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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayera Genesis 18:1-22:24
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel - The fundamental issue plaguing the State of Israel today is
how to respond to the Palestinians. Is our position to be “not one inch,”
that the borders of Israel are clearly delineated in the Bible and we are
forbidden to relinquish any portion of our Divine patrimony to any other
nation, or are we rather duty-bound to seek peace even if it means giving up
territory and perhaps in the lack of a genuine peace partner even to
unilaterally define our most easily defensible and strategically necessary
borders and evacuate the rest of the land to whomever will take it?
Fascinatingly enough, both of these positions can be found within our
Biblical commentaries – specifically in the manner in which they
respectively interpret the very difficult commandment, which the Almighty
gives to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a whole burnt offering!
This week’s reading of Vayera concludes with one of the most agonizing
incidents of the entire Bible: “And it happened after these things, and
the Lord tested (or proved, or held aloft as a banner) Abraham…. ‘Take
now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and get yourself going to
the Land of Moriah, and lift him up there as a whole burnt offering upon one
of the mountains which I shall say to you….’” (Genesis 22:1,2).
This Biblical narrative seems to be linking this most difficult and
problematical Divine order to a prior incident, “And it happened after
these things….” What things, and how do these things – whatever they
may – affect G-d’s command to a father to sacrifice his son?
The Rashbam (Rabbenu Shmuel ben Meir, grand-son of the famed Rashi, late
eleventh and early twelfth century France), after proving that it is indeed
the Biblical style to introduce cause and effect, sin and punishment
connections between incidents which follow upon each other, suggest that “here
too, after the theory that Abraham cut a covenant with Avimelekh and his
children and grand-children (allowing them to continue living in Gerar –
Gaza), the Holy one Blessed be He became angry over this; after all, this
‘land of the Philistines’ is part of the boundaries of Israel. (Abraham
is giving up the heritage which G-d had given to Abraham’s descendants),
so therefore G-d reproved Abraham, He vexed and pained him…It is as though
He said, ‘You are so proud of the son that I gave you, that you cut a
covenant between you and their (Avimelekh’s) descendants! Now go and bring
him (your son) up as a whole burnt offering, and see what benefit this
covenant (with Avimelekh) will bring to you?…” (Rashbam ad loc).
In effect, the Rashbam is castigating Abraham for signing away the patrimony
– a portion of the Land of Israel – which G-d has given to his
descendants. Abraham has no right to cede in treaty property which doesn’t
belong to him alone but rather to succeeding generations. This is what
Yitzhak Tabenkin explained to David Ben Gurion, when he advised him to
refuse one of the early partition plans, which would have granted us an
extremely paltry State of Israel. “I took counsel with two individuals,
and they convinced me that you must reject the offer. I asked my
grand-father and I asked my grand-son; my grand-father is dead for ten
years, and my grand-son has not yet been born…”
At the same time, however, there is another commentary reported in the name
of the Midrash Enelow: “ ‘And it happened after these things’ –
after Abraham sent away Hagar and Yishmael just one chapter before. Then, as
now, ‘Abraham rose up early in the morning’ after having heard the
command of Sarah his wife confirmed by G-d, to banish Hagar, the hand-maiden
and his first-born son Yishmael; Abraham sends them with bread and a jug of
water – but without gold and silver, and even without sufficient
provisions for a desert journey. ‘And he (Abraham) sent her (Hagar) away,
and she went and she wandered in the desert’ – just as Abraham will then
be forced to go and wander among the mountains with his son Isaac. ‘And
she went and she sat opposite, the distance of the fling of arrow, saying I
do not wish to see the death of the child’; Abraham caused Hagar to see
her son die, and he will be forced to see – and even effectuate – Isaac’s
death. ‘And an angel of G-d called out to Hagar from the heavens’
informing her that Yishmael shall live and become a great nation, just as an
angel of G-d will stop Abraham’s hand, and promise that a great and
numerous nation will emerge from Isaac…”
Was the Akedah a punishment for Abraham’s insensitivity towards Yishmael?
Yes, he was to banish the handmaid and her son, but he was not to execute
them by sending them out to an alien, torrid desert as penniless paupers and
with a dearth of provisions. No less an authority (and passionate lover of
Israel) than the Ramban takes Abraham to task earlier when Sarah afflicted
Hagar (for treating her mistress “lightly”) and caused her to flee: “our
matriarch sinned by this affliction, and so did Abraham by allowing her to
act is such a manner. And so G-d heard her pain and gave her a son who would
become a wild ass of a man, and will afflict the seed of Abraham and Sarah
with all types of affliction” (Ramban, on Genesis 16:6).
It is quite possible that the Bible does believe that eventually we – the
children of Isaac and the children of Yishmael – shall be destined to
share this land of the Middle East, the vertex of the world civilizations.
Perhaps, G-d only wished that the two boys not grow up together – because
of the bad influence Yishmael can have upon the still immature and yet –
untrained and callow Isaac; perhaps the problem lay with Hagar, who was
unwilling to compromise, who would not allow a shared inheritance, who would
not stand for “the son of this hand-maid inheriting together with Isaac”
(Gen 21:10). After all, it is the angel of heaven who prophesies that ‘he
(Yishmael) shall dwell in the face of all of his brothers” (Gen 16:12),
and it is the Bible that informs us that Yishmael eventually repents (Gen
25:9, Rashi ad loc).
If the eternal words of the Bible are great enough and inclusive enough to
allow for diverse and conflicting explanations, ought we not be able to
likewise allow for and respect diverse and conflicting viewpoints?!
Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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