Waiting for Rain: Reflections at the Turning of the Year

Chapter Two Tears from Heaven

Chapter Two
Tears from Heaven
Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.” And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” (Gen. 22:1–2) The story of the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac) is the most compelling scriptural reading of the Days of Awe. Its soul-stirring testimony to faith, devotion, courage, and love is a powerful message for Rosh Hashanah. On that Day of Judgment we contemplate the trials and tribulations of the past year and wonder what awaits us in the year to come. How will we withstand the challenges of our fate? How will we maintain our belief in God, distanced from Him as we are by ordeals and tragedy that we are unable to understand? The story of our father Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac has been viewed, throughout Jewish history, as the greatest demonstration of unwavering belief that the world has ever known. For many, the magnitude of Abraham’s trial overshadows their own challenges and doubts and offers a degree of perspective. 25 In his discussion of the purpose of the trial of the Akedah, the 13th century Provençal biblical commentator Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak) grapples with the philosophical conundrum of an omniscient God testing Abraham. Kimhi dismisses the standard explanation that the trial was intended to sanctify God’s holy name by making Abraham’s spiritual achievement manifest to others. He points out that there was no one present to witness the supreme devotion of the “knight of faith.” Furthermore, none would have believed Abraham had he later reported the event. Kimhi asserts instead that the biblical account is meant to serve as the paradigm of the love of God for all people, for all times. Today, the vast majority of the world accepts the Torah of Moses our teacher and its narratives, even if they disagree with us regarding the commandments and claim that they are allegorical . Since most people believe this great story, it is a supreme testimony to our father Abraham who loved God completely and extraordinarily; all should learn from him the way to love God. (Radak, Gen. 22:1) The Akedah is an ordeal where love is put on trial. It is the story of an elderly father commanded to take his only son and offer him as a sacrifice. All of Abraham’s dreams had focused on his beloved Isaac. Everything he had done in his life had been a spiritual investment, which he intended to hand over to his heir. Through Isaac, his legacy would live on. Given his unabating love and trust in the God he had made his own, one can only begin to imagine the pain and despair that Abraham must have experienced upon being told by the Almighty that his hopes were to be dashed upon the stones of Mount Moriah. However, the Akedah is not the first trial Abraham confronted. Abraham’s life was full of challenges. The Rabbis understood that they were not mere happenstance, but rather a battery of tests administered by God to forge Abraham’s spiritual character and justify God’s selection of Abraham as a theological innovator and leader. 26
Waiting for Rain Abraham our father, may he rest in peace, was put to ten trials and withstood them all, demonstrating how dearly beloved Abraham was [by God]. (M. Avot 5:3) What were these 10 trials? The Mishnah does not list them, leaving room for later interpreters to speculate about their identity. One opinion seizes upon a tradition, not recorded in the Bible, which describes Abraham’s rejection of paganism preceding his election by God as trial number one. In that midrashic tradition, Abraham, as a young salesman in his father’s idol shop, actively demonstrated the futility of idolatry and was persecuted for his faith by King Nimrod. Abraham was cast into a fiery furnace and miraculously saved. This account serves to explain God’s choice of Abraham as His chosen one, based upon a decision that he himself had made. By proving his spiritual mettle, he demonstrated that it was appropriate that he be appointed the herald of monotheism. Furthermore, the...