The characters in our Torah and the stories of their lives do not often unfold as exemplary. On the contrary, we often find the tales of our biblical ancestors to be cautionary ones. This week’s Torah portion is a prime example of one such family dynamic. Parshat Vayera famously contains within it the episode known as akedat Yitzhak – the Binding of Isaac. In it, Abraham is told, in no uncertain terms, that his God wants him to sacrifice his son, “[his] favored one, Isaac, whom [he] love[s].” (Genesis 22:2) We have long wrestled with this text: what kind of God asks this impossible thing? What kind of human acquiesces to such a request? Where was Sarah in all of this?
This year, I am left with more questions than answers as to what we are meant to do with this text. In a world in which children are forcibly separated from their parents at our borders, a world in which those same parents know the risk they run in bringing their families here, but choose to do so none the less… I simply do not know what to think about a story that lauds the faith of a parent at the potential cost of the life of their child.
Our text can handle the push back. Our tradition made richer by the questions we ask and the ways in which we turn the text. The key is that we must ask the questions, engage with the text, wrestle with the ideas.
– Rabbi Callie Schulman
