The challenge of akeidat Yitzchak seems in many ways unrelatable. None of us can imagine G-d requesting something which seems violent, incomprehensible, and immoral. Yet as we read today, Avraham hears G-d’s command, asks no questions, and wakes up the next morning with enthusiasm to perform the akeida.
While the narrative of the akeida is well known, the Midrash adds a dimension to the story, relating the events that transpired on Avraham’s way to the akeida.
The Midrash tells us that the infamous angel of G-d, the Satan, appears to Avraham on his journey. He appears as a man questioning Avraham, asking how G-d could possible ask him to offer a human sacrifice. Avraham, like the rest of us, does not have a good answer for the man, but nonetheless, he is not swayed. Avraham continues his way to the akeida.
Later, the Midrash continues, the Satan appeared again. This time in the form of a river in the path of Avraham and Yitzchak. Again, Avraham perseveres: Avraham and Yitzchak wade into the water until they were neck-deep, at which point G-d intervenes and the river disappears. The Satan realizes that he cannot sway Avraham, and he too vanishes.
This beautiful Midrash depicts Avraham’s resolve, but when returning to the actual text, a problem arises.
Avraham arrives on the mountain. He lays the wood, he binds Yitzchak, and lifts his knife. At the final moment, an angel calls “Avraham, Avraham, do not cast your hand upon the boy.”
Considering the Midrash, the Satan has been trying the entire journey every trick in the book to thwart Avraham. Avraham went above and beyond overcoming the Satan, holding fast to G-d’s command. Yet at the final moment, when an angel simply tells Avraham “stop”, he obeys with no questions asked.
What changed? After spending the entire three-day journey refusing to allow an angel to prevent him from fulfilling G-d’s command, Avraham immediately complies with a second angel who also seems to ask Avraham not to fulfill G-d’s command!
In his sefer Imrei Daat, Rav Meir Shapiro, the famous founder of the daf yomi program provides an insightful answer. Why did Avharam listen to the angel after an entire day of ignoring another angel’s attempt?
Rav Shapiro explains that the man and the river were telling Avraham to do something simple:
Go home. Retreat. Turn back.
Avraham recognized this as a shallow ploy of the yetzer hara. However, when the angel ultimately tells him al tashlech yadcha al hanaar, the pasuk does not say that Avraham immediately listened.
וַיִּשָּׂ֨א אַבְרָהָ֜ם אֶת־עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ וְהִנֵּה־אַ֔יִל אַחַ֕ר נֶאֱחַ֥ז בַּסְּבַ֖ךְ בְּקַרְנָ֑יו וַיֵּ֤לֶךְ אַבְרָהָם֙ וַיִּקַּ֣ח אֶת־הָאַ֔יִל וַיַּעֲלֵ֥הוּ לְעֹלָ֖ה תַּ֥חַת בְּנֽוֹ׃
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.
In the moment before he complies with the angel, he looks up and sees a ram stuck in the thicket. Rav Shapiro explains that when Avraham sees the ram caught in the thicket, he realizes that he will have to struggle to remove the ram. Avraham understood that this struggle represented the will of the Almighty and not of the Satan.
Falsehood is often simplistic. Truth has struggles. Life is full of complexity, and struggles are a sign that one is on the path of truth. At times we feel forced to climb mountains to do the right thing, we need to cross rivers, and we must respectfully ignore those around us who attempt to hold us back. Avraham understood that if this was the act of the Satan, if the Satan placed the ram there, it would not be stuck in the bush. It would be easily removable, as the yetzer hara’s weapon of choice is to entice us with easiness.
Perhaps this is why the shofar serves as a symbol of the akeida. One of the obvious reasons we read akeidat Yitzchak this morning is because of the symbolism of the shofar, the ram’s horn stuck in the thicket at the end of the akeidah, and the shofar is referenced throughout today’s liturgy as a symbol of Avraham’s success. If I were designing a logo for akeidat Yitzchak and choosing an item to symbolize Avraham’s triumph, I would have chosen a different symbol. I would choose an item that appear in the actual akeidat Yitzchak, the binding of Yitzchak: perhaps the ropes of the akeida, the knife, the wood, or the mountain. But the ram’s horn? The shofar? It first appears only after Avraham passes the test! Why is it chosen as the symbol of the akeida? We are not asked to make the incredibly difficult, philosophically challenging sacrifice that we read today. The knife, the wood, the ropes, and the mountain represent unrelatable elements of the akeida. We take away from the akeida the image of a shofar caught in the thicket to remind us that true avodat Hashem comes with a struggle.
The day itself of Rosh Hashana is full complexity and struggle. The themes of the day appear contradictory: our lives are on the line, but we dress up and celebrate. We are full of fear, yet full of confidence. We relate to G-d as a frightening king, and as a loving father. We have a complex davening on Rosh Hashana, lengthy, detailed, articulate oscillating between these multifaceted themes.
Some of us come with a list of requests for the coming year, but unquestionably, due to the complexity of our lives and of human existence, our lists are incomplete. Health, success, parnasa, comfort, peace, family, community: these broad categories can be divided into hundreds if not thousands of subsections. For example, we pray for our health and the health of our loved ones, but health includes mental health, physical health, hundreds of organs, millions of cells.
With a long, complex service, and our human limits, we struggle with the complexity of the day. The shofar represents the ram in the thicket; the authenticity of complexity, of struggle. This is the way that true service of G-d is supposed to be.
As the day continues, we pick up that symbol of complexity, and we begin to cut through the thicket. As we blow the shofar, we realize that behind this symbol of complexity lies the most basic of musical instruments, producing the most simple of sounds.
Rabbi Soleveitchik explains that the blowing of the shofar represents a wordless prayer. The Artscroll machzor may suggest ten intentions of the shofar blowing, but the beauty of this wordless prayer, of the simple sound of the shofar, is that it is not limited to a specific meaning. The complexity and difficulty of the day, of our lives, of serving G-d, is captured by the horn of that struggling ram. As we listen to the shofar we untangle ourselves from the complexity. We hear that simple sound, and we feel ourselves and our souls. The sound of the shofar reminds us that behind the thicket of each of our lives is an innate desire to simply connect to the Almighty. May the simple sound of the shofar empower each of us to connect and relate to this desire, and simply embrace the complexity of our lives.
No responses yet