The Gods Are Broken!: The Hidden Legacy of Abraham

4 Three Paths to the Sacred

49 4 | Three Paths to the Sacred The story of the breaking of the idols is not just a story about Abraham ’s rebellion against the religious mores of his time. It is something larger and deeper than that. The midrash is actually a religious typology illuminating three paths to the sacred—ways of dealing with religion that are alive and well in our world today. In fact, it might well be that in order to understand contemporary religion you need only understand the three main characters in the midrash: Nimrod, Haran, and Abraham. Nimrod, the Religious Absolutist Nimrod embodies two different religious worldviews. On the one hand, he is a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. Certainly that is the way he appears in Jewish folklore. In fact, there are variants on the idol-shattering legend in which Nimrod’s murderous designs on Abraham actually predate the boy’s birth. Louis Ginzberg, the eminent rabbinic scholar, cites this tradition : Terah . had been a high official in the court of Nimrod, and he was held in great consideration by the king. A son was born unto him whom he called Abram [sic] . . . In the night of Abraham’s birth, the astrologers and the wise men of Nimrod came to the house of Terah . , and ate and drank, and rejoiced with him that night. When they left the house, they lifted up their eyes toward heaven to look at the stars, and they saw, and behold, one great star came from the east and ran athwart the heavens and swallowed up the 50 THREE PATHS TO THE SACRED four stars at the four corners . . . They said to one another: This only betokens that the child that hath been born to Terah . this night will grow up and be fruitful, and he will multiply and possess all the earth, he and his children forever, and he and his seed will slay great kings and inherit their lands. The king sent for Terah . , and when he came, he spoke to him: “It hath been told me that a son was born to thee yesternight, and a wondrous sign was observed in the heavens at his birth. Now give me the boy, that we may slay him before evil comes upon us from him, and I will give thee thy house full of silver and gold in exchange for him . . . But Terah . took his son Abraham, together with the child’s mother and nurse, and concealed them in a cave, and thither he carried provisions to them once a month.1 This tradition reemerges in a Sephardic Jewish song that is sung in Ladino: “Avraham Avinu (Cuandro el Rey Nimrod)”: When King Nimrod went out into the fields He looked at the heavens and at all the stars He saw a holy light above the Jewish quarter A sign that Abraham our father was about to be born Abraham our father, beloved father Blessed father, light of Israel Then he commanded the midwives to kill every pregnant woman if she didn’t give birth at once. for Abraham our father was going to be born. Terah . ’s wife became pregnant And day after day he asked her: Why do you look so distraught? She already knew the good that she had.2 Anyone hearing this song would suspect that the composer was a little confused.3 Nimrod looked out and saw the stars, and he knew that Abraham was going to be born? Doesn’t that sound a little bit THREE PATHS TO THE SACRED 51 like one of the versions of the birth of Jesus, in which Herod sees the star of Bethlehem and calls upon the magi to interpret it? (Matthew 2:7). Perhaps the composer of this song conflated the story of Abraham with that of the threatened death of the Hebrew children in Egypt, and the great moral resistance of the midwives (Exodus 1:15–21). As a matter of fact, yes, those stories have been superimposed upon each other.4 But here’s the real message of the song: it doesn’t matter who the wicked king is. Nimrod, Pharaoh, Herod—in the Jewish mind they are all the same. If you’ve seen one tyrant, you’ve (literally) seen them all: Nimrod, Pharaoh, Haman, Herod, Titus, Torquemada , Hitler, Stalin. Nimrod has successfully, and violently, merged the state with the gods. In this sense he is a classic theocrat...