Rosh HaShana Cycle Two Genesis 22

Rosh HaShana
Genesis 22

Imagine. We are a thousand years in the future. We decide to blink our eyes and transform to revisit the United States 2009. No metal clunkers necessary. No time machines. Our body is our vehicle. Our God, our engine. We can revisit on our own.

What do we find? We see people using cars trucks airplanes. How very odd, we think. They build things outside of themselves to travel? Don’t they see we can go where we want and when because the secret of God is within our very beings?

We want to understand so we look at the prophets of the time, singer song writers like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. We look at Torah, check out Abraham and Isaac. At some point, we figure, we certainly start to internalize the sacred . We want to find this moment, put it on the map. You can say it’s like finding a reflection of Highway 61. It’s that important. It’s the hineni moment, that place of epiphany, of why and how. It also shows us how high the climb (and how far a bottle might drop) in case we should ever forget.

The big question is…how does Abraham, given absolutely no precedent, begin to internalize God? Does it hurt? Does it hurt him to see what his people are like? Does this new choice frighten anyone? Once the choice happens are we so caught up in it for forty days and forty nights that there’s a lag time? Do we keep identifying back to pre-covenant, getting stuck in the darkest interpretation of our past? How long, after all, once the fifth daughter speaks to the first father do we find the second mother and the seventh son and say to ourselves….wow, this place is beyond dark and light. This place can be turned to face us. We don’t need those sacrifices anymore.

So, let’s begin our search for that moment of transformation. No doubt, we realize, it happens during the Akeda, or the binding of Isaac. On one level it’s a brutal scene. That’s the level of sacrifice. Mind you, the word sacrifice isn’t used here in Torah. That’s because sacrifice, itself, infers that something is being taken away. And that’s not the intention. God isn’t looking to deprive Abraham or any of us. After all, when we pray are we depriving ourselves? Hopefully not. Instead, in Genesis, on a higher level (and yes we are climbing) God is simply looking to spark the transformation of the sacred offering from outside to inside. Repeat. God is simply trying to bring the outside in. And the best way to do that is through many steps and here are two. First, on the most expansive level… there needs to be a validation that all is one, all is God, so that the idea of offering is parallel to the idea of not with-holding...This we see in the words in 22-19 v’lo chasachta…and you did not with-hold. The next step is on the most intimate level. The chosen being not to be with-held has to be closest to the heart.

This being, for Abraham, is Isaac. Not with-holding his son, his only son, the one he loves is the same as not with-holding the final divine spark within the tiniest crevices of his eyes, his hands, his mouth, his soul. It’s like not with-holding the final whimper or cry of love or pain, the breath the moment it fills our lungs, the sip of water in amazing thirst. And when it is offered (whether God lets you off the hook or not) when it is not with-held, when all of your being is in a place of submission and release…that’s when you have the power to internalize the offering. That’s when you are no longer witnessing a sacrifice but are experiencing one of the most luminous transformations of Torah.

This isn’t news. In fact, both Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen sing of the transformation (as yetzer harah and yotzer or) and of the darkness of the pre-covenant age.

Listen to these words….Oh God said to Abraham “Kill me a son”. Abe says “No you must be putting me on.” God say “No.” Abe say “What?” God say “You can do what you want but the next time you see me comin’ you better run.” Well Abe says “Where do you want this killin done?” God says “out on Highway 61.”

And these…You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god. You who stand above them now your hatchets blunt and bloody, you were not there before when I lay upon a mountain and my father’s hand was trembling with the beauty of the word.

Imagine. We are not living in the year 3009. We are here now. We are no longer embracing the idea of sacrifice and therefore no longer sacrificing each other or ourselves. Instead, we are moving forward with the transformational energy of Abraham and Isaac, being the offer-er and the offering, revisiting the Akeda with the ability to see beyond the solid and painful false-altars that separate us from God. We are no longer looking for a ram in the thicket…in other words… the lag time is over and we no longer need even that replacement to satisfy some piece of our hearts. We also don’t need to be shocked by it. It’s just there. After thousands of years we are beyond the need to interpret the Akeda as blood struggle. We are fully in the place of prayer. We are prayer.

So, may we choose not to withhold ourselves from God. May we choose not to with-hold compassion, mercy, kindness, unity and peace. May we internalize a bright and beautiful Highway 61 as the only way to get beyond an age of selfishness and killing. May this year be the year we offer our ultimate divine spark, the one that feels in the moment as if the loss would kill us. And let us see that we will live. That together and as one we will live with even more life beauty and love than ever before.