, a
thousand times faith. By driving out despair, you will move away from death. Hell does
not last forever... And now, here is a prayer, or rather a piece of advice: let there
be camaraderie among you. We are all [siblings] and share the same fate…Help each
other. That is the only way to survive.6
“Then an angel of the LORD called to him from heaven: ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ And he
answered, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to
him. For now I know that you fear G-d, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one,
from Me.’ When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns.
So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.”
And Isaac survived.
As we religious leaders, an Evangelical, two Congregationalists, a Methodist, a Rabbi and me,
continued to engage and struggle with the story of the binding – and the saving – of Isaac,
Rabbi Cari shared an insightful Rabbinical interpretation.
Why is it that the command to sacrifice Isaac comes from G-d but the command to save his life
comes from a messenger, the Angel? Some conclude that it is only when G-d commands that
we can take a human life but we should follow any command to save one. And as prophecy
4
Wiesel, Elie. Audible.com, Chapter 4: 12:54-13:09
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-acceptance_en.html
6
Wiesel, Elie. Audible.com, Chapter 2: 9:50-10:28
5
ended with the destruction of the temple, only the foolish claim to hear such directions from Gd. In a complex way, the Binding of Isaac is a story about protecting life and not threatening it.
Through the Angel, G-d says to Abraham, “I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your
descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your
descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless
themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.”
The G-d I believe in bestows his blessing on Abraham because Abraham obeyed G-d’s command
to spare his son, not because he obeyed G-d’s command to sacrifice him. The human beings I
believe in are those who affirm that “we are all [siblings] and share the same fate” that we are
to “help each other. That is the only way to survive.”
As Yom Kippur reminds us, there is an intimate connection between this G-d and this human
world. Yom Kippur reminds us that we do not live as each one for one’s self but our very
spiritual integrity depends on how we treat one another, from the smallest of slights to the
greatest cruelties within families and within the human family as a whole.
And, as Elie Wiesel’s Night reminds us, faith in “a sacred spark from the Shekinah’s flame” in
each human heart may be misplaced. But this faith is worth our trust if we each feed and
nurture this holy fire within us. And, even though we live long after and far away from the
degradation of Auschwitz, long after and far away from the mountain Abraham and Isaac
climbed, there comes a time to tend this flame, to consider how we have harmed others, all the
degrees of the “Satan within ourselves,” to seek atonement, to seek at-one-ment with creation
and, thus, with G-d.
This season is such a time. May we seek forgiveness and reconciliation with open and humble
hearts. And may all be so inscribed in the Book of Life.